Originally Posted by
mdsimants
Isn't it a bit out of the ordinary to board without a pilot?
In every case where I have been delayed because "we were waiting on a crew", we've waiting in the Terminal...
I know it's happened on UA. I was returning from ORD last thanksgiving and most of the plane had boarded before the pilots. (I imagine one was doing the preflight check during the boarding process)
And IMO, "chaos" is a lot more than on canceled flight. Try DFW during a thunderstorm...