Possible Fraud?
 

I wanted to ask this forum whether or not my horrible experience with Independence was bad luck or fraud.

On a return flight from BOS to IAD, I arrived at the airport, and the agent informed me that the flight had been cancelled. This was the last flight of the evening, so she said she would try to get me on the first flight the following morning.

When I asked if the airline would be providing accomodations, she said they do not since there was a "ground hold" and it was not the airline's fault. However, two other airlines at BOS were sending off flights at the same time, and they successfully departed and landed.

The agent also mentioned that the flight had very few passengers to start with, so rebooking shouldn't be a problem.

Is it possible that the airline cancelled a flight because it had too few passengers or because of some operational problem and blamed it on weather? My understanding is that if they do this, compensation (such as hotel) must be provided.

Bad luck.

There was probably a delay/ground hold that prevented the aircraft from getting to BOS, so there was no plane to turn around and go back to IAD. They'd have resources out of place which throw off the whole system the next day.

Still, it would have been nice to call you before you got out to Logan, or if they'd shuffled other bits around to preserve the last flight of the night if at all possible and cancel something else earlier in the day. Then again, they may not have the problems until later in the day.

Contrary to many people's beliefs, airlines (at least the ones i have worked for) don't cncl flights due to lack of passengers. The only thing i can think of that comes close is if there is a plane maintainence that is going to cncl, they may decide to use a good aircraft to run the flight that is booked full and cncl the flight that few people. As far as compensation goes you're right, weather, ground holds, airport closing (airline uncontrolable) = no compensation and mechanical, flight crew (airline controlable)= compensation.
as far as the other airlines running on time, that could be for a few reasons like where the aircraft came from when it got to BOS. such as BUF to BOS has no delays into BOS but IAD to BOS does. Keep in mind not every aircraft goes back and forth between to two cities like I-air does. Hope this helps :)