It has been like this for as long as I can remember.

Edinburgh flights are a disaster with usually half or more of the flight in groups 1-3.

As mentioned there is always someone pushing through who can’t believe that all these people are in groups 1-3 and it would be nice to send people who ignore the group calls back. They could have the scanner do it automatically.

On a recent flight out of Heathrow the tall cardboard totems they have had been swapped around so the 1-3 totem was on the snaking areas and 4-9 on the shorter straight area. This was causing chaos, my wife mentioned it to staff who didn’t care.

Some outstations are really bad, my last few times at LAS they have made absolutely no effort to board by groups.

I avoid row 1 like the plague after too many instances of making a short connection only to find nowhere to put my bag. I have no idea why it is reserved for Golds on short haul flights. Again it is generally better to board later and not be in row 1.