As most of you have seen on my blog, I recently got a job working for SkyWest, a regional carrier for United Airlines, as a Customer Service Agent.
Basically, I stand at the gate, make announcements, tag bags, and scan you onto the plane.
Going through training during the Thanksgiving Holiday has given us the opportunity to see all kinds of people though. Young people. Old people. Nice people. Mean people. Stupid people. et al. etc..
Displayed prominently on the ticket jackets for everyone who got their ticket printed at the airport is the info that you need to be at your gate 30 minutes prior to departure and that boarding starts 20 minutes prior to departure. For everyone, regardless of where you got your ticket, the departure screens all over the place tell you that doors close 10 minutes prior. Technically, if you are not there 30 minutes prior to departure, your reservation is subject to cancellation with no refund. It is the traveler’s responsibility to show up on time. As an airline, we are required to close the door 10 minutes prior to departure to ensure that the plane is able to actually leave at the scheduled departure time. One of the reasons we have to give this 10 minutes buffer is that things go wrong…
This is especially true during the holidays when many things go wrong.
So… when you run up to the gate screaming and waving your arms with 1 minute and 17 seconds left on your magic stopwatch that all of the airlines surely knows about and has sync’d their clocks you may very well see a plane sitting at the end of the jetway…
but it is not your plane…