Originally Posted by
GunsOfNavarone
There has been a lot of talk about military boarding on United lately.
Maybe we all missed the target? Military is United largest customer, by a long shot. Both in revenue and in overall PAX. Just as WalMart is P&Gs biggest customer. WalMart gets the very deepest discounts, yet P&G needs their revenue.
Maybe United's overall boarding plan has a motive we have missed and might hate to acknowledge. Follow the money.
Disclosure- I am active duty military and fly an average of 12 segments per month on a assigned mix of airlines. I would never think of boarding anytime except in the group I am assigned.The real way to board a aircraft with PAX (with carry ons)should be just like loading a military bus with carry ons, back always gets loaded first. If we really want to load properly, no other formula works nearly as well.
As military myself, I was thinking the same thing about the bus. I don't think this has anything to do with the military being their largest client. That would translate more into a discount than an announcement of first dibs at boarding.
However, the bus analogy doesn't work, because generally when boarding a bus, no one has major carry-ons that they're putting on top. With me, for example, it's always the duffel on bottom, and small backpack which sits on my lap. And we fill up by going back to front. So that would be back window, back aisle, second to back window... This is not the case on a plane, unless you had people pre-lined up in that specific order!
Originally Posted by
uastarflyer
While it is not going to slow down my boarding 99.9% of the time I still don't like the concept of calling military out individually. Especially when boarding flights overseas.
Yes, it's super-technically not limited to US military personnel. But de facto we know what it is about.
No concerns doing this on domestic flights. I'd still prefer it not be done, but don't care a whole lot either way.
As to the OP, I don't think there's much evidence to suggest early boarding will motivate a lot of folks to switch to UA. A 10% automatic discount or something similar probably would.
(Bolding mine)
What other military is it for?!
Originally Posted by
Mainliner
I think it’s great that United is letting active military board the planes first. Is this just PR? Marketing? Maybe it is. But for an unabashed patriot like me, this gesture certainly affirms my loyalty to United. And I bet there are a lot of passengers out there that are glad to see a company like United honoring the folks in the military by giving them the privilege to board first.
+1
Originally Posted by
sftrvlr
the new boarding order would be uniformed military, followed by GS/1K/CO PLT, then *G, then families w/ children under 4, then by row number 2 rows at a time, 9-11, 6-8, 3-5 and 1-2
So 2P/Silver don't get to board any earlier?
Originally Posted by
Shareholder
I don't believe anyone has posted negative comments about this element of the new boarding practices. In fact we recognize this as an acknowledgement of those who are active service men and women during a time of war (yes, many of our countries are at war, and many in our military are facing death or injury every day). The policy is for those in uniform. I don't believe it was introduced because the military is one of UA's largest clients.
I had seven UA/CO flights last week when these procedures came into place and there was just one person in uniform boarding any of these planes, and that was at HNL. After seeing the young man board ahead of those of us on the red carpet, once settled into my F seat I pulled out two inflight drink vouchers and asked the In Charge to deliver them to this fellow as a "thank you" for his service.
(Bolding mine)
This has been the major point of contention on these boards the past few weeks/months. Many have posted negative comments about this. I doubt any have meant it as an insult to soldiers; more as they're against the policy. Not everyone believes that's why it was instituted, and for those that do, not all believe that's a worthy enough reason.