Originally Posted by jsloan

A crew change can be accomplished without deplaning the passengers, as long as the new crew enters the plane before the old crew leaves. And it is entirely possible to design a system where through passengers stay on board, one of the FAs verifies the occupied seats vs. the manifests, and then connecting / originating passengers are let on. Southwest does this hundreds of times a day, and that's how the Island Hopper works as well.

Having said that, I agree with you and others that the most likely scenario is that everyone will be asked to deplane, which is what happens today on most UA direct flights, including the flights to CEB, KHH, and ULN, as well as the random examples you'll find domestically.