B737-700
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 285
Communication Breakdown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors
Aircraft change running late. Operations Agent asked that we keep aircraft powered up because outbound flight attendants were here. Our flight attendants were going with us on our outbound flight. First Officer went to outbound gate. I stayed with aircraft and helped flight attendants clean aircraft. No outbound flight attendants were at aircraft; so I terminated aircraft. We left aircraft without seeing any new flight attendants. As I went to the new gate; I was wondering why the Operations Agent told me the new flight attendants were there when they were not.I began to think that maybe he meant the flight attendants were at the airport; or had landed. Reaching our outbound gate; I called back to [gate] and told the Operations Agent that the aircraft was shut down. I did not want the outbound flight attendants to show up; and they started boarding without the emergency exit lights being armed. The Operations Agent said that the new outbound flight attendants were there but had stayed in the gate area because they did not want to board the aircraft immediately.I did not see any flight attendants in the jetway or gate area. I'm not sure we should be leaving an aircraft powered up totally unsupervised but the most important fact was if I was changing the plan due to whatever reason should have told the Operations Agent before I left the aircraft. A long day; being rushed I did not immediately catch all the pitfalls of the event. It was not a through flight. No passengers were on the aircraft.
B737 Captain reported that a miscommunication between the flight crew and an Operations Agent resulted in the aircraft being powered up with no crew on board.