A statement from NATS National Air Traffic service: "Due to a technical problem at Swanwick we are currently experiencing some difficulty switching from night time to daytime operation. "This may result in some delays for which we apologise. Engineers are working to rectify the problem as soon as possible." Can anyone tell me why this statement an pretty much any other similar type statement use the word "may" when talking about possible disruption? When it was probably well known even before the statement was issues that delays were inevitable. But all to often these 'official' statements will imply that things are not quite as bad as we all can see it is. We had a similar type of thing with RBS recently when there statement apologised to people who 'may' have been inconvenienced when they found could not pay for their meals,petrol ETC ETC. There is no 'may' about it, can we not just have honest statements of facts?
http://metro.co.uk/2013/12/07/air-traffic-control-problem-causes-flight-delays-across-britain-4221403/ Can't see the use of the word 'may' on their Tweets or headline.
Calm down dude! Looks like you're reading the initial notice they put out when they first heard there was an issue. They've since put out an updated notice, where they confirm there are delays: http://www.nats.aero/news/technical-problem-update/ As always, it's best to check with your own airline as to specific delays as it's normal for some terminals / airlines / slots / flights to be affected more than others. Sounds all reasonable to me.
No, because The System crashed and there are five hundred aircraft in our zone and we're blind to over half of them oh **** oh **** would generate mass panic.
+1 for the calming down. The people that publish these statements are told what to write. As already mentioned, they don't want to scare the life out of people or cause a massive overreaction, so stating that delays 'may' happen or are 'possible' resolves that. Simples.
