Mallorcaguy
With regards to your friends delayed PMI flight on Tuesday and the other delays you noticed on the same day.
A large majority of flights heading for Spain from our bases were delayed anything up to over an hour that day due to ATC slots, looks like French ATC again.
My guess the reason your friends were not boarded earlier was because it was thought they would be more comfortable in the terminal, than on the a/c.
You might also like to know that the a/c was not delayed over 1 hour, it was airborne just over an hour after its departure time, pushed back around 40-45 minutes behind schedule.
It is the push back (off chocks) that is the time used for all departure figures.