CPH was not only a mess but also a zoo this morning. I usually try to time my arrival at the gate to coincide with the start of boarding, but this time I arrived a bit earlier with the specific intention of observing Zone Boarding in progress. I was not impressed.

Full flight, when I got to the gate most of the pax were already standing up (departure was slightly delayed), forming an unstructured mob facing the two self-scan gates. The display showed the zones, with 1 & 2 grouped together, so no separate boarding for business class. I asked another pax whom I happened to know whether any announcements had been made about the boarding procedure. None had. A couple of disabled pax with their families came forward of their own accord when they saw a gate agent open the jetway doors. After some hesitation, a lady holding an infant in her arms approached the podium, and was boarded as well. Still no announcement. Then the one agent said to the other "we'll board via the self-scan gates". Enough pax heard this to start an immediate stampede. I was standing right at the podium, so I asked the agent "what about SkyPriorty?". Normally priorty pax are boarding manually at the podium before the other pax are invited to use the self-scan gates. Instead of answering my question, the agent now shouted (!) something along the lines of "priority zones 1 & 2 only, everybody else wait!" It was sure loud enough for everybody to hear, but also too late. The scanners were clogged with people getting a red light. Instead of scanning my BP manually (we were standing with the podium scanner between us), the agent sent me over to the nearest self-scan gate. After waiting patiently for a lady to try three times, and get a red light three times, I cut the line and scanned myself onboard. I of course did not stay to watch the show, but once in my seat I noticed that half the business class pax only boarded the aircraft after quite some time, obviously having been caught in the melée.

Johan