Aplogies in advance for somewhat of a n00b question - I'm a UA guy but recently flew CO IAH-NRT-IAH (in economy unfortunately) and was confused by the boarding process...

In IAH, gate agents called BusinessFirst up to the Elite Access lane first, then called Elite Access/*Gold/*Silver folks up to the Elite Access lane, then presumably the remaining non-Elites. That order made sense - seemed consistent with UA's, and I got on with the 2nd group as I would have expected.

In NRT, though, things were chaos - which is the exact opposite of my UA experiences. The gate agents called BusinessFirst to the Elite Access lane and told all other economy passengers to line up in the other lane. With BusinessFirst partially loaded, suddenly Elite Access/*Gold/*Silver were told to board with BusinessFirst.... complete cattle call ensued

Is the correct order:
1) BusinessFirst through Elite lane
2) Elite Access/*Gold/*Silver through Elite lane
3) Remaining Economy through non-Elite lane

UA's NRT staff have always been super-efficient and organized - they line up First Class, Business Class, 1Ks, etc all in separate groups and feed them through the lanes pretty quickly and efficiently. I don't know if my experience was a one-time mishap, but since I'll be back in December, I would really like to know how things are *supposed* to work. That way I'll be in the right place regardless of the agents

TIA,
Richard