Originally Posted by
canadiancow
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
I almost posted exactly the same thing, but I wonder whether Z2 and Z3 are still too big, creating too big a crowd. Maybe:
Zone 1: J, SE
Zone 2: PY, *G,
Zone 3: Latitude, E35K, P25K
Zone 4: *S, Comfort, preferred seats, credit cards
Zone 5-6: non-basic non-status Y
Zone 7: 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.
I don't think random was as fast as some of the fancy systems that better spread people out, so not the fastest, but it was faster than some of the others.
Why should MM get to board before SE or J?