Originally Posted by
Adam Smith
Regardless, I think there's better differentiation in their systems. With AC, priority boarding is a joke. With the US3, it's a bit more sane.
Which is funny, because it wasn't that long ago that AC was 2 "zones" to UA's 7.
I think a well-implemented 6 zone system like AC's could be fine. Something along the lines of:
Zone 1: J, SE
Zone 2: PY, Latitude, *G, E35K
Zone 3: *S, Comfort, preferred seats, credit cards
Zone 4-5: non-basic non-status Y
Zone 6: Basic Economy
Heck, I'm not even sure what benefit there is for AC with having multiple zone numbers for non-status cheapo Y. Unless they're able to do something more efficiently with the separation into 4 and 5, and the current dilution of paid zone 3, why not just have zone 4 for that? I think they proved random boarding is the fastest approach, so unless they're enforcing randomness this way, it's probably just slowing them down.