Originally Posted by
Often1
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Individual agents certainly have the ability to and some do, to reissue a ticket or to waive various change and cancellation fees. But, that is entirely discretionary.
There will now be 100 posts from people who got lucky. While I bear OP no ill will and don't mind that any one of those 100 who got lucky, did get lucky, the frank fact is that it is better for the rules to exist, be clear, and be enforced uniformly.
OP is wrong in one respect. The fare rules, especially for BE, are very clear.
There is, in fact, a clear and uniform rule for airport agents to follow when a passenger is late by a few moments for a flight. It’s called the Flat Tire Rule, and while Delta does not publish it and it is applied at agent discretion, it is a formal policy. If BE is excluded from this policy, that detail is unpublished, as the policy itself is unpublished; this is a totally different category of flight changes from SDC/SDS, as a fee is not usually charged.*
From
https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/t...r-flight.html/ :
According to
Delta rep Morgan Durrant, “We do have a flat tire rule. A customer who in good faith arrives at the airport due to unforeseen delay should speak to an agent. We handle each on a case-by-case basis as every customer’s situation can differ. But many times we can get them on the next available flight.”
*that said, perhaps it’s implemented under the covers as SDC with a waived fee rather than as an IROPS rebook, triggering a system block on that type of change...