cordelli

Yeah, that's what has been lost in some of the discussion. I can understand the people who do it a few minutes before the flight. I can understand those who come from the RCC and don't want to bother sitting down.

I sort of get the people who say they line up early in case they are late on another flight and there's no overhead

That was not the case here. People lined up way before the plane came in. At 8 when the RCC closed the line on the red carpet was already long. The plane did not arrive until 8:45, boarding after the mechanical thing was delayed about another hour. When we got to the gate we thought another flight was boarding then realized it's people lining up for a missing airplane.

Now I don't know when people started lining up, I was happily mixing yogurt covered raisins and trail mix in the RCC, but I do know they stayed in that line for at least 1 hour and 45 minutes while there were tons of seats at the gate. Eventually some sat on the floor, but nobody moved (made for a fun mess when the plane came in).

In contrast to the flight back from ORD, nobody was on the red carpet until they announced boarding would start in five minutes, than three or four people moved over to the line.

I just don't understand why a dozen or so people would have stood for probably two hours or more for the first few people in the line. They would have been the first on the plane anyways, but choose to stand or sit in the middle of that gate for hours.