yaatri has probably been married longer....

The key is knowing when to listen and when to ignore without l=giving them a clue. Take it form the wise man.

I understand your frustration. Carriers should try as much as possiblethat scheduled flight leave on time, not earlier in any case. There will alays be people who will be caught unawares. You were guilt because you were contacted by the airline on phone. What if your wife did not have a cell phone. What if she had been doing something important like her nails, seated in a hair salon, or in a meeting?
DL did changed the schedule by 15 minutes after check-in and sent me an e-mail. I did not miss the flight, but I could have, had I been busy buying up booze in duty free. I think advancing departure of a flight is not a good idea even though the carrier is well within its rights when doing so.

P.S. In this case, the should have clearly paid heed even if it goes against the totality of your experiences in 27 years.
Never give your wife's cell phone number to the airline. Better yet, don't give her a cell phone. j/k Strange things can happen when your wife talks to the airline.
"My husband is very highly placed and is on a very important mission. You had better leave on time, better yet, an hour earlier, or else......."

Actually, my wife is quite good. She keeps track of where I am, when in air, makes schedule changes and seat selection for me, when I am unable to. She used to be an elite before we gave up on every one being a plat.

SG has been fiddling with their schedule quite a bit recently.

AA has their own policy on this, probably a vestige from the era of regulated airlines. There is no uniform code/legislation regarding this issue afaik. Would be happy to be wrong on this.

I don;t know why anyone would say that there is no rule in the U.S. regarding this. There are rules.
To respond to your claimed right, when you don;t contact the airline even when a message has been delivered to you or to your agent, the wife in this case, you forfeit that right. You have to act in order to exercise your right. If you haven't received the message, most airlines will accommodate you on their next available flight. But being confrontational will not help you.

It seems the stars are conspiring to get me to stop flying SG! I had sworn off flying SG based on last experience. But i was so taken in by the friendly staff at the SG office in DEL last time when i went to resolve issue that I thought i would try them again.

I booked a return flight from DEL to BLR and back 2 days later. Ticket was booked on phone through call center by my office staff as I rushed home to pack and left for airport. Based on my instructions, staff had pre-ordered NonVeg meal on outbound sector DEL-BLR.

I barely made it to airport in time and rushing through checkin I boarded aircraft with seconds to spare before they closed. I took the printout for the ticket at the counter and though I was told they charge for providing print, they did not do so this time.

Once inflight, the meal carts were rolled out, and when asked what meal i would like to buy, i said I have pre-booked meal. FA checks her manifest and says no meal has been booked in my name. She checks my boarding-card and says that if i had pre-booked meal, my boarding pass should read NVML under a column called "SSR". Now i did not know this otherwise I would have pointed it out to checkin staff. I showed the attendant my ticket printout and it did say "Non veg meal" but did not specify which sector. She replied that it may be for the return sector. I assumed someone at my office may have goofed up while making the booking. Since I have to eat every few hours and i had not done so, i purchased a meal for 300 bucks: since NonVeg wasnt available, a Veg would have to do.

Now on the return, while check-in my Boarding card was still blank under SSR and this time I pointed it out only to be told that my BLR-DEL segment does not show any booked meals. Staff asked me to check with the booking office inside the terminal. Their records showed that my meal was booked for DEL-BLR segment! The staff at the airport asked me to show them the boarding card of my DEL-BLR flight and since I did not have that, i basically had no case!

On arriving in DEL on Wed, I called up their call-center to report the matter. 2 days later, i am contacted by SG staff who tell me that their records show that since a Non-Veg meal was not available, a Veg meal was offered instead and consumed by passenger! When i told them I had paid for it and the background, they promised to get back. 2 further days later I get word that a princely sum of Rs.50 will be refunded to the credit card that made the booking!

WHy was my name missing from the manifest? Poor systems?

If they closed and then reopened the flight for you (because you were late), your service request might have been wiped out.