How to solve the boarding process once and for all for United
My thoughts for how to FINALLY improve the United boarding process. and maybe everyone else like AA, DL, etc...
short answer - merge parts of the current system with parts of the Southwest style system.
the longer answer:
Have everyone assigned a Boarding Group letter and position within that boarding group, like A14 or B3
Take the current United system and adopt it to be "A" for preboarding, "B" for group 1, etc
Take the current Southwest system of using the 24-hour ahead check-in rule to assign a place in line and assign people within each group based on that
example:
if I am a Global Services and I was the 14th person to check in from my group, I would be given A14
if I am a Premier Gold and I was the 3rd person to check in from my group, I would be given B3
Yeah, I get that some people get to "check-in" for flights earlier than a 24hour time point because they might have connecting flights...oh well, small flaw in the system but better than current one
I feel like any of the boarding group systems still entices "gate lice" to stake a place closest to the gate to get to the front of their boarding group anyways so I think this would encourage people to NOT sit in the middle of the lane and watch youtube videos to claim a spot
if United ordered people within a group, i believe those gate lice would go away (cuz you typically dont see them at Southwest) and things would run much smoother at the gate
Thoughts???