Originally Posted by dstan

• What is AA's boarding procedure?

In May 2011, AA adjusted its official boarding process. Uniformed Military personnel are now officially included in the first group, and EXPs are included with the First or Business premium cabin, depending on aircraft configuration. The number of general boarding groups was reduced from six to four, and are also reportedly somewhat randomized rather than in back-to-front order, as recent computational models and experiments have indicated that randomized boarding is faster than back-to-front boarding.

1. First class cabin, Uniformed Military, EXP (on 2-class aircraft)
2. Business class cabin, EXP (on 3-class aircraft)
3. PLT
4. PriorityAAccess (GLD, AAirpass, oneworld elites) / Group 1
5. Group 2
6. Group 3
7. Group 4

In practice, however, some gate agents may call several groups on the above list at the same time. Even then, premium cabins and elites are still usually called first, and these passengers can always use the PriorityAAcess boarding line at the gate. American Eagle and American Connection flights often only have Groups 1 and 2, and may board en masse without preboarding by elites.

Passengers traveling together, even on separate reservations, are usually allowed to board together under their highest priority group by presenting boarding passes together or by notifying the agent scanning boarding passes that they are traveling together.

AA generally does not make a "preboarding" call for families traveling with small children and those needing extra time. However, passengers in wheelchairs and unaccompanied minor children are allowed to board before all other passengers, and should check with the gate agent.

AA.com: Boarding Process
FT: New AA boarding process (May 2011)
FT: Boarding and Flexibility Package now on sale at AA.com
FT: AA study finds randomized boarding faster (Jul 2011)
FT: (Newsstand Forum) A new twist on boarding order algorithms (Mar 2008)