American Airlines has officially rolled back one of its more frustrating policies: passengers can once again list for standby directly with an airport gate agent, regardless of AAdvantage membership or status.
American Airlines Restores Gate Agent Standby Listing
In a welcome move, American Airlines has announced that passengers may once again list for standby with a gate agent. The reversal, effective July 1, 2025, walks back a policy that had only gone into effect last year.
In March 2024, American restricted gate agents from adding customers to the standby list. Passengers were instead directed to use the mobile app, aa.com, or an airport kiosk (and even that was restricted to AA AAdvantage members and cut off 45 minutes before departure). If those methods failed, too bad. Agents
were instructed to stand firm and not assist, unless a passenger had AAdvantage elite status. It was a confusing and needlessly inflexible rule from the start.
That posture has now changed. American has formally announced that agents may once again assist customers at the gate:
[A]ll customers are eligible to list for same-day standby with an agent up to 45 minutes prior to departure – regardless of AAdvantage membership or status. The policy is only applicable to domestic flights and segments.
We are continuously looking for ways to enhance the travel journey for our customers and this update gives all customers the convenience of a flexible itinerary, space permitting.
Under the new rule all passengers can request same-day standby at the airport. AAdvantage non-members and general members must still be added to the list 45 minutes before the flight while AAdvantage elite members can continue to be added up to 15 minutes before departure.
This is a positive step. Delta and United never went this far in removing agent discretion, and American’s approach created unnecessary friction. There’s nothing more maddening than being at the podium and told to use
your phone instead, especially when the mobile app did not work!
> Read More: American Airlines Agent: “We Don’t Do Standby At This Airport”
While this may not seem revolutionary, it restores a basic layer of customer service that travelers should reasonably expect. Getting people on their way earlier serves two purposes. First, it makes for happy and more loyal passengers. Second, in case of later irregular operations, it minimizes overall disruption if passengers are already on their way to their destination.
The benefit of standby is most often present when you show up to the airport or arrive from a connecting flight just in time to make an earlier flight. In that sense, I find even the 45-minute cutoff a bit much (especially if a flight is wide open), but this policy change is still a positive step.
CONCLUSION
American Airlines fixed a mistake. Preventing gate agents from helping passengers list for standby served no one. The technology-first approach fell apart when technology failed, which was often. Bringing back in-person standby requests won’t change the world, but it will reduce frustration and make travel just a little bit easier. Credit where it’s due…good job AA. Thank goodness Vasu Raja is gone…
image: American Airlines
Nah, it’s a nothingburger. Most of the non status or card holder members flying AA are buying Basic Economy a couple times a year at most. They don’t even understand what Same Day Standby even means.
This probably effected 1 in 10,000 AA flyers and that might be generous. It’s just that a few vocal voices in your “industry” bitched loud enough and a change was made.
Again, this affects next to no one. Deciding which flights have Biscoff and which ones get pretzels is a bigger issue.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I fly AA mostly, I’m an EXP, but I fly UA and DL a couple of times a year, usually for something work related when I’m in a hurry. I often standby or SDC on those flights. Losing some of the ability to do that would impact me materially.
I agree that most once-a-year flyers didn’t care about this, but I suspect business travelers flying AA as a backup did, and you really don’t want to piss them off. They could be valuable customers one day.
Simply because someone doesn’t “know” what “same day standby” means doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be impacted by it. On the contrary, they are the ones LEAST likely to know how to use the app or navigate through the 800 number menu and would instead prefer to talk to the agent standing right there whose knowledgable about the issue.
Sure, many in that category are lowly Basic Economy flyers but many are simply old fashioned senior citizens or, I daresay on this forum, immigrants who may not be as familiar with the system.
As an ever, the language is great: “We are continuously looking for ways to enhance the travel journey for our customers [so we’re backpedaling on this thing we did last year.]”
Matthew Klint…you’re an idiot. You say this polucy is a welcome move. Wrong. Might I suggest you get off your ass and go work as a gate agent for a week with this ridiculous policy and see how it rocks your world. Great…you travel alot. Big f*cking deal. There are hard working poorly paid employees that do the hard work and this policy makes it harder for them. Wake up and try to see this from the side of the workers who have to cater to you.
@Rich? Which airprot do you work at?