Originally Posted by 13901

BA used K19, K16 and K14 at ORD. The choice of gate isn’t made by BA but by AA and ORD authorities. As for weather, the rule at ORD is the same as it is in CLT and, frankly, most other airports: no ramp activity when lightnings are reported in the area. That in my opinion is eminently smart because I know of one person, a friend of mine, who was the dispatcher of a cargo aircraft that was hit by a lightning in MXP while he was on wired headset. the discharge went through him. Luckily he had a “grounding” and he survived relatively unscathed.

That being said, the whole thing sounds like a series of causes and co-causes. Without seeing the delay allocation it’s hard to say if weather or crew delay were the driving factor to the crew going out of hours. CEDR might be the best way forwards.