I find it an interesting comparison with the railways, where airports and airline operators are also apologising profusely for something which really is beyond their control.
Well, it's similar in the two cases in that the customer-facing element (airline or
TOC▸ ) apologises without blaming other actors, but calling it inevitable where possible. But really there's not so much difference between "someone else screwed up" and "we as an industry could have done more to prevent this being such a problem".
For fog, it's running Gatwick and Heathrow at over 90% of capacity on a good day that leaves nothing to spare when landing rates have to be reduced. Responsibility for that is spread pretty widely, though, and arguably outside the industry as much as inside.
There's another parallel with that, which is what Graham was saying earlier tonight, starting from the TOCs' hubristic account of how they squeezed more passengers into the same trains. In both cases the industry could claim success internally at solving a short-term problem, but should be more honest about the cost - largely borne by the travelling public as discomfort and disruption.