Originally Posted by
pitz
Impractical? Because it hurt an exceedingly rare baggage-free international passenger in this case? They probably could have resolved such rare issue at the gate by down-grading an op-upgrader and VDB'ing someone. But for hundreds of other passengers who miss their connections daily, its a God-send to have that AC app light up with a "You've been automatically rebooked" message. Rather than trying to mess around with the more usual processes.
Rebooking may be OK if indeed it is clear the passenger won't make it.
But it appears they mostly do this when the continuing flight is overbooked. Or at the very least, one should have a chance of undoing it.
Which is actually what happened to my wife earlier this year on a flight YYC-YYZ-BOS. When she figured she had been offloaded, she asked and got put back on her original flight.
So GAs should not be too quick to reassign seats. Should wait until gate cutoff.