Originally Posted by
newyorkgeorge
I was flying home last night on Flight #2391, the 777 DFW/MIA flight. Have taking the 777 MIA/DFW flights many times I know the crew works typically works the inbound #969 from MIA and then #2391 back, although usually different a/c (crew usually sits in DFW for a few hours). Yesterday the crew was late coming in from MIA so departure was pushed back from 4:45 to 5:30. When I arrived at the gate at 4:45 they were already boarding Group 2. When I asked a FA how they got off the inbound flight so quick, she said we are just the standby crew for boarding, your flight crew will arrive in about 15 minutes.
I've never seen a crew used just for boarding purposes. It allowed us to depart at 5:15, 15 minutes earlier and enabled some paxs to make their connections in MIA.
This will be an OPR (on-premises reserve) crew. They are paid sit in the crew room in case of last minute staffing problems (like a crew member that gets sick, or a crew that times out unexpectedly). Pretty boring job I'm sure. Since they are at the airport anyway, they can be used for purposes like boarding if the aircraft is ready but the crew is not there.