Originally Posted by
jsloan
Quite the opposite, actually. Can you imagine the uproar if anybody found out that United didn't make every effort to operate the flight? The second-guessers already come out of the woodwork any time there's a timeout, suggesting that UA pilots don't really want to fly and would prefer to cancel just to enjoy screwing over the customers. Now you want them to actually do that?
No, but they could have said something at the gate "we're running really close here, we need everyone's cooperation" etc etc. There was no hint of timing out until it happened. Plus the 15+ minutes stuck at the gate for "finalizing security details" is likely what finally nailed the coffin.
Originally Posted by
jsloan
OP: The reason that the crew timed out five minutes after leaving the gate might have been incompetence, but it seems much more likely that five minutes after leaving the gate is when they got the final word on their wheels-up time, and that wheels-up time was too late for them to operate the flight legally.
I don't buy it....not at 1am when even EWR was dead and nothing was taxiing. Plus, as mentioned above...15+ minutes after everyone had boarded sitting at the gate...