Originally Posted by
ikwia
The CK pre-boarding is often superfluous, but sometimes very nice...I've been boarded 10+ minutes before the pre-boards while waiting for a minor maintenance sign-off or for the cleaners to leave, and in such cases it's nice to get situated and start working vs standing in the gate area. In some situations, it is also nice to make sure you get your bags in a good location, especially if in the bulk head row...more and more lately I've seen FC passengers have trouble finding bag space in FC. On some occasions, they just drop you off at the plane door, but often they introduce you to the FA as a CK, and I have on many occasions had them facilitate the PDB right then. On at least 2 occasions, the FA came back with "I haven't been catered" or similar (and one time this was a lie) but the CK rep politely "observed" that surely there were some leftovers from the prior flight, and the FA got the hint. It is definitely a YMMV situation.
Indeed they have some sort of conflict about not boarding anyone too soon, likely has to do with when the crew is considered on the clock. Once the CK agent and I just walked very very slowly down the jet bridge to avoid arriving at the aircraft too soon.