BA269 LHR-LAX 25/02 C-Pier gate
Conclusion - having 3 /4/ 5 queues just multiplies the gate-lice effect by giving more classes of passenger the opportunity to exert their sense of self-importance over their fellow travellers. BA is also culpable - the queue signage is not visible in a crowd.
In more detail - when I arrived at the gate, many pax were jammed up around the heads of all the queues, and boarding had not even started. This is an A380 service, to give a sense of volume. This was only my second BA flight this year (the other a weekend service to ABZ back in January) so I didn't at first appreciate why there was such a packed scene at the gate considering boarding had not been announced. I was wondering if my flight was cancelled, delayed, or a change of operating aircraft ? I could not see the signs leading to the different Priority Queues, because of the crowd. Then I remembered what I had read about it on Flyertalk
and so I was able to guess at the boarding arrangements. When the priority boarding announcements started they were not much help, as I couldn't see which queue I was supposed to be in. When boarded pax started moving to the aircraft, I could then guess which queue to get at the back of, but it wasn't moving at the rate the gate was processing pax...then I realised that Priority 3/4/5 people were just standing around in the middle of what should have been the Priority 2 queue , and I had to push past this form of gate lice - in my opinion, they were clearly hanging to the side of the lower priority queues hoping to push in. Overall - the "premium pax " experience is diluted in execution, and becomes more of an "I escaped the crush ahead of others" experience.
I would add that these crowded scenes and behaviours don't help the elderly/infirm/toddler-carrying to get boarded first. Furthermore, any try-hard who is rejected at Priority 1 or 2 cant really get to the back of the other queues in these circumstances. But hey, if the results are that Mr Cruz increases the on-time departure of his flights by 1% as a result, who cares what I think.... (OK....sample size of 1 !)