Originally Posted by
sukn
These people did arrive at the gate 10 min prior to scheduled departure time. Surely the GA could see in the computer that they had checked-in at the airport and the time stamp (meaning they might be heading to the gate but got held up in security or using the restroom, or whatever), so I'm not sure why he chose to close the flight early.
AA's policy is that passengers must be at the gate, ready to board, 15 minutes prior to departure time in order to retain their reservation and a seat. They failed. These passengers didn't get to the gate until 10 minutes prior to departure. Just one more in a series of failures by the very high maintenance passengers.