enviroian

“slightly” will be used to AA’s advantage unfortunately. He said she said. Your wife got stiffed as AA got trigger happy with releasing her seat prematurely (presumably).

fastflyer

The roots of this problem go way back -- legacy US often would start boarding at T-40 and almost always by T-35. Legacy AA fliers were used to a more common T-30 start time and so we often showed up at T-30 or near. If it was a legacy US gate agent, they'd certainly be on group 7 by T-30.

It seems that the legacy US tradition has won out. All flights seem to be listed to start boarding at T-35 or T-40 nowadays. A-321s are usually at T-40 and international flights sometimes start even earlier. The consequence is that if the crowd is efficient, the flight can be fully on the jetway by T-25, at which point a fast-working GA might close out the flight, close the jetway door to deliver the paperwork, and get the plane pushed at T-15. Yes they are supposed to wait right up until T-15, but would you rather be in-the-right or on-the-flight? This does seem to happen more at outstations than hubs, where GAs know people are dealing with tight connections.

IAHtraveler

Per the CoC, pax must be ready to board 30 mins prior to departure for domestic flights. If the pax showed up at T-29:59 or later, the pax didn't meet the CoC and isn't eligible for anything, unfortunately. I completely disagree with the CoC (see below) but that doesn't mean I'm right.

I've been offered many (and bought some) tix with 25 minute connections. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but I agree the 30-min time frame listed in the CoC is baloney.

js1993

Maybe I missed it upthread, but exactly how much later did your wife arrive home?

I doubt the OP's wife will get anything except possibly some miles, but regardless of what the CoC says, nobody believes the above, including AA.

TWA884

Gate agents have information about which passengers are connecting, the numbers of the flights on which they are arriving, the time that the flights blocked in and the gate numbers.

js1993

Yes, but the GA in this case also would have seen that the OP's wife was an originating pax who had checked a bag.

TWA884

In my experience, they are more likely to cut slack for a passenger with a tight connection than an originating passenger who takes their sweet time getting to the gate.

Flying for Fun

How many times do they actually commence boarding at T-40 or T-35? Not many in my experience. It always amazes me how efficient QF is with boarding. Gate opens 20 minutes before departure and closes 10 minutes before departure. They will load a 737 from the front & back at the same time. I flew SYD-MEL on an A330. Gate opened at T-20. We were all boarded, buttoned down & pushed back 19 minutes later.

James

Collierkr

The traveler has no recourse. I just don't get why these stories continue to be told. There is ZERO advantage to waiting to board. Get on the plane as soon as you have the opportunity to do so. Taking this tact avoids a number of possible complications including finding someone else in your seat, not having space for your bag, and OH yeh missing your flight. Very likely that the GA made an announcement or two looking for the trvaler and when they weren't responding the seat was given away.

redtop43

First, IME AA has been commencing boarding at T-35 for quite a while.

It puzzles me though how they could know whether a pax is "in the boarding area" at T-30. Most later boarding groups don't start to board until after that, so if you're in group 9 and group 9 is called at T-19 and the line doesn't clear until T-14, how do they know when you got to the boarding area? If you are Group 1, are you obligated to board with your group, so if you don't board until (say) T-25, they can say you weren't there at T-30 and give away your seat? I frequently find myself getting in line with group 5 or 6, usually because when I hear the boarding announcement I made a run to the restroom for one last coffee recycling before I board.

It does seem that a simple "best practice" would be to call all confirmed pax at T-15 and not give away seats until after that. Alas, "AA best practices" is an oxymoron.

Kacee

I find AA to be quite pretty consistent about hitting scheduled boarding time (except of course when the inbound is late).

When they make "last call" and page the pax who haven't boarded, and you're not there. That's when you get offloaded.
Exactly. You're not going to get anywhere arguing with the GA after you've been offloaded and/or they've closed the door.

js1993

Couldn’t disagree more. As the old saying goes, if you don’t miss an occasional flight, you’re spending way too much time in airports (or at gates). Now, I wouldn’t cut it extremely close if it was an urgent trip or the only flight of the day to my destination, but there’s no way I’m voluntarily adding an extra 15-20 minutes of gate and/or plane time to each trip, even in J, and even in the good old days of PDBs.

Dave Noble

Depends on how many replacement tickets you are prepared to purchase when a no-show for a flight. That is not a great saying when purchasing tickets where a no show can cause entire ticket to be worthless.

mvoight

AA says you should be there by T-30 minutes, but clearly indicates your seat might be given away at T-15.
That would seem to clearly say you have until T-15 to claim your seat.

jrb CO

She was lucky as the only other flight that could get her home was boarding 2 gates away and they gave her the final seat. She got home only 4 hours later. If she had missed that flight it would have been an overnight.

It was her own fault for not going down earlier. She was hanging in the AC also 2 gates away. She said that on the same originating flight that she was stuck on the bridge way for a long time with a crowd of folks and she wanted to avoid that.

I feel I am treated reasonably well while traveling as EP. I would have assumed they would cut someone with plat status a little slack. Her seat was clearly given away before the 15 min mark. Per the rules, they clearly had that option.

I still would like to reach out to customer service. Best route?