[joezydeco]

There are physical staff at airports, but you can't have 40 agents standing around at each counter waiting for the next disaster to arrive and help with rebooking. So you hire two per counter. But that means when something comes up, everyone is stuck in line for hours to get help face-to-face.

[gib444]

I didn't say there is no staff. I said "useful staff" and then clarified I meant staff empowered to help during IRROPS. But I appreciate this is about the US and most of my experience is in Europe. I guess things aren't so bad in the US?

In my experience in Europe, there are very very few staff who can help, except at major hubs. Even then, if you've not got high status, you won't get much help.

> but you can't have 40 agents standing around at each counter waiting for the next disaster to arrive and help with rebooking

That is the exact excuse they used to reduce the empowered agents to 0