US Airways Dividend Miles - 6/24 US304 had 5 IDBs after door closed

Story to share:

One of my companions had to return a day early (for work on Monday) from the Nome, AK FlyerTalk Do and was on Sunday's US304 PHX-CLT.

Seated in row 1, he heard/saw all that went on. The aircraft door had closed, and then knock, knock. GA came on board and said there were Must Ride Crew and read out names of 5 pax who had to gather their belongings and exit the plane. Don't know how the 5 were chosen, but they were all revenue pax (overheard in conversation) ... guessing they were the last to check-in or board. One pax was unhappy because she had had to gate-check her bag and wouldn't be getting it back soon. Others were surprisingly calm as they left the plane.

What was strange was that no volunteers were solicited. Perhaps it was because it was time to leave, and the GA had to act quickly. Overheard in conversation between GA and FA was that US would be writing checks in excess of $5k for the 5 pax IDB'ed, among other things.

FA later remarked that in 25 years of flying, she had never seen anything like it ...

Wow ...

Kind of sounds like a west crew timed out on the wrong side of the country?

On a lot of my flights, the last five passengers to board on a hub to hub flight on a Sunday are typically standby. Wonder if any of these five did not have confirmed reservations for the flight but instead were revenue standby? If they were, I would suspect that no IDB compensation would be due. One clue that might support my speculation is that the four others "were surprisingly calm" as they deplaned. I can understand being angry about gate-checking a carryon that was headed to CLT without me.

Story to share:

One of my companions had to return a day early (for work on Monday) from the Nome, AK FlyerTalk Do and was on Sunday's US304 PHX-CLT.

Seated in row 1, he heard/saw all that went on. The aircraft door had closed, and then knock, knock. GA came on board and said there were Must Ride Crew and read out names of 5 pax who had to gather their belongings and exit the plane. Don't know how the 5 were chosen, but they were all revenue pax (overheard in conversation) ... guessing they were the last to check-in or board. One pax was unhappy because she had had to gate-check her bag and wouldn't be getting it back soon. Others were surprisingly calm as they left the plane.

What was strange was that no volunteers were solicited. Perhaps it was because it was time to leave, and the GA had to act quickly. Overheard in conversation between GA and FA was that US would be writing checks in excess of $5k for the 5 pax IDB'ed, among other things.

FA later remarked that in 25 years of flying, she had never seen anything like it ...

Somehow I doubt that the gate agent would be writing checks without first soliciting for volunteers since that is something they must do per the regulation. What is more plausible is the gate agent released the held seats to revenue standbys (the one pax that was mad was probably a late miscnx from an earlier flight and the 4 that were calm were from later flights is my guess) without checking to see if the seats were held for Deadheading crew and operations only informed the agent after the door was closed. Happens more than one would think.... Trying being halfway down the runway when having to stop and go back to pick up a late arriving crew, parts and a mechanic....