Hi everyone,
Long-time lurker, rare poster, but I thought I'd post my experience earlier today to get some feedback. My wife (who is Silver Preferred on Delta) and myself (no status) flew from MSY to BOS via ATL. Our original schedule read as this:
DL 1607, from MSY to ATL, arriving in ATL at 1:55 PM
DL 1862, from ATL to BOS, leaving ATL at 2:35 PM

I knew that our connecting time was short to begin with, but I've made connections in Atlanta in shorter time, so we stuck with the schedule. Plus, all we had was carry-on luggage, so we didn't have to worry about checked bags making the switch between planes. The flight from MSY left on time, but landed late in ATL at 2:07 PM according to delta.com. When we arrived at the gate, I loaded up delta.com on my Blackberry and saw that the departure time of DL 1862 had been moved up to 2:20 PM, leaving from Terminal E. We had arrived in Terminal B, and got to Terminal E as fast as we could, only to get to the gate around 2:15 PM to be told by the staff that we could not board the plane, even though the plane was still sitting there. Plus, it wasn't just my wife and I, I'd estimate there were about 15 irate pax at that desk. Some of the people that were told that they could not board the plane were even at the gate before we arrived. The staff at the gate then did not even try to help any of the passengers out, and simply told us to go to another desk in Terminal E to get rebooked on later flights.

I have 3 main questions for the more experienced flyers out there. First, is it even legal for Delta to move up the departure time of a flight that soon before a flight? The departure time of DL 1862 was 2:35 PM when we checked in at MSY around 11:30 AM Eastern. The second question: I've read about a "minimum connection time" on Delta, can they change the schedule legally and force multiple passengers to have connections that don't meet the minimum time? Finally, should I have expected Delta to have automatically rebooked us on a later flight instead of making us go through standing in line with multiple other passengers? I realize that I'm not high on the totem pole without status, but my wife was really ticked off that we were not automatically rebooked on the next flight.

It was just a weird situation, and I was looking for some input. Have a great evening.