I must admit that I am surprised that DL did not hold the flight, given how many pax were on it, especially given that it was a direct flight. While I already thought that the idea of direct flights had become meaningless, this case really renders the idea of them on DL absurd.

I have had flights held for me three times and I really was so grateful, and it so happens that two times I had been upgraded to F and the GA was kind of enough to keep my upgrade, and the third time I was in paid F and they did not give away my seat to pax on the UG list.

What we can't know, but what I would like to know, is if the flight was not held intentionally or because someone was not paying close enough attention to operations. Does anyone know if DL has any systems in place that force decision makers to look at how many people will misconnect if they don't hold it? I fully understand that there could be other snowball effects of holding a flight, but still curious about this case.