Originally Posted by
schwarm
My take is that the more important issue for the airline is the efficiency of boarding. The convenience of the fliers is secondary. Having said that, I would argue that not preboarding babies is foolish from an efficiency standpoint. We usually board in group 1, and there tends to be a long line backing up behind us as we fold a stroller in the jetway, maneuver a car seat down the aisle (to the front of E+), take up the aisle as the car seat is wedged in the window seat, etc.
It seems you assume that UA somehow has bonus time for pre-boarding and that the efficiency clock only starts ticking when the regular boarding starts. I'd suggest that the time you take with the stroller, etc. backs up the process whether you'd be pre-boarding or doing regular boarding. It's just that with pre-boarding the rest of the passengers have to wait at the gate rather than in the jetway.
Actually, it would be interesting to determine whether it might be most efficient for UA to post-board folks who need extra time to get settled (except of course for those in wheel chairs). They would then not slow others down in terms of getting down the jetway and getting seated. But I'm not advocating this--I realize the potentially major inconvenience of this for folks like you outweighs the slight inconvenience and delay for other passengers, and that there could be other downsides to this approach. Just speculating.
PS: Just saw sipes23's post, which seems to make a lot of sense.