So I was standing by for a sw flight for the first time ever, and there was one pax who didn’t board. The gate agent went on the plane for a few minutes before releasing the seat presumably to check if he boarded without having his ticket scan properly, and verify a seat was available before clearing standby pax.

They eventually found the clueless gentleman standing outside the gate, and we were all stumped as to why he didn’t board with everyone else or respond to pages.

I was bummed I didn’t make the flight, but impressed swa tried so so hard to find the guy and not strand him, even as we were welll past 10 min to departure. I figure dl aa and ua would have cleared standbys and shut the door long ago and we’d be reading a different thread about how grandpa was denied boarding even though he was at the gate on time.

i was also surprised to see so many pax in the gate area that didn’t feel like lining up or boarding until everyone else had. Like they thought they had a reserved seat and overhead bin or something. Probably first time swa pax, learning the hard way. That’s how you get the non reclining middle seat by the lav I guess.