If it was known as early as 0650 that the 0827 Airport to Windermere wasn't going to be operating, there doesn't seem to much justification for failing to acknowledge the fact to waiting passengers at the Airport until 0815.
Xenophon PGDGS, I'm not trying to justify failure to run trains, but did you check before leaving home that the 0827 was showing as operating normally, or that the inbound journey was shown as running to time? You must be reasonably techno-savvy to be contributing to this forum.
You may be on shakier ground trying to claim a refund/compensation if you never left to attempt your journey in the first place, without at least 'officially' getting advice not to turn up (e.g. by asking on Twitter or ringing up)
Plus it's not totally unreasonable that the TOC could have a spare train/driver ready at Manchester Airport, e.g. by a unit swap. The 'regular' traveller can't glean this from RealTimeTrains.
Incidentally, is it customary for prospective airline passengers to check prior to departure whether or not the plane will depart?
Only usually if there is a known problem (e.g. baggage system failure or something)