Originally Posted by
glitchy
I think there are some perverse incentives driving this but heck if I can figure out where they are.
Today at AMS (with mildly crappy weather, mildly delayed flights, and thus a lot of tight connections) the jetway was already off of DL257 (AMS-BOS) by T-15 and I believe the plane left with empty seats. Headwinds are light and it's due into Boston an hour early.
Isn't the easiest course of action here to keep taking passengers until T-15 or so? Seems easier than dealing with rebooking a rapidly accumulating mob. Even if I believed in maximally self-serving airline behaviour and maximally lazy gate agents, it seems like more work for everybody. So, why?
The incentive for the (lazy) agent is that they know they have people coming who are likely to misconnect. Instead of being there to have to deal with (usually somewhat irate) customers who need rebooking, they can just exit the jetway at the bottom and walk across the ramp into the terminal. They won't ever have to interface with said customers. When I was a gate supv eons ago (not at DL), I wrote a few people up for exactly this behavior.
We'll probably never know why they closed up so early in the OP's case. Maybe it was the agent's last flight of the day...who knows.
Regarding the AMS anecdote, I don't think that's relative here. They claim to cut off boarding significantly earlier to allow for PPBM (I think they usually announce 30 minutes).