THE AIRLINES SOMETIMES *NEED* TO MOVE A PILOT AND CREW
Charter a plane and move them.
Apparently at one of the busiest airports in the world which doubles as United’s home base, there was no other plane traveling to Louisville that day (or, at a push, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, or Lexington).
Let’s assume the original flight took off as booked and scheduled. How long would a deadhead crew need to wait? An hour? Three? Is it United’s position that their allocation of flight crews to flights, routes and/or airports was being conducted on such a razor thin margin of error?
They could have rented a car and driven there in 4 hours................
A puddle jumper for a thousand bucks would have got them to Louisville long before that flight.
They opted for the 20 million dollar exercise.