lkrt

Also noticed this a couple of weeks back. I think it's rather not a change in the boarding process, but a technicality with the Aviavox system that announces the boarding. The flight details have not been properly entered to the system which causes to announce boarding just for business class passengers. I think you can go and squeeze in with them anyway. I agree that it should be fixed soon!

Purjelentaja

That's not just in Oslo, but at many European stations, every now and then also at HEL, their home base: only business class is invited first, or no any priority groups at all, but all passengers at the same time. Far too often boarding at HEL is more or less like a zoo. AY should pay more attention to making sure this kind of things get corrected asap, and taking good example for instance from CX.

lkrt

I'm not sure if there is a good example altogether!

Last time I flew with CX they were very inconsistent, sometimes inviting me to the priority boarding queue, sometimes not, then they kept changing the signs for the priority queue (whether PEY was included) and so on. The announcements were a mess and they didn't enforce the rules.

Another bad example of AY is my recent trip to BUD. At HEL the gate agent's colleague came to help him with the boarding and they were talking about how they would do the boarding process. She said to him: "Ei mitään, mä en oo mikään ryhmäfriikki!" basically neglecting from her job of doing the boarding by groups. As a priority passenger it of course is irritating.

intuition

Not that I fly that many schengen flight ex-HEL, but IME "every now and then" is putting it nicely. Frankly I can't remeber when the HEL-CPH ever was announced with group boarding, and there is no attempt to board business class first either.
They just start with a general announcement that boarding is now commencing, and then the crowd pushes forward. Sometimes they add a "our business class passengers can board at any time" in the end of the announcement. But there is never any true attempt to board any group first.

ThomasTE

Based on my experience, in LHR they enforce the groups quite strictly. But like said, usually quite random/inconsistent.

Steve_Hun

Maybe I just get lucky with my flights ex-HEL, but most of the times in my experience they do proper group boarding. On the other end of the scale for me is BUD, now that is a proper zoo. I have not had a single time proper priority boarding there, and have flown the HEL-BUD-HEL route quite a few times by now...

ff_flyer

Just try Krakow and you will happily accept BUD anytime.

To be fair to them the airport is under extensive renovation affecting checkin areas etc., but the actual boarding process... well, there is no process!
Or probably there is, but the handling agent is not enforcing it.

Limited experience from KRK, to be honest, but a distinctive failure.

Courmisch

They mostly do group boarding at HEL for bridge gates, but they don't seem to ever enforce it. I have seen people from later groups board during group 1 boarding, and/or status-less non-assistance-needing customers board during priority boarding almost every time.

(It gets the worstest at gate 24. It has become a sorry mess with the restaurant tables leaving only a narrow corridor to the gate.)

irishguy28

Next time..............drink faster!

niksal

HEL-MUC first priority, then according to groups. My experience is that HEL works very well in this regard.

ylefin

And why does anybody want to board early on a long haul flight? I always try to board as late as possible especially if I am in C. I will anyway have enough time to spend on the plane.

Courmisch

Shocking news flash: most passengers seat in Y, not C. </sarcasm>

And overhead storage is at premium there. Even on wide body aircrafts. Or in any case, enough people think it is that way to wnat to board early.

intuition

Actually not board early but to board at the earliest convenience. There is a difference.

Longhauls are often slightly delayed so if you leave the lounge when boards say "Go to gate" it is likely that you will be waiting at the gate for quite some time. Even if you leave the lounge when boards says "Boarding" or at the pre-assigned time for "Be at the gate at latest HH:MM" you arrive before boarding actually has commenced.

But you can't ever assume boards are incorrect or there is a delay, so arriving at the gate 5 minutes before take off will certainly minimize your waiting for some flights but also get you offloaded at other times.

So inevitable there will be some waiting at the gate and that is why I prefer the priority boarding to work. If I arrive at the gate before boarding actually have started, I want to be boarded as soon as boarding starts. If I arrive at the gate after boarding have started, I'd like to be boarded without waiting.


At HEL this works OK on the longhauls. IME it doesn't work on the shorthauls (but I do notice that some fellow ft'ers have better experiences than me)

niksal

I usually like the AY crew, but tonight on OSL-HEL the crew was quite uninterested. Ladies waiting for their retirement, I guess. When the safety briefing was given from the video and "your cabin crew will now point the exist nearest to you" not even teenagers could have pointed them in a more sloppy fashion. I had spent 5k on an upgrade, but no newspapers were offered. Mid-flight I guess a plat in Y asked for a paper as one of the attendants looked miserable and got an Ilta-Sanomat out of the bin above row 1. I got the drinks (yes, plural, on a short flight, mid-week, shoot me) I asked but nothing about the crew showed that they would have liked to be there.

Luckily this was an exception in my experience. On the plus side the tonic served with gin is now fever tree!

remymartin

^ are they still serving ghastly Gordon's, though? That sounds like a terrible combination, as Fever-Tree (FT ) is much subtler in taste.