Saturday was in MCO, a MCO-CLE flight was suppose to be a A320 but when the aircraft arrived from DEN it was a A319 and the gate agent announced they were short 23 seats and was waiting for a supervisor to advise. She did not ask for volunteers. The flight was only going to delayed 10 minuntes. Then out of the blue the departure got pushed out 2 hours because all of a sudden they were short a flight attendent.

So the agent sorted the passenger list and just held back seats for those making connections at CLE and it turns out everyone will miss their flights so she looked at rerouting. They were giving hotels and meal vouchers but because the flight was now so late this sort of solved the 23 short seat problem so now they do not have to pay volunteers and denied boarding. I was woundering could they have made up be short a flight attendent. I do not think they would do that but it crossed my mind.
With so many flight cancellations and delays do to weather I am sure it happens a plane goes into a mechanical delay so you think they would try and make it look like it was weather related but there are ways of tracing that so we hope they are honest.