I agree with your points. The RJ's when they board on-time often push back early - the mainline often late.

I am in the super minority in this thread with experiences. I cannot recall a single AA flight that I have been on boarding early. About 2/3 - 1/2 of of mine board late.

I was on this flight a couple months ago. On my way out of the A club at the stated boarding time (to the gate directly across from the club entrance), I was rhetorically asked by the AAngel if I had "lost track of time", as they were already on final boarding, and that I needed to hurry. She wasn't wrong, but I didn't appreciate the attitude from her, or the GAs. We were the last ones on, but the doors didn't close for another 20+ minutes.

No idea how early they started boarding the 788 to have it fully loaded at T-30.

When boarding times become inconsistent, the 1-4 boarding group benefit evaporates.

That policy is most likely to avoid bags being checked in and not having enough time to get to the plane. Bags have to go through TSA like everyone else, and at the end, cant walk to their gate on their own. Even if a bag is checked in late, if it doesn't arrive with you and you file a claim at your destination, that claim is reported to the DOT as if AA truly lost your bag. As it is, the policy barely cuts it at some airports. So if you're delayed because of bags, blame the person who arrived at the counter 46 min before departure. They are the one making you wait as their bag travels through the airport, gets screened by TSA, has whatever hazmat is inside it removed, waits for a ramp agent to rush it to the gate, is loaded, and then requires load sheets and manifests must be amended before departure.

I think you're missing the point. Other airlines allow baggage to be checked later than 45 minutes and don't have this problem. So it's infuriating that AA requires extra time to handle the bags and still can't manage to get them on the plane faster than the passengers.

On other airlines, they just tag a big red "LATE CHECKED" thing on your bag and make you sign a waiver, so it's really not an issue. I'm not sure if it's the stupidity of AA's ops or their crappy IT system and their quest to remove all aagent empowerment (apparently, a supervisor can no longer override the error). I've been able to get around it occasionally by SDFC to a later flight, checking the bag, and then SDFC back on to the original flight, but I think their system checks if you have checked bags and disallows this now.

Also, other airlines have shorter bag cut offs and WAYYYYYY more checked bags (like WN, with 2x checked bags free), and they don't have this ridiculous bag problem with the TSA causing them delays.

And that's besides the point, I mean why rush to load the plane full of pax if the bags aren't there yet?

Spot on.

Outside of the phone call, they really called?, people are shocked they board early? DFW Monday AM flights? You better be there 40 min before boarding if you want to be in your group.

I frequently see them close the door and 5-10 min before departure, but I have no expectation of them pulling back immediately.

Since AA doesn't notify us when boarding starts, here is the tip. Go on the app, click on 'inbound flight', if it's at the gate more than 45 minutes before you flight is supposed to take off, you might want to be there if don't want to be 'shocked' by early boarding. Otherwise allow 15-20 minutes for boarding to start after the 45 minute mark.

Sorry it's not really that complicated.

I have flown AA from DFW to GGG probably 8 times in 2018. Boarding was never announced and I arrived when boarding was supposed to start and was the last person on the plane (I don't have lounge access).
I think it's interesting that everyone is so interested in the airline's policy...and then when it doesn't get followed everyone gets upset. Here's the thing...I just try to adapt to what actually happens. A policy on a website somewhere means nothing. I don't want to miss my flight so I will just sit at the gate a few minutes before boarding is supposed to start. There is no way that anyone can "train" the airline to board at the correct time and close the door at the correct time. They don't care if you want to sit in the lounge before your flight. So, instead of me getting frustrated when I sit in the gate area or get on the plane and sit, I am going to adjust my expectations. I expect that flying isn't the most enjoyable experience and the whole motto is "hurry up and wait". Therefore I find myself being much less irritated.

Here's another idea that wouldn't be that complicated: just board at the time you print on the boarding pass.

Alternatively, if an AAgent wants to board earlier than they tell their customers, don't get grumpy with them when they've chosen to travel according to your documented times rather than requiring everyone to find this thread and read your rules of thumb.

Even better still: try to track and incent against a useful metric like "what percentage of passengers get to their final destination on time?" rather than "what fraction of the time do we close the door early?"

I don't see what is so onerous about a 45 minute check in (at most US airports) in this context of boarding flights early.

Can you prove that? I thought AA had one of the worst on-time performances.

Most of them.

JetBlue, United and Delta's all have default bag cutoff times of 30 minutes. Alaska's is 40 minutes.

Southwest's is also 45, but unlike AA they're willing to late-check bags. (So is Delta; I'm not sure about the rest.)

I don't disagree with this but when I know the reality is different than the policy, I'll go with the reality.

Oddly aa.com give you more information than the app. i.e. app says departed, aa.com says awaiting takeoff.

At LGA, if you are in the aa club, you can see gates 1-5, I'll just take a look to see if the plane has come to the gate and start the clock ticking to get to the gate.

DOT has established the measure for on time departures to include closing the door, I'm not surprised that it leads to bad behavior that negatively impact the pax.

Yes- this is what I hate. This past Sunday I arrived late into CLT from CHS- bad fog in CLT and they had to do a "precision landing"- we had to power down all our devices. So, we got to the gate half an hour late. It happens. I had 20 minutes to get to my connecting flight, which was posted on time. Made a breathless run through the terminal- and found that the inbound for my connecting flight wasn't even there yet. They finally posted a later departure time just before the original departure time.

It would certainly help if the app had correct info about flight status, including when a flight has started boarding.

I actually got refused boarding because I arrive T minus 15 mins before departure for an oversold flight PHL-BOS. I was trying to argue with the GA that I was supposed to be able to board because I was not late. But he insisted that "you were late". :(

It happened to me recently with AA
 

I was flying DFW to KOA on AA Boeing 772 last month. There were three of us flying from DTW with a connection time in DFW of about 1.5 hours. We decided to go to the American Express Centurion lounge to have breakfast and relax before the next 8+ hours flight (we were flying economy!). When we arrived in DFW, the connecting flight to KOA was showing at the same terminal where the lounge was, so short walking distance I thought. While in the lounge I checked the status of our next flight and it changed the gate to a different terminal. I panicked a bit not knowing how long it will take to reach the gate and left the lounge in a hurry about T-40. It took us 20 minutes to get to the gate but when we were about 3 gates away I received a call from AA asking if we are still going to make the flight because everyone else was boarded. I told the GA that we were seconds away. When we got to the gate the GA was nice and joked with us. I was surprised they boarded everyone in such a big plane and wondered when did they actually start boarding. The flight left the gate a few minutes late.

Based on what you posted yourself, AA's rules state that if you're not on board 15 minutes before departure on domestic flights, they can reassign your seat to another passenger. You can complain all you want, but they are following their contract of carriage if they deny you boarding at T-10. I agree that "bothering" you at T-20 is a little excessive; however, it was a courtesy call from a gate agent who was probably trying to get the flight out early (as you also mentioned). The fact that you ended up departing late could be due to the fact that the aircraft lost the opportunity/window for an early departure while waiting for that last minute passenger to arrive.

Assuming all the times are correct, the OP should have been allowed to board according to the airline's own rules. It doesn't matter if he was sitting in a lounge or racing from a delayed inbound flight.
Personally (flying UA), I'm always travelling with a roll-aboard so I get to the gate at or before the boarding time. I'm enjoying the relatively new 1K preboard policy - it eliminates the need to get in a lengthy Group 1 line. (The other day I saw a couple start the Group 1 line at T-60!) I like to get my gear stowed, headphones and work out, etc. before the crush. With UA, I find that boarding times vary by airport. I fly out of AUS, and it's common for UA to start boarding 5 (or more) minutes early. At their hubs and other airports, early boarding seems to be less common.

AA's boarding process is really a mystery.
Situation 1: at LAX, left FL lounge at T-30 sharp heading to Gate 42B for a tcon flight. Took me less than 5 minutes on the way and when I arrived at the gate it seemed the majority had boarded and there's no line at gate at that time. Good thing about tcon was there's still plenty OH space in F.
Situation 2: at MIA. I was closely monitoring the incoming flight on flightradar24 as the incoming a/c was still held on the taxiway. The app showed "boarding now" despite the a/c had not yet arrived at the gate. Asked an AAgent at lounge she said it should board pretty soon you should head to the gate. Boarding ended up commencing 20 min after scheduled departure. That's way more than enough time to take a shower and grab some small bites.

Eh, sort of. DOT does track that, but the primary statistic they publish is on-time arrival. The fact that AA obsesses about D0 is because they've chosen to focus on the metric they feel like they have the most control over instead of the one that their customers care about.

I have experienced this multiple times and missed two flights where the door was closed 20 minutes before departure time. And every time an unhelpful control-freak GA was involved.

I don't have my boarding passes anymore, but I am pretty certain that both of my DFW-HNL flights and DFW-KOA flights have had boarding times on the pass at T-45, which makes sense with the larger planes.

At least they made the effort. The last time I flew with AA they changed the flight's gate three times, different terminals in under an hour. Then they started boarding early, I was there 10 mins after scheduled boarding was to start, running the whole way, and they had already closed the door. I missed my flight and had to wait 4hrs for the next one. As I said, last time I flew AA.

Patrick

Yeah, widebody planes most definitely start boarding at T-45 if not T-50.

When I fly a 789 out of LAX boarding time starts at T-35 which is reflected on the screen at the gate but not on the app. Once boarding starts it takes10-15min to board. With the new bins there's a lot less jostling over where to put bags in the overhead.

I hate this too!! I had a too-close-for-me call HNL-PHX two years ago and I get anxious just recalling it from your post. We were only like 2 gates over charging our devices and when boarding was scheduled to begin, I walked over since we were in F. I found that the entire plane had boarded already!

More recently, flying LAX-PVG, I left the Flagship Lounge at the scheduled boarding time (which was right at the gate of my aircraft, 41 or 42 I think). When I walked up, I found them already boarding zone 7! I was correctly processed next via the priority lane, but I agree that boarding that early is absurd.

I'm fine with early boarding when they are ready, but proper announcement/notification is very needed.

AA's on-time fixation is crazy. This weekend, was flying MIA-DTW at 13:36. At about 12:45, I received a text that departure was now 14:00. I made my way to the gate -- arriving about 13:20. At that point, they announce that the delay is because there are no pilots available and that they will arrive in Miami at 14:00. At 13:30, they begin boarding the plane "so that they will be ready to go when the pilots arrive". I realize that there will be no way that we will depart before 14:30 and decide to sit in the gate area, rather than board. (My seat was in F on an A319). Almost immediately after they call Group 9 and the last passengers board, they page me to the counter. "Are you planning on getting on this flight?" Yes, I answered. Well, you need to board now or we will give away your seat, I was told. (All through this time, the AA app and the monitor are still showing a 14:00 departure.) I boarded the plane and of course, we did not depart until 14:45. So, when is T-15 or T-10 when AA shows departure at 14:00 even though that is completely impossible?

I did have this happen in CLT. The AA club was next to the gate. We had a delay, which was posted but they boarded the plane anyway. Fortunately I figured it out before I sat in the club and watched my plane pull away in front of me.

With MIA being a maint hub for AA, they could easily replace, if available, the aircraft with a similar configured aircraft and depart on time. They have done this in the past if the plane was doing a "turn-around" and coming directly back to MIA. Although rare as planes schedules are usually planned weeks in advance, it can happen, so tracking a plane on flightradar24 is not always accurate.

Had a bad D0 experience over the weekend. Flight into MIA from SFO for a deep South America connection was two hours late. I ran to my gate as I still had 15 minutes to make the connection and got there maybe 10 minutes before departure time. The flight, of course, had closed. By departure time, there was at least 15 people there from my SFO flight when the gate agent came up and started to rebook people for the flight the next night.

Obviously, the gate agent knew the SFO plane had 15 people connecting and would be arriving late. The planes sit in South America for 12 hours so holding the plane wouldn't cause any delays on the other end. I get the importance of D0 when a plane starts its day as those delays add on throughout the day but ... to the last flights of the day to South America?

On a JFK/MIA flight? Call me shocked!

Our experience last August:

Flying PHX-ORD-MAD, our PHX-ORD was diverted to STL due to weather and the airplane did not have enough fuel to stay in a holding pattern. While in STL, the airport staff helped with connections due to this delay and held our business class seat on an AA flight to LHR to connect to MAD but it was going to be very close to catch that LHR flight.

We had no checked bags, so we ran to the gate at ORD and made it with passengers still boarding, 25 minutes before schedule departure. The gate agent starts the process of changing our ticket and has some issues and asked for help from another gate agent. The last of the ticketed passengers boarded while the agents were still working on fixing our ticket. The gate supervisor made the decision to close the gate, 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time, leaving us at the counter because all ticketed passengers were on the airplane. The agent working on our tickets apologized, said there was nothing further she could do, told us to go to the AC and have them reschedule us and left for the jet bridge. My wife and I are both EP, at that moment, we made the decision we are no longer going to be loyal to AA and have barely flown them since. We will use up our AA miles and move on.

Suggested boarding time with a 2 year old in business?
 

My wife and I will be flying with our 2 year old out of FLL going to Charlotte next month on an A321. And then from Charlotte to Detroit on a Bombardier CRJ-900. I'm interested in advice about when to show up at the gate and when to board for both legs of the flight. I thought it would be wise to board late, hopefully letting my daughter burn off some energy in the terminal rather than make her sit on the plane for an extra half hour, but I'm reading posts up thread saying if you don't board early you risk not getting overhead space even in business. Thoughts?