Originally Posted by
troyintn
Normally the flight will not leave early, unless either A) all the people have checked in or B) the posted time is not the scheduled departure. IE the flight was scheduled to leave at 10:00, but was showing 10:30 for delays etc. If that is the case they may not update the board, but the plane will leave since it is either fixed or finally allowed to depart by FAA.
or C) someone else more important is about to take over the airspace. I recently flew out of San Antonio, scheduled departure was 5:45pm. We left at 5:30pm because Air Force One was about to leave and if we had waited, we'd have waited like 45 minutes. I don't think I *ever* had a flight leave early, and I was surprised everyone was there and ready to board and all. Hope we didn't leave anyone stranded. The GA's didn't seem like they were rushing, and they made no announcement that we'd be leaving early, either on ground or on plane. As we took off, I got a nice view of AF1 on the ground at the neighboring AFB.