The only reason to board first rather than last is overhead bin space. If you’re worried about bins filling up, and being forced to gate check your bag, you want onto the aircraft before some of the other passengers. You don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun other people on the plane.
That’s why my favorite kind of trip is a simple overnight, or out and back, where I can just bring on my laptop bag. If I don’t need overhead bin space, I can show up pretty late at the airport, I can keep working in the club, or I can pick up a snack on my way to the plane. No overhead bin space to worry about, and no need to board early.
Unfortunately most of the time you’ll need access to an overhead bin.
- Airlines charge for checked bags if you’re flying in economy without status
- So passengers bring on as many belongings as they can
- And gate agents start demanding passengers gate check their bags when there’s still plenty of overhead bin space available out of fear that the bins might fill up and bags might have to be gate checked at the last minute, delaying the flight by a few minutes.
This creates a mad rush to board early, a war of all against all.
@Delta thanks for telling us the overhead bins are all full and making us check our bags. They obviously are not and there is an empty bin above my head. pic.twitter.com/I1d2AyzhZq
— Bill Millinor (@BMillinor) October 30, 2023
Why do you lie to us that the overhead bins are full when they aren’t? It isn’t very American to do that. Frustrating. Why can’t you just be honest? pic.twitter.com/ykHwHD9W13
— Jon Ferguson (@JonF4Jesus) July 18, 2023
Airlines made the game. They can’t do simple back-to-front boarding because they sell priority boarding, sell first class, and reward customers with status.
Instead they have 7, 8, even 9 boarding groups. Often gate agents don’t check your boarding pass to see whether you are really in group 5 or should wait until group 7. There are lots of people to process and they’ve probably even forgotten which group has been called.
One viral LinkedIn post suggests just getting up when they first class boarding. The worst that happens is your group 6 boarding pass gets turned away.
Board in Group 1, no matter your group. 99% of the time they don’t say anything. Worst case they tell you to wait, then you’re first when they call your actual group.
That’s true although it probably does work better if you just board a couple of groups earlier than it says on your boarding pass. Boarding in group one is conspicuous and has a lower likelihood of success.
Still, this bothers me. You aren’t entitled to it. In some sense you’re stealing from the airline and from other passengers, though the boarding game itself is a bit absurdist. I don’t recommend this.
I also don’t recommend most of the rest of this travel advice either. Domestic short hop first class usually isn’t worthwhile over an exit row aisle. Fast inflight wifi is an amazing addition to my life.
Mostly, though, as long as you’re in the first half of boarding you’re going to be fine and you really don’t want to be on board longer than that anyway so following this advice to board with group one doesn’t actually make you better off. You just stay on the plane longer.
I rate this as true. Not so much some of the other points.
P.S – “Dickie Bush” is one heck of name!?
I think they should record how many times you try to cut the line and board out of order. Get to 5 tries? No fly list. Take a bus, you POS or wait your turn.
Flew D1 to ATL to HND a few weeks back. After pre boards they called D1. Must have been 60 people in line, twice as many as the number of seats. Every person I could see in front of me turned right. Gate agents never said a word. That’s in direct contrast to boarding for my return flight. The agents in Tokyo checked the boarding passes twice and politely pulled people out who were in the wrong boarding group.
This approach just encourages the damn gate lice so that if you have an earlier boarding group you have to fight your way through all the people in later groups blocking the gate. Quit being so selfish.
Easily done most of the time. Many gate agents don’t care, and the class system of boarding driven by credit card programs, the airlines, etc…are just insane.
H2Oman … May partially be a function of better education in Tokyo , in contrast to Atlanta .
@Alert
Slow clap………
With T-Mobile you get free WiFi on US3 and Alaska. Haven’t paid for WiFi in ages.
I’d really like to see gate agents take Bush’s boarding pass, hold it, then let him board last. What a jerk. Don’t promote selfish behavior.
Nice thought provoking list even if I don’t agree with all the points.
Agreed with Gary: the concept of boarding early for the stated purposes bothers me too.
I’m all for #1 though, I love being able to walk around and explore the airport beforehand. I’m part of that odd group of people that looks at the airport itself as a fun destination rather than stop-over. (Applies to mainly only to larger airports where you can actually move around)
Wi-fi on board is interesting, for me personally it’s nice once in a while to be off the grid for a few hours. But definitely situations where it can help with productivity since you’re just sitting there anyway.
rules are rules why are you telling people to just board whenever they want to’
even if they have a low boarding priority.,. This proves there and entitlement mentality floating
around in most all industries not to follow rules…….this is not a guideline. its controling your boarding process.. not you can pretty much do the same on Southwest no matter what your boarding number is…..gate agent’s have to get flight out on time.
I call bullsh*t to most of this, just about as dumb advice as the spicy flight attendant who was in a regional airline and gives advice as a tenured long haul attendant. Most airlines have a fully integrated boarding system and know when you jump the line. Like SWA you can be within a couple of spots of your designated time but not group 1 on American when you are 6 or 7. You will delay boarding for all and become a Karen or Ken and just piss off the gate agent for the rest of us.
Stealing from the airline Gary? LOL!
This from the scoflaw rebel who had his bag gate checked and carried it into the plane anyway!
Hardy Hardy Har Har!
@Alert~ With the Japanese it is primarily a cultural thing. You just don’t take what’s not yours. These mores are taught in the home, and reinforced during school and later in the workplace.
Of course in the US you are taught to grab your god-given ‘freedom’ ; that is, to do what to want while trampling over others rights and freedoms.
So as the carriers are and have been working to keep an orderly boarding process, you in all your wisdom, publish the rubbish encouraging people to rush the gate!
You’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel for content aren’t you.
98% of the time this isn’t going to work and as I’m not based in Asia, I’ll take that to 99.9%
And @DENIS BEKAERT: You realize those “Gate Lice” as you refer to them, are your Parents, siblings and neighbors who don’t fly often and don’t know better or they read an article like this and rush the gate? Just because your company pays for you to travel doesn’t make you a king so have some respect for people that don’t travel often..
This is false. Delta Eva and Southwest all get alerted with ticket scanners.
I recently witnessed someone follow this advice and the gate agent was either on a power trip, having a bad day, or both. The attempting early boarder started arguing with the gate agent, the gate agent threatened to call law enforcement if the attempting early boarder did not sit and wait for their group to be called, which the attempting early boarder did. With how many gate agents there are who lack basic customer service and de-escalation skills, this is not worth attempting, or at least if they try to turn you away then play dumb and comply.
United doesn’t need to check. At least when the agent has set up the system correctly (and I don’t know that they are able to override this anymore…maybe they can), when you scan your BP and are in a group that hasn’t been called yet, the computer will beep an alert. Agent at that point can probably still manually allow the boarding, but that will be dependent on agent, but it would be wrong to assume they will without good reason – I’ve watched people be denied for this before.
Also, why would one encourage others to board early – in many cases, this is just going to make the boarding process slower for everyone…including those trying to game the boarding system.
My last 10+ flights I’ve seen people get booted for trying to board in an earlier group. Every. Single. Flight. This is all bullshit clickbait garbage.
The only earlier boarding “trick” that I’ve seen work is for someone with a higher boarding priority to say that the person behind them is with them. This allows, for example, a United Global Services customer on a paid ticket, to bring their family on award tickets along when they can board, or a coworker. The ticket agent generally allows that, and letting them know gets them ready for the beep saying a person isn’t eligible to board at this time.
This kind of “boarding whenever you want” does not fly at Southwest. Agents do check your boarding pass and will remove you from the line and tell you to board according to your assigned group. Just another reason why I only fly Southwest.
But Gary, can you really think big picture about your business in an exit row aisle? And if you can’t think big picture about your business, are you even a vapid, rise-and-grind, gratitude journaling, IG influencing, waste of time human being who should be giving advice on how best to fly?!
BS. Of course, in the rest of the world, the boarding group procession/hierarchy is much shorter. When I’ve boarded, they usually have something going through the BPs before the scanner and booting bottlenecks. They also have either their gate-agent scanners set to reject out-of-group boarders or, even better, automated gates. Can’t argue with a robot.
You have to laugh at the VFTW haters who obviously read the post AND bothered to comment. Gary’s not the one who looks foolish here.
Most gate lice are those trying to be the first in there boarding group. SO WHAT!!
Also, I’ve seen many, many PAX turned away attempting to jump the line followed by an announcement about boarding in proper sequence.
As for the Jon Ferguson photo, that’s a regional jet. Those overhead bins are MUCH smaller!!! Never fails, some yoyo with a 205 lb steamer trunk with a dead body inside needs help.
Don’t understand why the scanner can just reject if you board n the wrong group. Just shows the airlines don’t care.
There is still shame in Tokyo
No shame in Atlanta
I don’t really agree with the idea that “GAs don’t care”, you just don’t notice. Y’all are elite and are already in the jetway when the GAs are starting the first of many passive-aggressive “please look at your boarding group, we are ONLY boarding groups 1-3 at this time”. There are lots of things that GAs don’t care about like proper elite upgrade order, but the ONE thing they can totally bust/shame people on is improper boarding order. They wish a MF would try and board group 1.
I’ve only ever seen someone board in Group 1 or whatever for First Class and get booted once. All the other times they were let on. Even had a guy go on UA as a 1K group (and he didn’t have it) and the gate agent let him on anyway. So I’d say this is mostly true. But I’m not a frequent flier like a lot of some folks (I fly 1-3x a year on various airlines). I fly First class most of the time (except Southwest on very rare occasions).
Would be nice if the ticket scanner thingy was somehow synced with the boarding groups so that if you’re “out of line” it’ll go Red or something (agent could still override).
Board in Group 1, no matter your group. 99% of the time they don’t say anything. Worst case they tell you to wait, then you’re first when they call your actual group.
Hey Gary: Try that on LH. They use automated gates at boarding. I know, because I inadvertently triggered the no entry. Wife and I are group 2. Little did I know there was a group one standing behind me. When I put the pass on the scanner, it lit up red, and no open gate. The guy said he should have told me he was GS.
Try researching the subject a tad better.
This is why flying sucks now. Too many of these entitled “influencer” types.
I don’t know how to behave when I arrive late for priority boarding: usually, in Paris CDG, for an AirFrance flight the lane stays open but in other locations it’s not the same. Does anyone have an opinion?
This ranks along with those alleged human beings who cut in line at concession stands or for the toilet at sports events. Or on the roadways, when ever there is construction or an accident and traffic has to be limited to one lane-the selfish jerks who proceed along the shoulder to cut in front of the other drivers to get through.