23.
“The airline industry is a black box to most people, including most of the gate and ramp personnel that service your flight. There are so many complex and interconnected facets of the industry that dictate the experience you have as a traveler, and 95% of them are well beyond the influence of anybody at the airport. Major delays and cancellations are entirely out of the control of the airline representatives you encounter at the airport on your journey; airport personnel are just the weary middlemen who are doing their level best to do right by you given a whole host of uncontrollable factors.”
“The flight delays that are typically caused by airport personnel are usually no more than 5 to10 minutes and might be the result of a breakdown in the baggage delivery timeline from the bag room, boarding that started a few minutes late, an excessively high volume of checked bags that take longer to load, or perhaps someone forgot to service the lavatory in a timely manner.
In all cases, delay contributions by airport personnel are minimal. Major delays and cancellations are usually the results of aircraft maintenance, weather (convective activity or frozen precipitation: this can be anywhere in the system; the weather doesn’t have to be at your airport to cause a major delay), Air Traffic Control delays (usually the result of weather anyway), and, in this post-COVID employment economy, flight crew availability.
There is absolutely nothing the airport personnel can do about these situations other than deliver the message and wait for the proverbial shots to start flying. The people who do make these decisions are tucked away, safe and sound, in an airline operations control center, usually hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the airport you’re at. Please be kind, please be patient, please understand we are humans doing everything within our control (which isn’t much) to assist you on your journey.”
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/audreyworboys/anonymous-employee-secrets