Tag Archives for boarding.
When Southwest Airlines moves to assigned seating they will no longer line everyone up prior to boarding. Like the rest of the airline’s moves, Southwest’s boarding process will converge towards being much more like other airlines.
Gone will be the stanchions, and having passengers line up by group and number. In its place with be 9 boarding groups.
An important thing to know is that if you buzz because you’re boarding before your group is called, the gate agent can clear the flag on their screen and allow you to board. If you’re traveling with a family member or friend on a different reservation, for instance, it is actually policy according to the airline that you should still be allowed to board together in the earlier group.
Airlines could board faster, and that’s valuable. But the requirements they’d have to impose to do it would be too costly on families, and wouldn’t meet the needs and preferences of customers either. Once they begin shifting away from the ideal for speed, additional alterations make sense. Airlines have ultimately settled on what really does work best for their business – a tradeoff between speed and other priorities.
People queue up to board. They rush the gate. They try to board long before it’s their turn, even though they’ll be fine with overhead space usually unless they’re among the last on the plane.
Airlines made this game. They can’t do simple back-to-front boarding because they sell priority boarding, sell first class, and reward customers with status.
On Tuesday a Southwest Airlines passenger was queuing to board. He and his wife had two of the very best boarding positions – A2 and A3. The person with A4 became hostile.
I’ve had airlines ask me whether I wanted to board first or last when flying first class. I always prefer last, unless it’s a new cabin product I’ve never taken photos of and want to get in early for blog content.
Southwest Airlines seating is first-come, first-served. The earlier you board, the better your seat selection. The earlier you check in, the earlier you’re allowed to board. But some passengers get to jump the queue.
Delta Air Lines is moving from ‘branded boarding’ to having 8 boarding zones starting May 1, although things are even more complicated than that because there are still groups that are called to board before and in the middle of those zones.
This is supposed to streamline boarding and be better for customers by… copying American and United, and copying Delta itself from 2017.
“Don’t cut in line” really only doesn’t apply when you’re trying to make a connecting flight. Here everyone was polite and maintained standards of civility – something all too rare in modern air travel!
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.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
