Lets start with "Crew Rest issue in this story". The crew scheduled to operate the CVG (Cincinnati Airport) - CLT (Charlotte Airport) flight may have come in way past their last flight's scheduled arrival time. Now Cincinnati is an "Out station for US Airways" meaning that 1 they have a limited schedule and keep no reserve crews there, and the remainder of their day may be a handful of flights that turn around and go elsewere in the US Airways system. Here is the FAA's "Crew rest regulations" PDF. feel free to browse through the 145 pages:
http://www.faa.gov/regulations_polic...2010_22626.pdf
As for the return flight, airlines are always fine tuning their flight schedules to get the best and most optmised use of an aircraft to keep making money. Many times certain departure times are not profitable as others. How did you book your US Airways tickets? If you booked through
www.usairways.com you would have received an e-mail notice (if you signed up for alerts) with the schedule change notice. If you booked through a 3rd party meaning a brick and mortar or on-line travel agent they should have notified you.
As for agents "not being able to locate the crew", the crew may have been deadheading in on another US Airways flight, they may have been cought up in
Jamaican customs, or coming from a hotel, it is just that the agents do not know and if they do can not disclose the location of crew hotels. The information comes from
an operations office who is in communication with US Airways System Operations.
As for feeling nervous that the pilots would not be able to locate CVG Airport you need to think about driving or taking the train of a bus when you travel. flying is not for you. (before you say anything I have been on a few US Airways flights, and the crews and staff have always been courtious to me and my family). (Working for an airline affords me the ability to see the world a cheaper standby rates, but I buy the majority of my tickets). FYI my last US Airways flights were 2 years ago FLL-LAS-PHX-FLL and they were wonderful.