Finnair is late again. But is that their real problem?

When boarding a Finnair plane bound to Lisbon the news all over the tabloid was "Finnair mistreated us". Us, as in two passengers. What a nice omen for the trip.
It happened that they were returning from a "dream trip to Thailand", which ended up over 24 hours later than scheduled. Since we have time, the events unfolded as such: The plane was 10 hours or so late. What does Finnair give the passengers? One burger voucher and water! Yey! Nothing else! (Mind you, in the "old" int'l airport, one goes out, immediately crosses the bridge, and gets to eat plenty of the local delicacies for ridiculous prices).
Eventually the plane leaves. Very late. These two girls were getting the connection to Stockholm after, and as they landed the hostess tells them they might just get into their connection (last plane of the day) after all! Just run!
They ran like there was no tomorrow, arriving at the gate. Where the attendant told them "you cannot board, your seats have been re-sold, because we never thought you'd make it on time."
Amazing answer.
Adding insult to injury, they saw yet another passenger who came from Bangkok with them entering the plane. Why? "Oh, he's in business class."
...
They got a place on the early flight, arriving one day late and full of fond memories from the trip.
Obviously the tabloid loved it. What is the more surprising (or not, considering those above-mentioned answers from the staff) is the "defense" from Finnair's PR responsible:
1. Somewhere over Europe on the Helsinki-Bangkok route a drunk Finn wrecked havoc. So what else is new? They returned to Copenhagen to leave him (unfortunately it seems there were not enough parachutes available on board), and then retook the route. Arriving late in Bangkok, it left obviously even later back.
Meanwhile the passengers were stranded for hours in the new Bangkok airport, tired and starving. But who cares? It's not Finnair's fault people drink.
2. Just because people arrive in time at the departure gate, it's not automatic they can board! Supposedly, there are checks to be made, blablabla. So what about the gentleman in business class? AH, he doesn't need to be checked, it seems.

Please, someone JUST FIRE THIS IDIOT "Communications Manager"!
There was only one thing to say in this situation:

"We are sorry.
We will try our best so that these things
never happen again."

They could have saved face, at least. By acting arrogant, they will just lose passengers. The two ladies mentioned "we took the Finnair flight because we trusted our home carrier, even if it is much more expensive." Nice reward.
Planes get late. Incidents happen. That's excusable.
What is not excusable is arrogance over customers.