stefan

Well I'm warming to my theme this weekend of " you get what you pay for". As Iceni said Ryanair and Easyjet provide "Adequate service most of the time"........agreed. I'm not excusing poor customer service from any airline, but if you want fighting chance of not having your weekend ruined, if you want standby crews and aircraft, if you want top notch customer service, if you want the airline to provide accommodation in the event of an overnight delay, etc, etc, then the travelling public have got to be prepared to pay more for their into/out of the UK flights than they are at the moment. The European LoCos aren't as stretched as the regional carriers on the other side of the pond but if you want to see where European shorthaul flying might be going try typing "Colgan Air 3407 NTSB Report" into a search engine.......( can't get the link to post) In short if you want to pay bus fares for air travel expect bus company standards of Customer Service and reliability...... It's your choice.

Iceni These mythical beings ( standby crew) most definitely do exist, albeit in small numbers, at some airlines. However I don't know if Easyjet have any in captivity!!

vida "Why didn't they get another crew in, while they were in the 2 hour delay..they would have know then, they were getting close. I thought they have stand by crews". Nope, they don't have to have standby crews....and even if they had they might have been used earlier in the day due to the bad weather over Europe causing disruption earlier in the day. In the "old" days of full service airlines, (and higher ticket prices) most airlines would have a decent level of standby crew coverage. Nowadays with tighter margins it simply isn't economic to employ significant numbers of people to sit around on stand-by just in case they are needed. I'm sorry for your friends' plight but it's no good grumbling at the airlines, the travelling public have caused this by clamouring for ever cheaper flights. The choice is simple: either everybody pays a sensible amount for their tickets and enjoys a commensurate level of customer service, or they pay less, and watch the levels of service deteriorate....and that indeed is what is happening at all the airlines, both at the LoCos and at the former Full Service airlines who are trying to compete.