Originally Posted by
Robert Leach
The thing I try, as strictly a trial, is to eliminate any pre-board announcement. If you are in a wheelchair, or standing there with two kids in your arms, the gate agent should discreetly scan your boarding pass and invite you to board without making an announcement.
It is the announcement itself that starts the rush toward the gate.
I have always wondered about a silent boarding process. No PA announcements until the last zone. Put a screen above the boarding pass scanner that displays, "Now boarding First Class. First Class only" without a word being uttered. Then, "SkyPriority and First Class may board now." And so forth. In my mind, the chaos begins the minute the PA announcement about pre-boarding for "those needing extra time" starts.
Even with announcements, it would help to have a display that anyone could read at any time stating what groups are currently boarding. As it is, when someone arrives at the gate area after boarding has begun, there's a tendency to either get in line or push to the podium to board and once the person is there, GAs have a tendency to let them through rather than forcing them to swim upstream back through the line.