Just found this, Spiegel quoted TAP on Saturday that the pax had to wait until Monday.
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/leute...recom-outbrain
There are TAP flights STR-LIS at 6:00 and 17:55 and a Eurowings at 13:00, the other direction, leaving Lisbon there is a EW at 10:15 and TAP at 13:25 and 19:00.
So the drunk pilot was probably removed from the cockpit at about 17:15. Lisbon being an hour ahead, the nightstopper was scheduled to leave 18:00 Stuttgart time. By the time the facts were communicated and the decision made, the other flight probably was boarded already. Strange.
Seems like it would have been less of a hassle to fly in a replacement crew on the 19:00 LIS-STR or 19:20 LIS-MUC and maybe even use the crew that was scheduled to run the morning flight operate the evening flight (if they were already legal by that time). But then there are three daily flights from STR, four from MUC and six from FRA (within TAP/LH and another one on RYR). Seems hard to believe they could not redistribute all pax by Saturday.
Additional question: why is it in such cases that the airport personel or CC notice something, but almost never the captain?