Originally Posted by
BuildingMyBento
Just because you noticed that it was delayed doesn't mean every other passenger did too.
Depending on where I'm flying from, I will get to the airport 2+ hours before departure (somewhere not too familiar) to an hour before. In other words, I will probably have been at the airport by the time a delay message appeared. In any event, have always heard that check-in closes based on the original ETD.
Drawing upon my NNG-SHA example again, MU doesn't really do "delay messages" (i.e. they don't place a great deal of value on passengers' time), but this doesn't matter because it's physically impossible for a plane that's in Shanghai to transport me to Shanghai when I am 1,200 miles away from Shanghai. During my early days of doing this drill, I tried to get fancy by switching flights around, but quickly learned this was a losing battle (i.e. Murphy's Law dictates that the inbound aircraft for the new flight is also stuck in Shanghai). Now, I pretty much accept the fact that the 4p flight is really a 6p flight, which isn't going to leave the ground until 7p.