Although I'm at war with British Airways at the moment for their mishandling of my luggage, I still feel compelled to say a few nice words about the captain of our flight.

This picture shows him explaining the technical glitch that had kept our plane grounded for an hour or so. This is what he said:

"Did you hear what I was telling the other passengers? If you didn't, I'm quite happy to repeat it. Well, you see this little part in this plastic bag I'm holding... that's the culprit that caused the problem. There was a tiny leakage from this tiny part in the hydraulic pump. Our engineers identified the problem and went to the depot to get a new one. They've put the new one in now and they are running tests to make sure there's absolutely no more leakage. I'm expecting a call from them any moment now and I reckon you'll be able to board the plane in half an hour to 45 minutes. I do apologise for the delay, as this is our issue. I'm very sorry. I suppose these things do happen now and again."

He went from row to row. The passengers who decided to hang around the boarding gate while waiting were occupying about a dozen rows and the captain repeated the above explanation and apology as many times. In some rows, there were only two people.

This is what I call "transparency" at its extreme. While the whole exercise was rather touching, I thought he probably overdid it, as his first duty was to ready himself for the long flight ahead and this long litany of repeated explanations and apologies would no doubt sap his energy. It could have been left for someone else, like his co-pilot or, better still, a senior member of the ground crew!

Nevertheless, the captain deserved a thumbs-up!