I hope this experience yesterday isn't a taste of things to come. T2 at ATL yesterday, boarding is slightly delayed. This gate is 100% e-gate so no one single boarding lane. Rather there are several routes to the jetway. Also this gate employs the pillars.
Some folks are patiently lining up behind Sky/Zone1/2 pillars. The Prem pillar is marooned by itself in the square-ish open area in front of the e-gates where people who want to speak with a GA need to pass, and where people in wheelchairs, families with strollers, confused people, people who want to stretch their legs, and, presumably, some Prem passengers are milling around.
There is no discernible line for Prem. I have a Prem ticket but I have no idea where to park myself. A loose aggregate is spilling into and beginning to block the concourse and I don't want to add to that congestion. I spot an empty seat buried behind the forming crowd and "excuse me, pardon me, excuse me" my way to it and sit.
No Prem line ever materializes because, I think, there just does not seem to be an obvious place to form one. It's in a spot where you'd put a sign reading, "Wait here if you just want to be in everyone's way."
As the pre-boarders make their way into the jetway, the amorphous group presses forward and when Prem is called our blob pushes toward the e-gates, each of us jockeying to position ourselves in front of one or another e-gate. It's like a toll plaza that doesn't have distinct bright lines on the ground telling you early on what lane you are in and to stay there, so cars don't just dart out wherever and whenever to jump into a different lane. And the e-gates do back up because either they are finicky or people don't know how to use them yet or something, idk. So people get impatient with the holdup and switch to another "lane".
It was unorganized and unpleasant and honestly, things looked a lot better over in the Sky/Zone1/2 area where at least actual lines had formed.
I'm not usually one to get my feathers rumpled about a messy boarding process, but this really was quite a mess, at least as far as the Prem "lane" went. Not the end of the world but not a "premium" experience either. IOW, for all the fancy e-gate equipment and the pillars, this was actually a worse experience than usual.