[azstar]

Originally Posted by Eugene Marchese

Since the plane was delayed that morning for Seven hours, the problem could have been solved had the night crew stayed, called out the mechanic and had the plane ready to fly by the 6:50 AM scheduled departure.

While I'm not condoning US Airways handling of this situation in any way, you are making some assumptions here. 1) The night crew may not be authorized to stay past their shift and get paid. Airline employees are rarely "empowered" to do anything so there is no benefit to them going beyond what is minimally required. In fact, they may have been penalized for working beyond their shift. 2) It was a Republic aircraft and, therefore, 100% the responsiblity of Republic to fix it. US Airways mechanics are not authorized to work on contracted carriers aircraft. There may not have been any Republic mechanic on duty overnight.

I agree with jimworcs, however, US Airways should have accommodated all the passengers on any available airline rather than making everyone wait until the aircraft is repaired. There is no excuse for that.