boarding

Tag Archives for boarding.

American Airlines Moved To Single Agent Boarding Before They Were Ready

by Gary Leff on August 30, 2021

Why Charlotte Needs Another American Airlines Admirals Club

Aug 30 2021

Single agent boarding is a disaster. The one overwhelmed agent can’t manage boarding and last minute upgrades, clearing last minute standby passengers, and helping customers change seats – let alone answering questions from nervous flyers.

Perhaps even more importantly they can’t manage all the tasks that are part of departure while also scrutinizing carry on bag sizes (American is asking them to now charge to gate check oversized bags) and observe passengers who may already be drunk or under the influence of a substance which means that single agent boarding contributes to greater conflict on board the aircrat and potential flight diversions, too.

On June 30th American Airlines Will Revise Its Boarding Groups

by Gary Leff on June 28, 2021

Jun 28 2021

On June 30th American Airlines will revise its boarding groups to make two changes. The two top elite levels in the AAdvantage program will be able to board earlier.

The CEO Of American Airlines Explains Why Back-To-Front Boarding Doesn’t Work

by Gary Leff on March 21, 2021

Mar 21 2021

You can’t split up families. And back-to-front leads to bunching as well. And since those don’t work out as well in practice as in theory, their regular boarding process stands.

This is why airlines all tinker with their process from time to time and never stop tinkering, because they’re never been able to do much to improve – with few exceptions.

Brilliant Way To Board A Plane Solves Social Distancing – And Gate Lice

by Gary Leff on March 12, 2021

Mar 12 2021

An airline boarding process video has gone viral – it’s been viewed nearly 4 million times on TikTok and been reposted several times on Instagram. The reason the video has drawn so much attention is because it’s a boarding process most people have never seen before. It’s socially distanced and orderly, and it involves moving blue lights projected on the ground that seem to force passengers to behave the way they’re supposed to.

Just Joining American AAdvantage Now Gets Better Boarding Privileges

by Gary Leff on December 15, 2020

Dec 15 2020

American Airlines is making the AAdvantage program friendlier for new members, who are the people that are flying today. They’re introducing better boarding just for joining the program, after eliminating telephone booking fees for award redemptions for all members and eliminating mileage redeposit fees, too.

Improving on United’s New Boarding Procedure

by Gary Leff on October 23, 2005

Oct 23 2005

Tyler Cowen wonders if, instead of United’s new plan involving boarding passengers assigned to window seats first, airlines would save more time charging for carryons (making passengers internalize the costs of lengthy boarding processes) or awarding prizes based on how quickly passengers get into their seats and buckle up. The latter idea, while novel, would undoubtedly entail pretty substantial technological costs to retrofit aircraft appropriately. How else to know how long each passenger takes from boarding to buckling? And it would probably involve taking aircraft out of service for a time to do the retrofit, not to mention lengthy FAA approvals for the aircraft modificiations. So I’d guess that costs would be way too high relative to any savings from quicker boarding times. Besides, as passengers compete with each other for quicker boarding, aren’t there…