Thanks a lot guys. You are a great batch of teachers. I learned a lot from the thread. I was looking mainly on my time from the aircraft to the car park rather than the big picture with the airplane continuing its schedule for the night.
It seems the airline did want to make up for the delay. In the regional airport where I boarded (the first outbound after the delay) they did use two buses and the A320 had a better turn around time than the DASH 8-400 that flew in few minutes before.
Because it was the first flight of this airline with any significant delay (and by chance the only one I cared to be on time) I was intrigued if they really wanted to make up for the delay or they just meant to carry it forward until the end of the day.
The FO friend agreed with me that I would be better off after spending a day or two at and Ops room trying to see what goes behind the scenes.
Rwy in Sight