Chiglet: From the handling agents viewpoint: we're not all "pains" as you put it. Where I work we always endeavour to board pax ASAP even if we know there's a bad slot; this is OK where it's the airline's stated policy to board on time/ASAP, but some airline's pilots refuse to board their pax even at the risk of missing the slot should it improve. Spanair are a prime example of this; they sometimes insist on not commencing boarding until T-25 minutes on a late slot even when we tell them that this mightn't be the best option! And then the slot generally comes forward halfway through boarding! You can't win. I can see where such pilots are coming from when it comes to not wanting to have pax on board for an hour before departure, but they don't seem to appreciate that slots do improve sometimes. Incidentally on a more humorous note, I dealt with an IL76 cargo flight a while ago that filed a flight plan at 18:30 and ended up with a slot at 21:25 the FOLLOWING evening. Ouch!