Even as an airline pilot it baffles me when operating the last flight of the night that sometimes station operations wants us to hold for one or two pax, but other times when we have 15-20 pax on the ground running from a connecting flight they say to close early. It makes zero sense - it's to me like throwing darts whether or not a flight is targeted to be held.

As a passenger I stay away from anything close to MCT. DL and other carriers these days frequently bump things up as early by 5-10 minutes and that can make a perfectly legal connection go down the drain and subject to auto rebooking.

While not DL related, I was just dealing with an AA schedule change this week that went from a 2.5 hr connection down to a 53 minute connection (free change offered). Forgot about it and didn't remember until two weeks later got another notification of a change from 53 minutes down to 49. That caused me to definitely want to switch flights. Sat down to make the change and AA was no longer offering a free/even change. Started to call in but saw that the price of a new ticket had gone down by $100, so just went that route and got a credit. I'll take a 4 hr connection any day over a 40 minute one.

As is commonly repeated on FT, there's "MCT" and there's "SCT" ("Sensible Connection Time"). Of course SCT is subjective to each person and their own preferences, risk tolerance, back-up options, and other factors. My own minimum for major hubs like ATL is 1:15 but preference through any hub is for closer to 1:45-2:00. I figure 1:15 at least allows for a little bit of wiggle room on arrival and enough time to allow for getting off the plane, transiting from my inbound gate with a restroom stop enroute and arrive at the connecting gate a few minutes before boarding starts.

I've seen some crazy short connections offered on AA, including as short as 25 minutes in PHX. The itinerary where I saw that was for CVG/CMH-PHX-Hawaii. Definitely a no-go for me. No idea how one would make a 25 minute connection even if you arrived at the gate right next door to the Hawaii flight especially if seated towards the back of the inbound aircraft. And of course forget finding overhead space. And those flights were 1x a day to Hawaii so no alternate options if/when you misconnect.

Flying AA, DFW is heavily banked so I'm often faced with connection options of 40 min or 2-3 hours. More than happy to take the 2-3 hour option rather than trying to rush across DFW (where my DAY flight almost always arrives from or departs out of E but I have to connect out of one of the other concourses).

it’s a plan that not many DL agents would comprehend or agree to…

To me this is better customer service. DL can't even get their App to work right in IRROPS.

I'm speaking based on my time working AA Operations at DFW in a previous life ... but the concepts are the same.

There are TWO sets of 'duty' limits. The FAA limits and then the limits per the crew's union contract with the airline. The union limits are the more restrictive.
The FAA limits can not be exceeded. Period. Not even by one minute.
Union limits can be exceeded (obviously as long as the FAA limits are not also exceeded). It's my understanding that Dispatch/Crew Schedule can not ask a crew to exceed their contractual limit. But if the crew volunteers to take the trip anyhow, it is 100% permissible.

If the impression of caring is important to you, then yes, I agree, delta is pretty far behind.

yeah, that's exactly why I like 35-minute connections. I don't want to spend the whole day sitting in an airport. I for one am happy these short connections exist and don't think they're "absolutely crazy" at all.

I can't even imagine how much total extra time I have spent at home because of taking short connections. What I have always known is that a Delta flight is much more likely to be early than late, giving a few extra minutes on top of whatever. I never, ever run. I always knew what the risk calculation was and what the backup plan was, and with few exceptions over a couple of million miles, it worked out.

Two more things that annoyed me about this situation then I'll move on.

1. Why does Delta have 11 hours with no flights between two of its three western hubs? The last flight from SLC to SEA on Weds was at 9:00 pm (really 8:45 pm as we've covered) and the next one 8:00 am the next day. This strikes me as a larger than normal gap between hub flights. That makes things much worse for passengers (and employees) trying to get where they are going. There were flights to basically everywhere else in the west at 11:00 pm that night but not SEA. There is an 11:00 pm flight to SEA most days but not Wednesdays.

2. Flight attendants often make things worse by being overly optimistic and telling people to get off the plane first and run for it when there's really no chance of making it. There was an elderly woman in the 15 misconnects I was part of and she was nearly in a medical emergency situation after running for it. Technology exists to tell flight attendants whether a flight is being held or not. If you aren't going to tell your passengers in their app, at least tell employees.

UA may be better but does a fair bit of giving away seats early. I was on a MRY-SFO flight in 2023 that was delayed 45 min for fog, but we got lucky and landed only 30 min late with a long walk to the departure gate. We got to the gate at 20 min to departure time, with the door still open, but they'd already given our seats away. It was a transcon to the East Coast and the last flight of the day, so we were screwed. I had to cancel for refund and fly on another carrier because I had to be home that night.

There is one factor in the decision to hold a flight not mentioned. Many of Delta’s corporate contracts have a performance clause. If Delta does not meet certain ontime and completion requirements they have to rebate a percentage of the total cost of a contract as a credit for future travel. It is possible that if Delta is approaching a threshold where a penalty might be assessed across multiple contracts it could factor into a hold or not hold decision.
I am not aware of other airlines that offer performance guarantee’s.

That question can probably only be answered by DL's revenue management and/or DL's operations/fleet management departments.

Because passengers going from thinking they may make their flight to now getting the bad news they won't make their connection while still in the air on the inbound flight could lead to passengers getting frustrated and angry at the aircrews while still in the air on said inbound flight. We've all seen how some passengers act towards Gate Agents when they miss their flight, there are delays, etc. At least the police can more easily intervene when needed there.

Well that’s a horrific view of humanity. Pax can’t be told the truth or they might riot. Lol.

On my return through SLC tonight. Long layover and you guessed it…second flight is holding for connecting passengers.

Yeah, I don't buy the passenger riot danger thing. More information is always better because it gives pax options - especially in this age of onboard internet access. Most pax, indeed most people, believe in civil society and are logical enough not to blame service personnel for things beyond their control.

We experienced this exact issue last year on a connection from ATL → BOS → LIS.

We were seated in First Class and asked the FA if they could notify the ground crew in Boston that we needed the shuttle from Terminal C to Terminal A. The shuttle was scheduled to stop running right when we landed. The FA stated the shuttle wouldn't be available for us and we had to "run for it" and they would tell the gate. They told the same thing to the 20-30 people who were making the same connection.

We ran across the parking garage, had to re-clear security, and arrived at the gate in time only to see that boarding had been closed early. The gate agent was visibly confused when 10% of his flight's passengers arrived all at once and they were not prepared to rebook / hand out hotel certificates / find our checked luggage. This was a total communication breakdown by Delta. I do not understand the logic of forcing a misconnect and then having to pay for hotel + meals + SkyMiles for such a large group of passengers.

To add insult to injury, our original plane (the one we missed) landed in Lisbon 45 minutes ahead of schedule. A minimal effort to accommodate us would have easily prevented this entire incident.

I am aware of the saying, and I make my own choices about connection times based on various factors (as just one example, being in 36C on a 739 is very different than being in 2B in terms of buffer since deplaning a 739 takes at least 15 minutes after the door opens).

But for the average consumer, there is an assumption that Delta (or other airlines) will not intentionally sell you a ticket where most of your flights will end in a misconnect. If Delta ends boarding on most flights by T-15, and Delta knows you're on a Basic Economy ticket that will likely result in sitting the back third of the plane, and the plane is a 739, A321, or 753, and you are flying into Atlanta, then you will misconnect probably 75% of the time if you are connecting in Atlanta. The only time you make your flight is if your gate happens to be in the same side of the same concourse or your flight arrives quite early.

I know that's a lot of "ands" but my point is that Delta's current MCT assumes that the boarding door really closes around T-5, not T-15. So I just feel it is disingenuous to sell tickets with a MCT of 35 minutes and then "gotcha" passengers by saying, well, the contract of carriage says you needed to be at the gate T-15 and you weren't, sorry. And by the way, the inbound flight was on time (as defined by A14, so the flight could even be 10 minutes late in this scenario). And because of that, no compensation or accommodations are due for an overnight stay since it is your fault you didn't make it to the gate, not ours.

The average passenger that isn't a flying expert shouldn't get entrapped like that. And that is exactly what Delta is doing by selling tickets to passengers with a 35 minute MCT and then closing the door at T-12 or T-15, especially unnecessarily because flight ops is only measured on on time performance and doesn't deal with the CSAT impact or costs of missed connections.

At a minimum there should be a huge disclaimer to the passenger saying "are you sure you know what you're doing? we recommend you consider a longer connection." United is better about this than Delta because they tag tight connections.