Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
I would say this is the pretty much the opposite of a gremlin: BA slightly overbooked the service, but didn't oversell it. Hence my answer in post 2. They had, some time ago, cancelled an earlier departure so it was always going to be busy.
indeed not a gremlin at all, just an overwhelming confirmation of what almost everyone said in this thread: that the most likely outcome by far was that it would all fall into place once no shows etc were confirmed.