To think an airline should give clear information about delayed flight?

[queenceleste]

We are expecting family on a flight from Edinburgh which was due to arrive at Stansted at 7.40 and there is still no information anywhere online about departure.
It’s Ryanair who I guess hate the customer. But can’t they out something up? They put 1 am at one point but nothing online.
why is the customer service so completely garbage?
Why not let us know? Are there no staff any more?

Has the traveller checked the app. I flew RA recently and it was clear in the app.

To be fair every single company I have used in the last five years have rubbish customer service and I’m not just talking about airlines.
I’ve almost given up buying or doing anything because there’s an 80% chance something will go wrong and you won’t be able to speak to a human.

thats because we are in the 21st century now - apps mean everyone can get the info much quicker.

I had a cancelled flight last week, and with the app I got my hotel voucher, I got my food vouchers and I was out of the airport before all the people queuing

100% this. Flightaware is another app/website that can help. Seeing where the physical aircraft is and if the inbound flight is delayed can often tell you a lot more than the airlines will.

In my experience/observations, airlines are reluctant to give too much detail as it makes them vulnerable to compensation claims (the excuse needs to be out of their control), delayed flights can often become "undelayed" and passengers have left the gate area, etc. So of course, if they're vague about giving information to the departing passengers, this carries down to those meeting the arriving flight as well.

. Seeing where the physical aircraft is and if the inbound flight is delayed can often tell you a lot more than the airlines will.

It certainly can if you are at an outstation where the e.g. inbound flight is bound to be the airframe your getting eventually, after it has turned.

OTOH at a main base the tracking sites are maybe not so good because in extremis the airline can sometimes rejig planned rotations (and even rejig crews or call out a standby crew) and suddenly a flight can go from being delayed by several hours, to as you rightly say, becoming "undelayed"...

One of the legit reasons airlines can be a bit vague is that sometimes, again especially at a mainbase, there might be replanning going on.

I had bought this flight but my relative had checked in on their phone so I didn’t know how I could check on my app as I didn’t have the boarding pass. So my youngish relative was mostly sleeping and not checking their app and I was trying to organize meeting a plane at some time over an unknown period. So I couldn’t go to bed basically.

So if you are the only person involved then great - an app is ok - but meeting a plane can involve a network of people who may need sleep and also in this case needed to co ordinate a flight the next day.
I get it - but if you can update an app then you can update more than an app - it’s the same technology.

Ryanair and some of these budget airlines seem to lack customer service but this is a simple one really just a “delayed by xxxhrs owing to weather/ technical issues” would suffice

So my youngish relative was mostly sleeping and not checking their app

So that's the problem. You can't blame Ryanair for not communicating, if they were communicating with the actual passenger but they weren't reading it.

That's fair enough as long as it's accepted it may take some time to establish how long the xxx is going to be.

Unknown/unpublished delays aren't inevitably down to the airlines trying to hide something,
sometimes, epecially with a technical delay, but often also with weather related delays it's impossible to give solid timings.