<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Starwood Lurker:
...while we are on the subject of boarding, it seems weird the way AA does it. They board by groups these days, which is fine, but the order is strange. First on seem to be first class. No problem here. I mean you take care of these guys first and since there are fewer of them, they get settled in quickly. But then, they seem to board front to back. Wouldn’t it make better sense to board back to forward? That way, you don’t have people stopping in front of you storing their carry-ons in the overhead storage areas and jockeying for their seat. It’s bad enough that the aisle people always get to their seats first, which causes them to have to get up to allow you in to the window and middle seats, but the order of boarding they use now just seems to aggravate the situation even more. I guess it’s not that big a deal. It just seemed strange to me anyway...
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After boarding the premium cabins, American Airlines boards by groups, with group 1 boarding first and the higher groups boarding in order. Supposedly, your group number should correspond with where your seat is, so that the rows in the back of the plane board first etc. The only problem is that all us elites board with group one, regardless of where our seat is. And since we generally like to sit near the front of the plane so that we are among the first to get off the plane on arrival, well...that is probably why it looks like they occasionally are boarding from front to back instead of the logical back to front.