Originally Posted by
jprajesh
Thanks for the lessons learned. Most AA!flights seem to be boarding early if the crew and equipment is in place. I try to be at the gate 45 minutes prior. Only once has an agent ever opened the doors after they were closed because there were a couple of terminal/gate changes and I was running back and forth- usually you are out of luck.
Yeah, particularly at DFW, boarding seems to be early and flights closed early. I routinely in 2017 arrived at my gate 3-5 minutes before boarding time to find them calling Group 8 and getting stuck with no overhead. Pissed me off to no end. So now I try to get there 10 minutes before. On the flip side, I've shown up early many times to find no inbound plane and no delay posted even though the flight boards 30-40 minutes late, also pisses me off, so I regularly check the inbound, and if the inbound looks delayed, I ask the Admirals Club staff to let me know. They often call the gate and will confirm that inbound equipment, and I can enjoy another drink.
That said, the OP definitely experienced a combination of factors which need to be chalked up to mostly bad luck but certainly lessons learned. The A terminal club being closed, staying at D club (the furthest club) which makes for a long transfer, the D terminal security/skylink issue, the family, etc. Granted, Skylink is usually reliable, it's just bad luck, but any particular incident would've made a delay. I've been stuck between security doors in LAX during a security incident and nobody could get anywhere despite my gate being right on the other side. Fortunately, it was resolved in 10 minutes and boarding hadn't completed.
Somewhat related, when I travel with my wife, I add a lot more cushion to everything. She seemingly needs to go to the bathroom 5 times as often as I do, she walks half the speed, she packs her bag slowly (and then decides again to use the restroom). Suddenly what I thought would be 1 minute is 10. December 23rd we arrived into DFW late from EGE. We get parked at C37 and had a connection at B48. Worst possible scenario (distance/time wise), then we had to wait 5 minutes for a tow into C37 given it's the last gate. My wife and I sprinted to Skylink, I made it on a boarding Skylink train, but she decided she needed to walk up the stairs rather than run. We stared at each other through the glass like a horrible movie good bye scene from a war-bound train. I made it to B48 15 minutes before departure, I begged the lady to hold the door for three more minutes as my wife was exactly one skylink behind me. She refused, and said with a tude, "Honey, you either ditch your wife or I'm closing this door." She closed the door, and this nice kid (early 20s) next to me, said, "Excuse me, you never called my Group, I've been standing here this whole time.". He literally was standing right next to the ticket swiper machine. He got royally screwed in the ordeal. He was Group 8, and the monitor said Group 4 and she never called it. She scolded him for not saying anything. I stepped in and said, "Why not final announcement, why did you stop at Group 4, why are you shutting the door so early, the bridge is still open and the plane door is still open." My wife arrives, and nope. Took 10 minutes for the bridge to pull back. I was upset, but I realized the young man really got a raw deal. I took him to the admirals club where we waited the 2.5 hours for the next flight to HOU.