Originally Posted by
thelark
Well, OP clearly described the flight departing early - I.e., pushing back before it’s scheduled time to do so. I’m taking that for face value and assuming we’re not talking about the gate closing on-time before pushback. You describe scenarios where the flight would clearly be late or it would be completely unreasonable to assume it could still be on time (e.g., closing 1 min prior to pushback). That’s not what OP described, where they had everyone on, except at least one person, and said “screw it, we’re going anyway.”
I see the confusion. Either you didn't read what I wrote or the concept of a timeline wasn't apparent to you. I explained how it could depart early even if all other parameters, such as gate closing, were on time. What I described was what could happen, and does happen for that matter, if you don't meet the time parameters of a significant number of steps that lead up to departing the aircraft. And I pointed out that if you meet all the time parameters and you happen to get done earlier than planned, why have the plane sit and wait. And I also explained why, if things are completed earlier than planned, you can't necessarily just wait for late passengers because that may mean having to start certain process over again and there may not be time for that. The reason I used example like 1 minute prior to pushback is because the OP said, I think, that the plane departed 10 minutes early. So there are only 9 different minutes that I could use as an example and I used some from both sides of the 9 minutes.
Does that make sense now?