Originally Posted by
Seat 2A
One aspect of this debate that seems to have been overlooked is status, earned through long term loyalty to the airline. I fly from Seattle to Denver a lot. I have a choice of four airlines. Alaska Airlines gets the bulk of my business and one of their ways of thanking me for consistently directing my business (money) to them is rewarding me with early boarding once I've earned a certain number of miles flying with them.
Assuming you agree with the awarding of perks (such as early zone boarding) associated with having directed a lot of your business (money) towards a specific airline:
Should that perk be denied or overlooked just because you chose to purchase a less expensive ticket on a given flight?
You're saying boarding priority should be about the price of your ticket for any given flight but you fail to consider that the priority boarding person ahead of you traveling on that $99.00 fare has earned the right to that early boarding by having spent (or directed to be spent) thousands of dollars worth of travel towards that airline.
There are two choices - either you award boarding priority on the basis of status and amount paid, or you do it on the basis of efficiency of the entire process. You cannot blend the two in a haphazard manner and still have a "reasonable" set of rules. The rules are either there to maximize efficiency, or they are there to maximize airline revenue and perks to the most loyal customers - which also has a long-term revenue maximizing effect. They can't do both simultaneously. If they attempt to do so, they forfeit the "reasonableness" argument, and hence, it becomes a game with no singular purpose - thus getting around the rules is a winning game play - just as getting caught and sent to the back of the line would be a losing play.
Originally Posted by
Tchiowa
One of the reasons for boarding priority I cited was a flyer having status. Yes, that's a reasonable motive for giving someone priority.
Not if it in any way diminishes the overall efficiency of the boarding process - which was previously cited as the goal