Originally Posted by
Plumber
This is not happened to me in many years...
But the last time it did happen, I was told at the gate that there is no way I could possibly make the flight (despite standing at the gate during boarding) and that 'they rebooked you'. I asked for an explanation of who exactly is 'they', but I did not get one.
"They" is STOC or SOC or whatever the central control is called handling the flights involved. The agents at the airport can likely see what was done, but they don't do it. AFAIK, it's an automated, not manual process, like many of AC's customer unfriendly procedures, which have the (un)intended consequence of preventing agents from being customer friendly.