63 Ole Miss Fans Risked Missing the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix—American Switched Gates and Saved the Connection


The College Football Playoff semifinal sees #6 Ole Miss Rebels against the #10 Miami Hurricanes outside Phoenix on Thursday evening. It’s the ticket to the title game, and Wednesday was cross-country travel day for fans of both teams. Flights and connections get tight and people are desperate not to misconnect.

ESPN and Old Miss broadcaster and SuperTalk Mississippi radio host Richard Cross was trying to get to the game, along with scores of other fans, on American Airlines connecting flights through Dallas. But their inbound from Memphis was delayed and it looked like a misconnect.

He tweeted American asking them to hold the Dallas – Phoenix flight, and the group made their connection because of some creative maneuvering at the airline’s Integrated Ops Center – moving the Phoenix flight from Terminal C to Terminal B, ultimately putting it just a few gates from where the Memphis flight arrived.

American Airlines 2293 from Memphis to Dallas was reportedly late due to a medical issue on the inbound. According to Cross, 63 people were connecting to the same Phoenix flight. So one misconnect could strand many very loud, very motivated football fans. And that’s a lot of people to reaccommodate on other flights.

Call it 5 minutes to deplane, and 10 minutes to make it from one plane to the other, my bet is they’d have made it by doors close, but it would have been tight.


DFW Terminal B SkyTrain Station

The Memphis inbound was originally slated for a variety of C gates in Dallas (C35 -> C27 -> C26 -> C21). It got moved to B9. That Phoenix departure was leaving from B18. It got moved to B12.

At the time of the tweet, the flight was coming into C26, and the connection left out of B12. American moved the Memphis flight to B9, so there’d be plenty of time to make it from one aircraft to the other – and make it to the Ole Miss game.


DFW C Terminal

Holding a departure is expensive. It can delay the next flight out of Phoenix (actually several – whatever that plane was operating, plus wherever crew were going). It can affect crew legality and gate availability for other flights.

Changing gates didn’t require delaying the departure. Not only did everyone get on, but the Phoenix flight pushed back six minutes early.

And holding the flight would have still meant sprinting for the connection. Everyone just walked a few gates instead.

I’d note that LSU fans chimed in that that Phoenix flight should depart early. And in fact it did. American wasn’t taking sides in the match!


American Airlines Gate at DFW Airport

Meanwhile, American Airlines was not the only carrier taking good care of Ole Miss fans in the air. Southwest gave them a nice welcome:

But this comes on the heels of American going to lengths I don’t think I’ve ever seen from them to take care of a passenger trying to connect to Sydney to reach the funeral of the rabbi killed in the Bondi Beach massacre. They’ve started holding flights in some cases, which is a huge shift for them.

The former CEO told employees they shouldn’t use discretion to do what they think is right to help passengers make flights. And the upshot was that he wasn’t willing to give an inch on “D0” exact on-time departures.

Generally an airline is more likely to hold your flight if,

  1. a lot of customers are trying to make the connection
  2. there aren’t other options for getting this group to their destination
  3. delaying the flight will have only a limited effect on the operation – further delays, crew timing out, other passengers misconnecting later

It’s another great, high profile save in a few weeks from an airline where you didn’t used to see much of that at all, and that’s really positive.

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63 Ole Miss Fans Risked Missing the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix—American Switched Gates and Saved the Connection

Igor Jeuhan