Originally Posted by
shawbridge
I called BA who said, as Swanhunter and others suggested, that I needed to arrive in time for the originally scheduled flight, because a flight time might be moved up. So, I followed the advice.
However, when I went into the lounge, the person at the desk said I could have come later because the reason for the delay was that last night's plane had arrived late and by law (FAA regulation?), the crew was required to have 8 hours of sleep. So there was no way it could leave before 9:30.
Did you take an opportunity ask them whether the checkin counter would be open later and the flight would remain open? In a place like BOS where there is a long gap between the morning flight and the first of the evening flights, I would be surprised if BA had their (contract, hourly) agents sitting around reading Facebook for most of the day before doing the evening flights.
I, basically, don't entirely believe the agent here, even if in this case the delay was not going to get shorter as it was not possible to get the pilots to report earlier for duty. I think it's rather irresponsible of the agent to say such things to a passenger that can re-inforce a misapprehension that they can look at the predicted late departure time and arrive the customary time before that, rather than before the scheduled departure time.