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Another try at orderly boarding

An orderly boarding process is the Holy Grail for airline gate agents. (Image: Jim Glab)

Airlines are constantly changing around the way the board passengers, and American and Delta are the latest to add new twists to the process.

Instead of calling out eligible boarders by category (“Executive Platinums…AAdvantage Golds” etc.), American this week started giving numbers to the relevant groups, from 1 to 9. There’s even a sort of “Group Zero” – ConciergeKey members, who can pre-board ahead of the masses.

Group 1 consists of first class passengers (or business class on a two-class international flight) and active duty military, the same as before. Group 2 covers Executive Platinums and Oneworld Emeralds, along with business class travelers on three-class aircraft. In Group 3 are Platinum Pros and regular Platinums along with Oneworld Sapphires. Those are all pretty much the same as before. Group 4 has two parts – first are AAdvantage Golds and Oneworld Rubys, followed by Alaska Airlines MVPs, AirPass members, Premium Economy passengers, Citi AAdvantage Executive cardholders, and those who purchased priority boarding privileges.

In Group 5 are those booked into Main Cabin Extra seats, along with other AAdvantage cardholders and corporate travelers whose companies have deals with American. All the above groups go through the priority boarding lane. Once they’re aboard, the next three groups, using the main boarding lane, are regular economy passengers. Bringing up the rear are price-conscious travelers who bought American’s new Basic Economy fares.

Here’s a link to American’s explanation of the new numbered groups, which American says will mean a “simplified” boarding process.

Delta’s boarding group columns at Atlanta. (Image: Delta)

Delta’s innovation is a little simpler. It’s not reorganizing boarding groups, but trying to “streamline” the process by installing pillars that will help passengers queue up into four parallel lines. (Helloooo Southwest!)

The airline is trying out the new enhancement at five of its gates in the B Concourse at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson. The columns are numbered zones one through three, along with Sky Priority, the latter for premium customers and those needing special assistance.

Delta said it expects the new procedure for arranging passengers in parallel lines will mean “less crowding and confusion at the gate in addition to a more seamless transition when entering the plane.” If customer feedback is favorable, Delta said, it will expand the procedure to more airports.

Readers: Which airline do you think has the best boarding procedure, and why?

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Comments

  2. This is worth doing. It doesn’t have to be balanced right before boarding – it could be done at the T-48 hour point – which would account for the vast majority of people on a flight – and they’re status is known. Simple sort… Then they check in and get a zone assignment… Even at 100 hours this works.

  4. I flew on a couple of Delta planes recently that had a new style of overhead bin that is taller and allows you to stack bags on their sides like books. Plenty of space for everyone’s carry-ons. I hope this design catches on.

  6. The fact is, it costs an airline quite a bit of money when you check a bag, especially if you have connecting flights. It is reasonable for the airline to pass those charges on to the passengers who are checking bags

  8. Agreed… that’s why I mentioned that they said “first class ONLY”. They hadn’t finished cleaning yet, and weren’t boarding the coach cabin. They turned back several folks because they weren’t FC. I know that Diamonds board as “premium”… just like Gold and Platinum board as “Sky”…

  9. It’s a tough one because it is natural that airlines want to keep their best customers happy, but there is a business risk to making everyone else feel second or third class.

  10. I like SW’s boarding policy because it uses peoples’ animal spirits and competitiveness to board the plane more quickly.

    But as someone who only ever has a carry-on bag, I prefer a lower fare and payment for checked bags. If you are carrying 50% more than your body weight than me onto a plane, shouldn’t you pay more?

  11. I’m a bit struck by the lack of comments about carry-ons. Part of SWA’s boarding success is that percentage of people who check bags is much higher, so there is simply less to do to get people on the plane. In order for your rollaway to not make SWA flights, you have to be the last 10 people on a plane with zero seats left. On UA – the bins are full before half of Group 2 is on the plane.

    The entire industry needs to stop this “pay for bags” charade – the industry pushed this mess on the passengers to obfuscate fares. The airlines did it to themselves and if they really cared about the experience, airlines would fix the underlying problem instead of blaming their passengers – which is what we should call this “fix the unruly passengers” shell game.

    Orderly boarding is important, but it also needs enough space – which as pointed out previously – has to be baked into the acquisition and design of gates. SWA out of San Diego proves the point that space+process=speed, by lacking the space for anything (in fairness, I have asserted in the past the SAN SWA terminal is the worst in the country). Which doesn’t account for most airports taking a large amount of space out of the terminals to support the retail experience.

  13. One of my biggest issues is the boarding areas are too small. Nothing can be done about it I understand. Something I see in Asia, central and South America is a person going through the line making sure you are in the correct area and if not moving you out of the mosh pit. Most of these countries pay less so they can have more people to do these things but it helps quite a bit.

  14. Just remember on DL when FC board the Diamonds also can board. An example is if you are going from ATL to LGA on an MD88 it may have only 16 FC seats but a third of the plane may be Diamonds.

  15. Essentially, any system that arbitrarily divides people into classes is going to cause resentment. Most places will get away with it most of the time. But we’d better hope that the great unwashed don’t decide to revolt because then, as Dylan said, those who were first will later be last

  16. The problem with that is that you can’t then have a number on the boarding pass for everyone to see. Granted, that shouldn’t be much of a problem with the elites, but you never know. I know that I see people all the time ignoring the zone numbers printed on their boarding passes, and it’s more than a bit annoying sometimes. The other day, on a DL flight, they boarded “first class only” and 60 people got in line… I know that there aren’t 60 F seats on a 737, so…

  17. Even though I have Diamond status on Delta my favorite boarding process is Southwest. It’s always orderly and civil. At my home airport (Orange County) even Delta Premium is a very large cohort, and there is no orderly boarding.

  18. I am so sorry that you do not get the deference due your exalted status, which you probably did not pay for and certainly did not pay taxes on. That has to change: all the sickening perks handed to people not paying for their own tickets must be priced, reported to the IRS and FTB and taxed.

  19. How about some improvements to notifying the gate area what group is currently boarding? There is rarely any indication on the monitors which group is currently boarding, and the agents sometimes just yell out a number without using the PA system, or just gesture to the passengers standing and waiting for the next group number, without announcing it at all. Every flight I’ve taken recently has people asking “What group is boarding now??”.

  20. With nine groups they may avoid the problem that United has, with so many people eligible for (primarily) group 2, the line for it is half the planeload. 2 includes all premier silver and golds as well as anyone who has a MP credit card, so there’s no real difference at boarding between a 50,000 mile traveler and someone who has a credit card. I have always felt that United should have a separate group for premiers in advance of the credit card holders. American may have done it right with world elite mastercard holders in group 4 of 9.

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