Originally Posted by
DFWDave
There were 17 of us on the SFO flight connecting to the AUS flight, and we were waiting for a gate in the same terminal the AUS flight was leaving from, so it seemed reasonable that it could be held for a few more minutes.
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It was interesting that the flight crew on our SFO flight kept giving us reassurance on the AUS flight being held up and our chances of making it, until my phone showed that it had "departed", at which point the updates evaporated. As we were exiting the plane, they mentioned that the gate agent had "no information on the AUS flight".
Having been on the DFW-AUS flight (see post above) this all now makes sense. When they extended the delay for an additional 20 minutes they were no doubt targeting the folks on your flight, as only one or two pax came onboard during that extra time. Too bad the dispatchers couldn't also coordinate with ground ops to get your plane into a gate. When 11:30 came and it was still not certain when/where you would deplane the balance then swung to getting the plane out to minimize collateral damage to the next day's schedule.
I witnessed a similar incident at LAX yesterday. There were 5 pax inbound (not sure from where) that were to connect to the Kona flight. They were going to hold the flight but by departure time it was still not certain when the 5 would arrive. They let the Kona flight go. (Unfortunately I was connecting elsewhere.)