Wow. I have travel-related paranoia (caused in part by a couple of incidents of having missed my flight or coach because of public-transport-caused delays getting across London to the departure station, and in both cases I was able to take the next one out), but usually manage to avoid the worst issues. (Case in point, having the airport in Dublin closed when I and two friends needed to fly out that afternoon. The one who had a connecting flight in London to get her back to the US had to spend the night at the airport until she finally managed to get put onto a flight out of there. I and the other friend were just planning to hang out in Wales and London for a few days, and managed to get a ferry to Wales the next morning and took the train to Cardiff and after a few days took a coach to London.)

I'm betting your friend packs a lot of books or similar forms of self-entertainment for these delays.