I was hoping someone here would know what if anything should be due.

If one flies for instance san-ewr-arn and gets involuntarily rerouted due to a missing flight crew on the first leg of the journey which ends up getting one to their final destination over 7hrs late. The ticket is on SK 117 but first leg is a domestic USA trip if I understood the info I found online vompensation would be due but maybe I misunderstood as I font have experience with this? If so which airline would I make the claim with?

The delay was clearly the airlines doing not wheather etc...

Any advice or facts are appreciated

Who did you book the flight with? Is the first leg with UA? If so they should cover it, provided that you booked the whole thing with them.

First leg was UA, trip booked on SK ticketed by SK

I'm 98% sure you'd be fine and SAS (UA) would cover it, but if you want to make sure, call SAS customer service for free via Skype on +18002212350.

Let us know the answer!

What makes you say that the delay wasn't WX-related?

That's the most common reason for crew delays. They're on a flight from XXX-SAN and it's late. Therefore, they aren't at SAN and the SAN-EWR flight is delayed.

As to compensation, you will have to talk with SK if you are thinking of EU-style compensation. UA will never, ever, ever pay out EU nanny compensation for a delay on a domestic flight, without a US court order. Start down that path and it would owe 10's of millions to people who had flown to a US gateway and missed an EU connection.

I was told by UA it was a missing crew situation ans I got written confirmation from UA as to this...

You still haven't answered the question. "Missing crew" doesn't mean that the crew can't be found. It means that UA knows exactly where the crew is. Somewhere at 40,000 feet inbound to your departure station !

The question is, why is the crew missing, not is it missing.

Well that is the info given to me BY UA, if it was weather related I doubt they would say missing crew... This was for a very early morning departure.

On early AM flights, often means that the crew hasn't had its FAA-mandated rest (sleep) period. Last night's flight got in late and the AM flight is too early.

Nobody doubts that UA told you that the delay was for "crew missing." But unless you know why the crew isn't at the aircraft, you have no way of saying whether the delay was or was not avoidable.

Crew on legally required rest due to late arrival is a lot different than crew is too drunk to fly.

Honestly that is what back up crews are for... Otherwise airlines could blame ALL delays on wheather on the domino effect... Airlines surely have to have back uos in place... Plus if they knew the night before they could have/should have informed passangers of the delay the night before...

If the airline states "crew missing" as a reason for a delayed or cancelled flight, the airline is not blaming the weather or some other force majeure. Exactly why the crew was missing will not be explained by the airline. The crew being drunk is unlikely, the captain being sick would be more likely, but the airline would - for many reasons - not go in the such detail.

Another thing is that delay reasons has it own set of rules. If a flight e.g. ARN-LHR is delayed due to weather at ARN, the delay code is "weather". If that delay will delay the return flight LHR-ARN, the delay code for the latter flight isn't "weather" but instead "late incoming aircraft". If the aircraft and crew were suppose to continue ARN-SDL, but can't because of crew rest rules and no stand by crew is available, the cancellation code for ARN-SDL is "crew missing".