Originally Posted by
Steve M
It would seem that you are the one using the thinnest of technicalities. You seem to say that someone with no boarding pass has a lesser burden to be at the gate at T-10 than someone with a boarding pass. I can't imagine any reasonable way to draw that conclusion, and that it must be based on some hyper-literal reading of the rule.
OP says he was there at T-20.
I most certainly would *not* advise one to fail to show up at T-10. My only question is on what basis Southwest suggests that he wasn't there.
EDIT TO CLARIFY: I'm saying that it's
very clear what your burden is if you hold a valid BP. You must present it to the GA by exactly T-10 minutes. In normal operations, say a 7AM flight that's running ontime with no connecting pax, the gate area is empty by T-10 and you're systematically cut off at exactly that time.
And I'm also saying that it
isn't really clear what your specific burden is if you
don't hold a valid BP. If you're there at T-30, you're standing around listening to the GA solicit VDB's. If they don't get any and don't feel like *really* trying for them, you're watching people board and you're standing there in that empty gate area, watching the GA, waiting for T-10 to hit, hoping that other people don't show up. Anything that happens will, by definition, be within ten minutes of departure. You'll either get on or figure out that you're IDB'ed at, say, 5 minutes before departure. The only formal act you can take at that point to break some sort of rule is fail to present yourself when the GA calls out your name to board.
If the GA never calls out your name to board, that's the definition of IDB to me. The OP executed all of the required actions to be eligible for IDB.