<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by odnyc:
Sorry, just landed from MDW to EWR, the flight tonight was l0 minutes early leaving the gate. I'm sure somebody there will gripe about being EARLY!!!!! </font>
I'll gripe. Despite the former 10-minute rule (now the 15-minute rule), I've had a CO flight "close" on me even though I was at the gate 30 minutes before the scheduled departure. On another occasion, CO gave away my confirmed FC upgrade seat over 30 minutes before departure.
When I fly CO as opposed to WN, I have to budget an extra 20-30 minutes each way for fear that I won't get a boarding pass or will lose my seat and/or reservation. (WN still applies the 10-minute rule for cancelling reservations to allow standby customers to travel on full flights, and WN does not close flights to boarding customers until the scheduled departure time.) Since most of my travel is on business, billed at an hourly rate to clients, I have to consider the cost of that extra time when buying airline tickets.