minnyfly

Your LAS flight arrived at the gate at 12:07. So the time when they could kick you off happened when you were getting out of your airplane seat in a different terminal.

It the SAN flight left before T-10, then I would be more upset about it. But it was right on the button. The next flight was just two hours away, so I can see why they're not waiting for you. It's not like you were a group running for the last flight out for the day. From their standpoint, you have no chance of being there in time and are guaranteed to squeeze the timeline. Ironically your initial delay was due to a late inbound. Keeping things on-time minimizes those late inbounds when little things crop up along the way.

Aussienarelle

I think you swapped seats with me - 1A for 2A, if you are talking about today. Thanks again for swapping so I could put my carryon under the seat in front of me.

I really thought you would make your flight. Sorry to hear you did not, especially as the LAX-ORD departure was after mine. At least you got to wait in the GFL. All I got was a surly here's the new BP.

I actually think my frustration has more to do with the new metrics for the crew/GAs as I think this has changed behaviour. Not being uber dramatic just frustrated to watch the plane leave without me.

iluv2fly

This happened about a year ago.

And I don't swap seats.

mander

Happened to me last week in IAH. Showed up at gate five minutes before departure and jetway had been pulled back.

I was nice about it as was the agent when she saw I understood.

Ended up waiting three hours for the next flight. I got a nice shoeshine and dinner and chilled in the UC.

The world did not end.

Aussienarelle

Yes, agree first world problem.

Cancelled my plans for attending church with my friends this afternoon.

Fortunately my friends now know to not rely on me if the plans are after arriving on a United flight.

I should have known better than to allow for 45 mins at LAX. Mea culpa.

mahasamatman

To me, that would not be a favour. I don't do redeyes. I would request another airline or a flight the next day (I wouldn't bother asking for a hotel because I know they don't do that even if it's their fault).

You might want to consider if UA is really the best option to triple or quadruple your travel time over a non-stop.

Often1

UA's practice is no different than that followed by AA & DL on domestic.

The cutoff is T-15. As soon as all passengers at the gate have been boarded, the flight may close and then push. Additionally, at T-15, if the flight is overbooked and at risk of oversale or there are other standby passengers, the GA is authorized to offload no shows (no show being simply one who is not at the gate -- does not matter why) and board the SB's.

Might the GA hold a seat as late as possible? Yes. Might Operations (not the GA's decision) hold a flight for connecting pax known to be close? Yes. But not often. The decision does not reflect on the value of your business, simply the imperative to keep to a flight schedule.

mathprof

Flight from HNL-SFO delayed over hours because the flight crew was being flown in on a delayed flight. Pilot made up around half an hour in the air. Door opened at T-4 for. SFO-LAS plane that was departing from the gate next door. I was one of more than 20 who would have been on that flight but the door was closed already and another GA in sight. I was lucky, got a flight the next day. Was told others with no status were hoping for standby seats because the earliest confirmation for them was 2-3 days later.

TA

Just because you're there 5 minutes before departure doesn't mean that they can reopen the flight to let you board and still depart on time.

There are processes that have to be done which is why the door has to close. And anyone's arrival / reopening the flight would reset that timer, and then probably cause the flight to be late.

Even though it appears on the surface you could jump the gap to the plane, doesn't mean that it's that straightforward.

T-15,T-10 is the rule, and sometimes it's got to be followed -- count it as a lucky bonus the times you're able to get on when that has passed.

Repooc17

I know the feeling: Consolidated cancelled/delayed domestic flights [2018]

I had a connection at LAX earlier this month for a cross country flight that should have never happened (original route: SEA-EWR; new route: SEA-LAX-EWR due to chaos at Newark). Should have had plenty of time except the regional jet had sat on the tarmac forever. At T-5 for LAX-EWR, had not yet deplaned still; had decided then to phone UA and asked the CSR to reach out to the GA and hold the flight for a few more minutes. Then had to (verbally) fight with connecting pax to SAN and ORD because the EWR flight had scheduled to leave in a matter of a few minutes (SAN and ORD had a little more time). Also, the regional had arrived at T-8; while the ps flight had departed from T-7.

Often1

GA's do not make the decision to hold flights. That is made by Ops and it is based on a whole lot of factors with the default being that the flight is not held.

UA routinely holds TPAC flights at SFO & LAX because the consequences of a misconnect can take an extra day or two to support, because the aircraft can generally make up time enroute and the turn time at most Asian destinations is sufficient to handle a bit of a late arrival.

Not so for TCON, especially to EWR where NYC airspace can mean that a delay is held for a good bit of time or holds over NYC.

chermorg

I'm sorry but as someone who is also very time-centered and has multiple deadlines to make I cannot help but wonder why OP thinks they're entitled to have a plane wait for them, one person, from a connection. There are so many reasons a hold may not even be possible, much less doable:

1. Crew timeout if they don't get it in a very specific takeoff spot
2. A takeoff spot that is assigned by the airport, ATC, ARTCC, or another agency that is limiting flights in/out/through an airport, waypoint, or region.
3. Potential connections at the destination that would be missed by passengers who were delayed waiting for you.

and so many more. You make it seem as if the plane left early, yet you, as a 1K, seem to not understand how boarding works - boarding happens, "final boarding" is announced, and then a flight is "closed" - after which time the flight does not immediately push back and is magically in the sky, but things must occur from the GA computer to UA's central computers to the pilots and crew. The final preparation for the flight, final weight and balance checks, fuel confirmation, and other things that go on don't just happen in 5 seconds - hence why a flight is closed 10 minutes prior to departure time - any longer and it risks not pushing back on time. Once a flight is closed, it is a PITA to reopen it to allow someone else to board the flight. Even the process of reopening the flight to let you on it would have taken time, which would've added to the delay the flight experienced. Further, it is at the pilot and ground crew's discretion and control to push back once the flight is closed - they may very well ask the ground crew to push them back while they're running final checks if they're short on time, or if they want to get out of the ramp before another plane. The gate agent does not control push back - the pilot does.

The bottom line is you were not present for boarding 15 minutes prior to scheduled departure time. The flight had boarded, the "final boarding" had been announced, and the flight was likely closed by the time you got there. Misconnects happen. You got handed the poor end of the stick on this one. There is absolutely no reason to assume that you are somehow special and deserve to inconvenience 100+ other people just so that you can get on a flight. You are claiming this was an "early departure". It does not sound like that was the case. The flight was likely closed at T-10, and the pilots between T-10 and T-5 decided to push back. That does not mean it was an early departure. That is the very definition of an on-time departure.

emcampbe

T-10 was a long, long time ago. Ever since the merger, its T-15.

Door to the ramp should be closed if the plane was pushing back. Gate was not closed early at T-7 - as mentioned, if you are not there by T-15, UA has the option to offload you. It doesn't always happen this soon, but does often. You can argue about whether or not they should have more flexibility when late arriving pax are connecting and UAs fault. But once doors are closed, numbers have been sent in, and adding a new pax cause those to need to be re-run, which can not only take extra time to make the delay greater, but can lead to other further delays. For example, if you miss your slot, they need to find the next available. What if its not for an hour (probably an extreme example, but the point is the same).

Good decision not to run down the ramp, which not only wouldn't have gotten you on the flight, likely would have escalated the situation to a security issue and would have involved police - probably not a good way to get yourself on next available flight, either.

Nothing new here. It been that way at UA for pretty close to 5 years for domestic flights (It's T-30 for international). It's also in the CoC.

Prior to the merger, I think CO was still T-15 for domestic, T-10 for old UA. Either way, at 7 minutes, you missed it. I've had it happen to me as well for late connections, in one case, couldn't get a new flight for 24 hours. This kind of situation absolutely sucks, yes. But unfortunately, the way it works.

Under T-15, it's not for certain doors will close and seat will be given away, so its always worth some effort. If boarding is delayed, takes longer than they have time for, etc. its possible you could still get on. I've had situations work both ways. Sucks when you hustle and it doesn't work out, for sure.

5 minutes ahead of what? Scheduled departure time, or T-20 from departure time, when doors have to still be open. Makes a huge difference. At 5 minutes prior to departure, you arrived at the gate 10 minutes too late.

Didn't you say in your OP that you want to go back to WN, after saying you switched from them becuase all their flights were late?

You had a short connection, which is always a greater risk, especially at airports where ops are spread across multiple terminals. I've only been as high as plat, typically a gold, so not as much flying as a 1K, for sure, but I still learned a long time ago that no matter who I fly, if its really important I be somewhere, that I don't take a flight that is scheduled to arrive just before, and always give a buffer. If it's really, really important, probably best to fly in the day before. What if LAX, for example, was fogged in (I use this, because I flew out of LGB a few weeks ago, and was delayed 3 hours due to this). Every flight in the airport from at least 8:30 am to 1:00 pm was delayed at least an hour, some much longer. No one's fault, really, and you still get in late. Stuff happens. Welcome to life.

Other factors too would help them not hold longer flight, like crews can time out very easily on ULH flights (i.e. EWR-HKG, LAX/SFO - SYD/MEL/SIN, etc.). And then that becomes an issue for the 200+ people on board, not just the few people that would misconnect.

DJ_Iceman

I feel for the OP--no one likes to miss a connection for any reason. And even for a very frequent flier, it can feel like a particularly rough kick in the teeth to run through an airport to make it to a gate before the scheduled departure time only to JUST MISS it and then have to get reaccommodated.

That being said, plenty of other posters have explained why it happened in this case, and why getting to the gate "on time" is actually 15 minutes late. I'd like to relay another recent story, though, that gave me hope United still has a chance to turn around their poor reputation for customer service. I was flying home in paid F from BOS to LAX on the Saturday before Christmas. When I got to the airport I found that the flight was delayed two hours due to late inbound aircraft arrival--it was coming in from LAX and when I checked, I saw that it was going to be much more than two hours late. I got on the app, found that I could change to BOS-SFO-LAX and still get home sooner than the non-stop, and J/F space was still available so I took it. Then, after boarding, we sat at the gate for a couple of hours due to a mechanical issue; my generous connecting time in SFO was going to be pretty sporty. We finally took off, and I enjoyed the "premium transcontinental service" that I wouldn't have gotten on the non-stop to LAX. About two hours before landing, a flight attendant came to my seat and bent down, thanking me for being a 1K flier and saying that they knew I had a really tight connection. They had radioed ahead to have them hold the LAX flight as long as possible, he had our arrival gate and the next departure gate written down for me, and told me that once we were doing taxiing he would come escort me to the boarding door so I could be the first one off the plane. Frankly, I was floored--I didn't even know GS fliers got treated so well. I thanked him profusely, then logged on to the United app from the plane to verify the gate info he had given me. That's when I found out the SFO-LAX flight was delayed by an hour so I was going to have plenty of time to make the connection. I went up to the galley to let him know and to let him know the special treatment wasn't going to be necessary. I also wrote 1kVoice after that flight to personally thank that flight attendant (and the whole crew, who were actually superb)

chermorg

T-15 is the mandatory time for you to be there to be guaranteed boarding (assuming you have a valid ticket). If you present yourself after T-15, United (or their regional carriers) are not required to permit you to board. I have always heard GAs and FAs say that they are not permitted to close out flights until T-10. Whether this is true or it just happens to be the personal policy of the multiple GAs/FAs I've heard say it I'm not sure of.