Originally Posted by
cssmd27
Question for those of you with a lot of historical "experience" - i.e. age. Did AA (and all airlines for that matter) used to be willing to hold a flight if they knew you were running through the airport back in the mid 80's or earlier? I seem to remember this being something done, but I was in my teens back then. I can remember stopping at the first gate agent and telling them to call the gate we were going to let them know we were in the airport and running to the gate and they would hold the flight a few minutes. Am I misremembering? We were not frequent flyers by any stretch back then and enormous changes have occurred involving security and technology.
It was a totally different business. Flight loads averaged between 50% and 70%. Airlines didn't have schedules that included tight banks and very tight turns. Today everything has moved to the minute precision that WN developed decades ago to get planes on and off gates very quickly. For WN it was one factor in how they survived the early days. Holding a flight 5 minutes didn't have the consequences it has today.