I’ve never understood the logic of the boarding by groups, in they way the way BA operate it. We all see people stand and congregate at the laneage entrances. Fine. But it creates congestion that BA claims to avoid, but I accept that’s not their doing, but could manage the situation better.

what is their doing, however is boarding generally front-to-back. A group 1 or 2 boards and would be at front, and your 4-9’s in Econ. So the time taken up is those queuing in the aisle to get to their seat waiting on other passengers getting their luggage in the overhead lockers (and most of the time it’s oversized or the 2nd and 3rd pieces..)!

At EDI what also frustrates me is that the lanes are never really used properly. EDI departure hall is already congested and peak times and everyone lingers in the walkways at Costa for Gate 10. What BA should be doing (well, they’re outsourced agents), is asking Groups to stand inside their allocated lanes, not the Pedestrian walkways, or sit down. That’ll clear the area better, and set the tone for proper lane boarding

cabin baggage is a pain too. We’ve all seen viral videos of other airlines being strict in bag size and I recall BA went through a period of monitoring waiting passengers to tag underseat bags Vs overhead but that’s not really a thing any more, and we’ve all see people with bags that would never fit the size limits.

I now see more and more domestic flights where the flights are full and they’re having to announce for passengers to opt to place cabin baggage in the hold “free of charge” (which would likely have been free anyway), and the incentive is priority boarding. Which in itself makes a mockery of the Grouping system for groups 1-3. If check-in staff were more vigilant it would reduce this (although I accept cabin bag only customers would never potentially see checkin staff, not not without flaws). It wouldn’t surprise me if some passengers plan for this to get pre-boarded for better chance of the remaining hand luggage having space overhead.

maybe have a pre-boarding point where all bags are checked for size (and quantity), and any in excess are directed to being checked into hold all before boarding starts, and set the tone that BA are being a little more stringent with bag size, all in the name of smoother, fairer, better prepared boarding and locker space.

finally, on domestic flights especially I’ve never understood why BA don’t board both front and back doors.. surely that would speed up the process and improve on-time performance, or at least activate the option when the incoming aircraft is causing the delay, to pull back on the knock-on delays. Sure it could be down to cost, but delays cost and which is worse?