Flight Delay

3 hours. That is the current flight delay that I find myself experiencing. The reaction of other passengers is typically entertaining, so instead of going to the Admiral's Club, I'm watching and listening. The reason for the delay is mechanical difficulties to the extent that they need to find a new plane. Given this reason, I'm okay with waiting...I'd much rather have a air-worthy plane than not. However, my fellow passengers disagree. So far, I've heard the following comments:

"The airlines need to learn how to run their business - clearly a broken plane is a sign that they don't know what they're doing. They should be be inspecting planes more closely." (Ummm...the fact that they found the problems with the plane indicates to me that they are doing their job)

"I'm hosed."

"I need to go to San Francisco. NOW. This is unacceptable - just put me on the plane that is at the gate so I can go." (The plane at the gate is the one that is seriously broken)

"Why does it have to be the plane to San Francisco? Can't you take the plane that was supposed to go to Dallas at the same time and make it go to San Francisco instead?"

"This ONLY happens on American Airlines. The other airlines never have this problem." (Right. Other airlines are perfect; case in point - sleeping/internet-surfing pilots at NWA)

And it's only been 35 minutes since the delay was announced...it's bound to get better from here. In response to these comments, I offer the following: why don't we go ahead and get on the plane that has been deemed to be unsafe to fly so that we can have it spontaneously combust, lose navigation, or have an engine fail at 35,000 feet just so we can see if the emergency exit slides really double as parachutes. Good idea. You all might be geniuses.