Originally Posted by
MiamiFlyer
At EA, we used to call those "kickoff" flights EOM's - Early Morning Originators, and yes aircraft were scheduled so tightly that any early delay cascaded throughout the day. However, we were not allowed to push back a flight early unless everyone was on board. We also had to carefully control the time that went into the public side of the FIDS system. If we posted a delay (i.e. from 1700 to 1800), once again, we could not depart before the posted time unless everyone booked was on board.
So my question is: Is AA liable/responsible/obligated to do anything for the PAX on an early pushback? Is this covered by some "rule", or is it at the discretion of the airline?
Naturally, we would not like to leave anyone behind and in 99% of the circumstances would wait for the last passenger to board (until, of course, our official departure time). I'm sure stations handle it somewhat differently, but at IAH, the checkin staff always tell our pax that their flight will board slightly earlier than a normal departure, so that the pax remain near the gate. (And at 5 am there is nothing open anyway really). Normally, when the crew come from the hotel, we tend to start boarding 5 minutes after and not wait until the official 30 minute boarding time. The other 1% of the time for an early pushback is when the captain would like to leave early for a technicality (atc, weather etc).
A revised departure (per your example above) holds true for AA as well. One we post a new departure time, we cannot change it to an earlier one. However, that does not mean that we will not leave earlier than the posted time. We always tell our passengers to listen for a terminal page, in case something allows us to leave earlier than expected. This rarely happens, but when it does, we give passengers enough time to get back to the gate, and usually we do a walkabout in the terminal. I imagine that this would be impossible at DFW, so this is what we do only in IAH. However, of course the 1% chance still can hold for these flights too if there is a technicality (weather, atc etc) and the pilot wants to leave ASAP.
As per your question, per the passenger contract, all pax must be in the boarding process, no later than 15 minutes before the scheduled departure time. That is a hard and fast rule. Of course, we would try to get everyone Onboard. There are sometimes when the captain would like the leave early and this is under their discretion. (Again, talking about the 1% chance). The passengers would be treated as an RL in these cases. That being said, GAs use a fair amount of discretion and approach these scenarios on a case by case basis. (Ie, if a passenger was on a delayed flight and the aircraft left well before the revised departure time, we would do what we could to help the passenger, although his fault, for customer service recovery).