Did not know I was partly responsible in helping the carrier get crew to their shift starting location.
Well, without commenting on this incident but as a general response to that comment .....sometimes there's is a need (sometimes at short notice, sometimes not), to get
positioning crew from A to B to operate another service out of B and if that isn't done then that subsequent service gets cancelled....the companies really aren't keen on that.
What normally happens in those cases is as Jet II alluded to - the correct number of seats should be "blocked" ahead of time by operations so that they are not allocated to commercial passengers during the check in or boarding process......one reason no doubt being to avoid embarrasing incidents........
As to this incident, the timing/sequence of what
really happened here and what status the staff had....might have to wait and see. Personally I'd be gobsmacked if it was genuinely a case of staff on personal standby tickets displacing genuine commercials, but I guess we might never know.