Terrible, lousy Lift Airlines customer service

My brother and his family were supposed to take a flight from Dbn to Jhb this morning, Sunday, 25 June 2023. The flight departed @ 06:15. He arrived at the counter 5 minutes after the boarding gate supposed to close. 15 other people wre also there the same time. They refused to let all of them board. They wanted all of them to pay for a standby ticket with no guarantees of even catching the next flight or rebook a flight for the next day. I feel it's ridiculous. He has 2 small kids. A little empathy would have been appreciated. Terrible service, Lift Airlines..... I wish we had other airlines as competition to this lousy company. Perhaps then there greed would disappear and they wouldn't treat their valued customers like garbage on the way to the dump yard 😡😡😡😡