Originally Posted by
jav1107ecu2
It's my experience - although someone already mentioned widebodies, that they do it for three reasons, and it does seem to be both airline and location dependent. SQ always does it regardless of location. Asian airlines do it practically everywhere in Asia. U.S. airlines don't seem to do it at all. Australian airlines don't do it domestically... So there's no rhyme or reason but it's not uncommon. My thoughts:
- A double (triple?) check of the flight #/date
- To direct the ticket holder in the correct aisle and direction (e.g., a widebody loading both business and economy through the same door aft or center of business class has four possible directions of travel)
- To check the ticket holder's status and greet them by name. SQ always tells me welcome back and they're 'happy to have me' or whatnot, which they do with a lot of people.
Not to derail the thread too much, but Australian airlines always check on boarding - both domestically and internationally. Against the grain of the post here, I find it quite odd when I board and I'm not asked to show my boarding pass!
As to why, please excuse the rather clickbaity article, it mentions here that in Australia they would be checking that you're on the correct flight and on the correct day:
https://www.escape.com.au/travel-adv...baceaaaba3fb90