Tolarian Wind

According to the gate agent and supervisor at FLL effective Jan 14 2016 you cannot standby for an earler flight less than 30 minutes before scheduled departure time.

TW

arollins

Most likely the case of lAAzy agent. I just did that this past weekend, and the flight was leaving <30 minutes, however, in my situation, I did it with one of AAngels at the DFW C19 AAdmirals club.

DWFI

I've heard this supposed "rule" a few times now.
It's not an actual policy.

It's either a lazy agent or one that really wants to get their non rev friend/family on the flight and knows you'll bump them.

Tolarian Wind

There was nobody left at the gate waiting. flight had finished boarding 20 minutes early. Seats were available in Y and F. Agent said new rule and pointed to it on a memo. She then closed the jetway door and the flight left 15 minutes before scheduled departure time.

TW

Shawn02139

I arrived at 9:10 for the 9:30 flight, one agent was accepting the boarding passes of the last three customers. he said "I can't help you here--you have to go to the service counter" and pointed to the service counter which had five people in line for one agent.

A woman behind me hoping to standby for the earlier flight complained as well, and he said "even if you get a ticket for this flight, your are not getting on."

I went to the club and they immediately cleared me on the 9:30, I mentioned that they used to be a lot nicer at the Shuttle gates, and the agent said "yes, we've been hearing a lot of complaints"

Manged to get on the flight, but share this frustration. I wonder if AA is trying to increase on-time percentages? 30-minute standby rule would really reduce value of shuttle tickets.

wetrat0

I have seen a GA tell 5 people in a row who wanted to standby that the flight was "so full that she could not add them to the standby list". Yes, her 2 friends cleared the non-rev list just before the door closed.

This was even during IRROPS.

ETA: this was L-US so YMMV (but I bet her friends at least got a PDB).

Tolarian Wind

My experience was with LUS gate agents as well.

TW

ShortDog

On Sunday, 7 February, I walked up to a gate a T-25, handed over my boarding pass for a flight three hours later, and asked if there was still F available. The lady smiled, typed away, and handed me an F boarding pass for the flight. F was less than half full, and we pulled away on time.

E55

You left out her saying, "Ohhhhhh, in your FACE!"

DWFI

Oh believe me, I speak from experience - an even more egregious scenario than the above.

T-20, BOS-EWR flight on B6: 5 on the standby list, I'm #1. Agent calls pax up and says "flight will be full, would you like to be rolled over to the next flight" (which was in 6 hours). 4 pax say fine, knowing no better.

Meanwhile, I see the agent talking quietly with another person who is clearly not a GA, behind the counter. I had a hunch that we were being duped, so I told her very explicitly that she was not to roll me to the next flight until the first one was pushed from the gate.

T-10, GA and friend still talking quietly. Friend looks very distraught and is crying, GA is apologizing. I get a seat - the last one. Mrs. Friend does not.

As I was boarding, I told the GA that instead of apologizing to her non rev friend, she should be apologizing to the passengers (who are paying her salary) that she lied to. Disgusting behavior.

Often1

I asked an agent boarding the Shuttle last week and she did it for me, but told me that it is now policy.

She said that agents have been told that the Shuttle is simply a mainline flight called Shuttle.

Given the large # of huge corporate contracts which include full change/refund on Shuttle routes, the place to complain is through the individual administering the corporate contract in your organization.

Over a period of 30 years, it's actually become harder to make this change !

JDiver

Of course none of this is reflected on aa.com.

https://www.aa.com/i18n/utility/sameDayTravel.jsp

DWFI

Just spoke to an agent (F__n) in the JFK FL and she said she knew of no such rule or policy change.

That's not to say it doesn't exist, but just a data point.

Tolarian Wind

I called and spoke to an EXP agent who told me policy varies by station and that would not be found in the official policy on aa.com

Lmao

TW

JDiver

"policy varies by station and that would not be found in the official policy on aa.com" = "we're making it up as we go along".

Thanks for the information.