Originally Posted by
DManzaluni
Having got past the dogma, I think we are getting close to the nub of the problem here. Yes, CDG is AF's home base. When something at CDG causes a number of passengers to arrive a few minutes into some arbitrary (see below) 20 minute period, I say the airline shouldn't just stand on ceremony and refuse to let people go down the walkway to the plane because some 20 minute time period is slightly eaten into.
I do think it relevant that I was on that next flight, was watching for timings etc and SAW passengers rushing onto the flight up to 10 minutes before take off.
There are multiple (operational) reasons as to why flight X have to close on time and flight Y could be "delayed" a couple of minutes and gate closes at T-10 or the airline might even decide to wait for late connecting PAX
Every airline has a certain point in time in which they close the gate, whether it's T-10, T-15, T-20 or T-45 doesn't matter, if you arrive at the gate after that "arbitrary" cut off time the airline has no obligation to let you go down the walkway to the airplane, they might have already been busy with offloading the bags of late PAX, they might have even decided to accommodate a standby passenger in your seat.
You don't seem to provide any relevant details so we can try and understand better what was going on there so there isn't much more that can be said.