Re-opening door

[Dcburns2]

So how and when is a gate agent allowed to reopen a door for boarding? I recently got to a flight late, right after they had closed the terminal door. I went up and asked and the gate agent told me boarding had closed. It sucked, but I was the one who was late due to traffic so I just started heading towards the counter to get a different flight. Not even 30 seconds after I was told boarding was closed, the gate agent reopened the door to let another passenger get on while i was stuck getting a flight two hours later. So is this something where if the gate agent just decides to do it they are able to?

[TheMiddleSeat]

While I don't know of any official policies, my guess is Southwest (and other airlines) are more likely to reopen doors or make exceptions when they are trying to accommodate passengers that were delayed/late because of something the airline was responsible for. My guess is the other late passenger was making a connection and the incoming flight was late, perhaps due to a mechanical or crew issue on the first flight. I'm surprised you weren't also allowed to board, but could be an unfortunate case of bad timing, having just walked away. If you were standing right there at the exact moment they might have let you on. Or, you had already been considered a no-show and your seat was given to a standby passenger while the other passenger hadn't been marked no-show yet because they were connecting. Hard to say exactly what happened, but there are some possible, reasonable explanations for it.

--TheMiddleSeat

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