IceTrojan

I do wonder what the OP's demeanor was during the interaction with the GA.

ericgdukie44

So T-5 is the arbitrary time they should shut people out, not T-15? And if people show up at T-5 saying their family members are 30 seconds away, then what?

gengar

What an odd post. Surely you understand that the point of rules and policies is not just to have rules and policies - it's because there are reasons behind the rules and policies.

modesto

One thing I probably should have mentioned all our bags were on the plane as well.

Adam1222

On the MCT front, no MCT is based on individual travelers' unique circumstances. As shown by the fact that other family members made it 30 minutes earlier, AA had a reasonable connection time.

As others have pointed out, there was no way of knowing that they would arrive at T-12. If they closed the door at T-11, you would say "the flight wouldn't have been any more delayed if they waited an extra minute." You need to have a bright line rule because hindsight is always 20/20. That line is set at 15 minutes.

You don't think boarding 5 passengers late can delay a flight? Well these passengers also took forever to go through CBP. We don't know how slowly they moved, how compliant they are with crew instructions, their carryon situation, etc. More importantly, an airline has no way of knowing in advance how long it will take given passengers to board if they hold the plane for them on the chance that maybe they'll show up in 3 minutes. And if at T-5 the passengers didn't show, then the GA would have to process standby passengers. Processing and boarding them can most certainly delay a flight.

Your accusations of others' making bad arguments are themselves based on the logical fallacy that AA decided to close the door at T-15 rather than wait for passengers it knew were coming at T-12. Instead, they cleared a standby queue and boarded passengers at T-15 when 5 passengers were not in sight. Your "well Virgin America does something different" argument is not proof that AA did anything unreasonable here. You think AA should apparently wait until T-5 on all flights. But that's not their policy and you have no reason to expect it to be.

Segments

So you had cleared customs, rechecked your bags, and still took 30+ additional minutes to get to your gate?
(Presumes the minimum 45 minute cut-off for checked bag check-in and your stated arrival at the gate at T-12).

That begs the question ... was the delay solely due to a slow security clearance, less than fast walk to the gate or a decision to stop somewhere in route? How much of the delay was within your control?

jordyn

I don't think boarding five passengers at T-12 has any reasonable chance of delaying a flight, that's right. Is there some oddball one in eight thousand scenario in which it could conceivably happen? Sure, but that's not a helpful way to think about most problems.

Up to five standby passengers. And, honestly, have you ever watched a GA process standby passengers? If they're already on the list, it takes a few seconds each.

No, my discussion of people's arguments are based on the arguments they are making. People have argued: 1) waiting for these particular passengers would have delayed the flight, and 2) that the passengers were actually lucky because AA could have just cancelled their ticket and not owed them any money. These two arguments, specifically, are just not factual.

The argument that "the rules say T-15 and so the GA was justified in not allowing them to board" is at least an argument that makes sense. I don't find it persuasively explains why AA should get a pass for providing worse service than it is clearly capable of, especially when the cost to the affected parties was quite high in terms of inconvenience, but I guess there are some people who thinks rules are more important than actually making your customers happy.

The VX example was simply pointing out that it's possible to be much more flexible in this situation without affecting on-time performance as a general rule.

I'm not sure how you got that impression, I've never said that AA should wait until T-5 on every flight. But I do think that when told that passengers are on their way and with some ability to communicate with them about where they are, the GA can and should have been more flexible and held off processing standbys for those particular seats until later than the first possible moment in which they were allowed to. Moreover, when they actually showed up at T-12, the GA also would have been within their rights to offload the standbys and put the confirmed passengers back on the flight, but chose not to. Both of these are examples of poor customer service, even if allowed by the rules.

Let me put it another way: there's a rule against speeding and maybe we all agree that it's a fine rule in general. But if you're driving your wife to the hospital while she's in labor and a cop pulls you over for speeding, I expect his response to be (once he realizes the situation) "okay, let me help get you to the hospital so you can have your baby there safely" rather than chastising you about breaking the rules and making you wait 30 minutes while he writes you a ticket. I get the impression some of the rule-followers here would disagree, but I think it's obvious that there's situations where it makes more sense to ignore the rules to get the right outcome than to obey them just because they exist.

rjw242

The OP indicates that the family spoke with the gate agent several times starting at T-45, but without knowing specifics of the conversations it's hard to judge. Each time, did they tell the GA "they're just 5 minutes away, really they are" (as people tend to do)? If so, then the GA may have been understandably skeptical.

And if the GA was skeptical and boarded standby pax, do you really think they could be offloaded (and the new pax loaded) at T-12 without delaying the flight?

Segments

Not sure I agree with your example. If pulled over while speeding to get to the hospital than the cop may assume there is not sufficient time to get there and deliver the baby on the side of the road. Not sure if you would classify that as good customer service or not.

If the wife is not sufficiently dilated to deliver right then and there, why was the driver speeding? Because the law doesn't apply to women in labor?

And if the cop couldn't decide between the two above scenarios, what if he escorts them to the hospital, and then spends 30 minutes with the driver for the chastising and ticket writing. Would you claim it was poor customer service because the cop didn't wait until after the baby was delivered before detaining the driver?

Guess it depend on your perception of the right outcome. You presume to know more than the airline as to whether waiting until T-12 on this particular flight to process stand by pax would have resulted in a delayed departure and, if so, missed connections for other passengers.

~160 passengers were on board on time and deserved good customer service which includes on time performance. This includes 15 members of the OP family who were on the same connecting flight, and who by OP statements was at the gate at T-45. OP group of 5 passengers arrived late at T-12 (at best).

140 good customer service outcomes seem to outweigh 5 (+ maybe their 15 family members) perceived poor outcomes. I would call that a "right outcome".

jordyn

Yes. This sort of thing actually happens with some frequency.

Think about it. If the GA cleared standbys at T-15, there's no more than 3 minutes of activity that has to be unrolled once OP and family showed up. Even if that took twice as long as getting the people on the flight, that still leaves 6 minutes to board OP, even assuming everything is done in series and not in parallel.

RogerD408

I think there is a song that sums all this up: Sometimes you're the windshield, Sometimes you're the bug.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_rbjg2k6cI#t=56

imapilotaz

I'll try to say this nicely, who knows if it will come out this way. Go work a flight, see what a GA has to do in that final 15 minutes, clearing Standby's, loading gate checked luggage, etc. Then go ahead and start the process of removing people and their gate checked luggage (as has been reported on here many times, GAs are requiring most standbys to gate check anything larger than under the seat luggage), at T-12 and see how long it takes. Or you could send the standby passengers luggage (potentially revenue, potentially employee) on to the final destination while leaving the passenger who has been offloaded behind in MIA.

Every time a bag or person is added or removed from the aircraft, they must update the weight & balance and the dispatch for the aircraft. That is not an instantaneous process. There's a reason why at T-15 they want that process started. People can and do lose their jobs by ignoring these rules. The FAA frowns upon those who flaunt safety rules such as Weight & Balance.

scottsam66

So, you've now gone from "most" as previously stated. To 30%.
In your world, most is, around 30%. that's some dubya, fuzzy math there...
My point exactly, playing loose with the facts, to further a faulty narrative. Most were not connecting. 70% were not connecting, by your own admission.
Thanks!

rjw242

Ok, so I've realized it's fruitless to argue over what "could" happen. In an idealized and choreographed scenario, a full 777 could be boarded in 5 minutes.

What I'd indisputable is this: if late-arriving passengers are regularly allowed to board, those flights will on average depart later (keeping in mind that flights often depart earlier than scheduled if boarding is complete), to the detriment of the vast, vast majority of passengers who made it in time. I'd argue that getting out quicker produces the greater overall benefit.

Of course, anyone who barely misses a flight is going to argue that it should've been held "just a couple minutes more," no matter how late they were

jordyn

Despite the fact that it happens with regularity, let's just concede that it might be unreasonable to have the GA unload standbys for argument's sake.

I don't think this is actually a very important part of the overall discussion, which is why I didn't bring it up earlier. My general point is that waiting a few minutes for late-arriving passengers to process the last few standbys wouldn't meaningfully jeopardize the on-time departure of the flight (as evidenced by the fact that it happens frequently on both American and other airlines). I don't doubt at all that it makes life slightly harder for the GA. Things happen to me all the time that make my job harder. I usually don't like them and sometimes I complain about them. But I also try to do a good job and try to deal with the consequences the best I can in any case. In particular, I find that blind obedience to policies usually results in significantly more frustration and worse outcomes even if it adds certainty.

If you want to argue that it wasn't great customer service, but maybe the GA was overworked or having a bad day or maybe there were particular circumstances not explained to the OP that made it harder than usual to try to accommodate them on this flight, that's fine. But that doesn't make this good customer service, and people who insist that that it's okay just because the rules say it's okay exactly reinforce why the legacy airlines have such terrible customer satisfaction numbers. (Seriously--people like going to the DMV more than they like flying American. Think about that.)

P.S. Sure, I'd be happy to work as a GA for a day. Know any airlines that offer such a program?