Ben and Jerry

Please remove if this was already posted (could not find it), but this is what I saw in ATL today:

vbjd1111

+1000^^^

GRALISTAIR

Yes been this way for about 2 weeks I think. Good progress ^

edweird

I like this!

maksimfa

Is it just me or I saw those like a year ago?

In any case, saw these again in MSP a week ago. Had a progress bar on boarding...

Had Pre Board, First Class, Sky, Zone 1, then the rest. Was pretty cool.

StayingHomeIsBetter

Now, if they just print the zone number on the boarding pass in a font at least as large as on the monitor, perhaps some people will pay attention.

RobbieRunner

Very Cool.

I don't know about you guys, but after about 30 years of flying, the thing I dread the most is boarding. Well, sometimes when I have a tight connection and we are deplaning, and someone is taking 2 minutes to put on their coat, get their bag, zip up their jacket, put on their hat, tuck away their paper, grab their coffee and walk 1 mph ouf the plane, yea that's tough too. But generally boarding is the biggest pain for me. Once I'm on board, I'm literally good to go.

Anything to help is welcome.

flyerslc

Wow, I think I saw something like this predicted in a movie made in the 50's. It's really incredible how fast things have changed.

NoStressHere

I like it.

But, it also needs an explanation how ZONE #1 is the third group to board!!!

CJKatl

Couldn't help myself... added my own pet peeve to your scenario.

rucksack

That would require Delta acknowledging to their branded credit card holders that the priority boarding "benefit" isn't actually much of a benefit.

To be honest, with the exception of J where you get some bubbly and can easily move about the cabin, I'd rather be last to board the plane... that is IF there's guaranteed room for my overhead luggage.

If the luggage space issue can be fixed... the boarding issue can be fixed. It's a complicated problem though and there aren't any great solutions yet:

Solution: Make PAX (without status) pay for carry-on bags instead of checked bags.
Problem: To the extent there is space in the overhead bins, airlines want to incentivize PAX to use this space. It leaves more room in the hold to transport valuable cargo and lowers operations costs associated with tracking and handling luggage (including hidden costs like missed connections).

Solution: Make overhead bins bigger.
Problem: Newer planes have clever overhead big designs to allow for storing more luggage. That being said, it takes a while to replace older planes and there's always going to be a finite space available.

Solution: Reserve overhead space for priority PAX.
Problem: This is easy for F/J, but how do you do this in Y where there's no dedicated cabin and the priority PAX are intermixed with CM (Cargo Medallion) PAX? Dedicated bag space in Comfort+ might help this a bit, but there will still be PMs/DMs that can't snag C+.

Solution: Have Delta Ops valet bags of DM/PMs into overhead bins.
Problem: This would take extra time and manpower (read: money) that I'm sure Delta is unwilling to spend on a problem that really isn't much more than a nuisance.

Are there any solutions I missed?

RaflW

From DL's Jan 8, 2014 press release about A320/319 interior refit:
"new larger-capacity overhead bins with an average increase of 60 percent more carry-on baggage space"

Now, on the A320 they're going to add 8% more passengers with the re-do, but eventually, the OH bin space should get a little better on those birds. Note: a 60% increase in cube may well not yield a 60% increase in the number of bags stashed.

That said, its also been over a year since the press release and I don't think I've heard of any 19s/20s going in for mods yet...

Unexpected Rough Heir

I also noted on the ATL to LAX, MCO, TPA and EWR flights they had a sign that instructed everyone to line up into the A concourse hallway until the entire concourse is blocked off. By golly do those people follow instructions.

Smaug

My problem with the new boarding messages is that the upgrade/cleared/standby lists are no longer shown. Of course the app helps, but a lot of people don't have it or don't use it.

MSPeconomist

Oh, so these aren't the monitors above the podium but the ones to the side in the gate area. Don't they still cycle with the upgrade/standby lists and other information?