Originally Posted by ENIAC

Had the same status message for a flight I was on. It meant "too many fat people with big bags to take off!" I decided to give the new CRJ direct DEN to MKE service a chance on my return. Picking my seat about a week out I noticed I was the only person in the premium part of the plane (the front 40% or so), so I suspect other elites are shunning it.

However, the plane was closed to full, maybe four empty seats. Then we sat at the gate for half an hour, which the chatty pilot said was while weight and balance things were sorted, and then taxied out to the runway. Then we were told that the temperature had increased (to the mid-80s I think, nothing amazing) and because the weight of the plane was already very close to the limit we were no longer allowed to take off. So we taxied back to the gate and waited.

Eventually, a GA arrived and appealed for five volunteers to fly on the Midwest direct flight, which was holding for for the purpose. She promised $300. So I took it, rushed to the other end of the concourse, and found the Midwest plane had already left, as had all Midwest personnel. I then rushed back again, and told the NW GA. She then sent us all back onto the plane, where we waited for things to cool down. Fortunately that happened fairly quickly in the end, so the flight was maybe 90 minutes late.

Looking around I did notice a pretty high proportion of signifcantly overweight people crammed into the tiny seats. And presumably the total lack of elites on this new flight translated into a lot of families checking big suitcases. But it wasn't even 100% full. Seems like another great reason to avoid CRJs. Anyway, when my wife checked the flight status online she said it was "Delayed due to accomodating passengers."