not saying whether it's a good thing or a bad thing but recently, while waiting on a plane to arrive, I noticed about 8 or 9 gentleman (not together) all lined up underneath the First Class sign waiting to board. Their lining up just encouraged others to stand around in front of the door to wait to board. They still had to deplane, clean and cater before boarding began. Most of all, they had to have a plane. The plane hadn't even arrived. In fact, when I first notice those folks lined up the plane still wasn't expected in for another 15 minutes or so. It was scheduled for a full hour on the ground and was on time so it's not as though it was a quick turn or anything. I just remember thinking to myself how funny it was that these guys were all jockeying for position to be the first on. I felt bad for the first guy in line because it was clearly a struggle to maintain that position with the guy behind him very eager to overtake his position as the first person boarding.

To me, it seems like Alaska flights seem to have a disproportionately higher number of passengers trying to board at the same time. Actually, whenever I am in Detroit, on a Northwest flight, I notice the Seattle flights seem to have a large number of people swarming the door at the same time. Maybe it's a Seattle thing rather then an Alaska thing?