It is well known in the business world that when a customer has a less-than-ideal experience, the best way to soothe that customer (and keep him coming back for more) is a simple apology from employee who is interacting with the customer.

That employee may not have had anything to do with the problem, and the customer probably knows that, but psychologicaly the apology works. The customer usually just wants an acknowledgement of his annoyance/frustration...the customer knows you can't fix being late (like you could return a defective product).

Blaming someone else does not work at all in most settings. An employee who blames OTHER employees will just be viewed as uncaring...and most business' counsel their front-line employees to never pass the buck, but to apologize and then work to resolve the problem. In the airline business since we have many uncorrectable delays caused by factors TOTALLY outside the employee's and the company's control it is worth explaining that ATC delays or Wx were involved (but still apologize anyway).