Just back from a couple of days in Birmingham. The return flight was delayed by two hours, then three, then four. Every now and then we were told this was due to ‘technical reasons’, which is tantamount to saying ‘this is due to reasons’.
Eventually, when we’d got on the plane, the pilot said ‘I don’t know what you’ve been told about the reason for the delay, but during the safety inspection, we found some [parts of the engine] had hairline chips and cracks, and that’s one adrenalin rush I can do without!’. It didn’t feel so bad after that.