Honestly most of the time it's not entirely the Airlines fault why your flight was delayed ranging from a few minutes down to the most excruciating hours of waiting. Yes as much as possible we would like to board you on schedule or in other cases board you ahead of schedule, but the aircraft that will be used flight isn't yet even there or has not yet departed the origin station. Most of the time delays in terminal is due to Air Traffic Congestion and Airport Ground Traffic Congestion resulting that the turn around aircraft that will be used for your flight (aircraft arriving en route from to and from the stations) is arriving late from its planned schedule. Each aircraft en route to a particular area is assigned an EDCT (Expect Departure Clearance Time) this is done to prevent a large volume of aircraft going to an airport or en route to another airport in the same line of flight, an aircraft incident, closed runway(s), a condition that requires increased spacing between aircraft, such as ILS (Instrument Landing System) approaches vs VFR approaches [net]. Early morning flights usually takes-off and arrives on time yet the afternoon flights is a different story. Some turnaround aircrafts usually given EDCT ranging from minutes to about an hour and a half before it is cleared for take-off and proceed to its filed flight plan. Delay in the morning is carried through the afternoon flights sometimes this results to cancellations of flights or routing of flights due to unable to beat sunset limitation at the destination. Sunset Limitation means that some airports in the Philippines such as Godofredo P. Ramos Airport [Caticlan], Naga Airport, Tuguegarao Airport, Sibulan Airport [Dumaguete] and other Airport has no runway lights and landing guidance instruments that pilots only uses Visual Flight Rules [VFR] in landing or take-of. Under Visual Flight Rules, pilots use a map and compass, and look on the ground. (When preparing for a flight they choose big visible points on the map, for example large cities, lakes, hills, rivers, roads or forests. When in the air, they seek the chosen points to make sure of going the right way way. The weather must be good enough to let them see the ground. They cannot fly into clouds, because they can get lost. Pilots also have to look for other aircraft. [wiki]) Another uncontrollable prone delay flights are the Kalibo flights. Kalibo International Airport caters to both international and domestic arrivals and departures yet the aiport has only three (3) available parking bays for small and wide bodied aircraft resulting to sequencing of arriving aircraft. Each flight, en route to Kalibo before departing at the origin aiport is given a sequence number (this is like waiting in banks given a queue numbers before approaching the teller). Each sequence usually takes twenty (20) to thirty minutes (30) depending on the ground servicing and turnaround time at Kalibo Station, imagine some flights is given sequence number 4, that's about an hour and a half of delay. I think they do the sequencing at Kalibo airport to prevent aircrafts from circling around while waiting for the parking bay to be available also this saves airline company ample amount of money in fuel costs and also ensures the safety of the passengers that immediately after departing from the origin station they will not wait anymore circling around Kalibo Aiport avoiding air incidents. As much as possible we front liners and also the company would like to provide you the service that is intended when you bought those tickets. Ferrying to and from the destination on-time and providing the necessary service for you to have a hassle free transfer from one gateway to the other. But as I reiterated there are some factors we could not control and yes it is the nature of our Job to take the complaints of the passengers whether it is our fault or from an uncontrollable factors such as EDCT, Inoperative Jet Bridge, remote bay parking, sudden change of gate, loud PA system, poor air-conditioning and even the inoperative elevators at the Terminal. In behalf of airport front liners out there we sincerely would like to apologize for the inconvenience that you have experience and we thank you for you patience and understanding.