amusedOne amusing story: As I was boarding, people were complaining to the flight attendant about the delay. He explained the situation with crews and said that it was a good thing that Denver was a crew base, or it would have been even more difficult to find a pilot willing and able to work on his day off. I said, "I'm very grateful; otherwise we would have been here all night! You have to have a pilot to fly the plane, after all."
Later in the flight, after finally breaking out of a bunch of turbulence, the flight attendants did the in-flight F&B service. When they finished that, the attendant with whom I was talking earlier came back and handed me one of the standard snack boxes, which you normally have to purchase. (I bought one on the way out from Reno.) He said, "That's your reward for knowing that planes don't fly without a pilot." He didn't say, but presumably he'd encountered passengers who didn't understand that.