metallo

I tend to board late, so I have received a number of calls from GAs over the years asking me whether I'm going to make my flight (usually I'm walking and almost at the gate or, rarely, still in the club), but what's different about OP's situation is that they were literally holding the flight. I haven't had that happen since the "glory days" of EXP. It may have even been my first year as EXP... my SAN-DFW flight arrived late, and there was a golf cart waiting to take me and two other passengers to the DFW-STL gate. Once they confirmed I had arrived, they closed the flight. That doesn't seem to happen much anymore, even for CKs, based on reports here.

As an aside, I used to take that last ORD-STL flight of the night all the time. It's often the last AA departure out of ORD in the evening, so it's particularly impressive that they held the flight rather than just calling it a night and heading home.