swag

447 11/26/12 CLT-DFW

Scheduled for 9:45 am, I got to the gate and there's no plane. It's out on the tarmac awaiting repair. They soon update departure to 11:00 and then 11:15. Then they decided they needed a part flown in from ORD and posted a new departure of 3:00 pm.

By 1:45, the repairs were done and the plane was at the gate. Only problem, no crew. GA announced that the crew had been called and were on the way. Another pax who had spoken to the GA told me that the crew (who had flown in on that plane the night before) had returned to their hotel when the delay got extended. It was 2:40 when the crew finally arrived, boarding began at 2:50, and we pushed back around 3:15.

Mechanicals suck, and long mechanicals suck worse, but I recognize that they're inevitable. But am I wrong to be annoyed that the absence of the crew extended the delay by an additional 45 minutes or so, on top of the almost 5 hours to fix the plane? From FlightAware, it looks like the part must have come in on 4334, arriving at 12:50p. I'm all for having a well rested crew, but shouldn't they have planned to return to the airport comfortably ahead of the updated departure time, instead of waiting for the all-clear call?

What is normal for the crew to do in a situation like this?