Originally Posted by
EugeneK
This morning I had to explain to the Frontier gate agent what the board first option was. LOL.
Me: "Hi. I'm "Board First" and would like to know if I can go right after the pre-boards?"
Her: "Are you in Zone 1?"
Me: "Well yes, but I have "Board First" (I show her "Board First" on my boarding pass) - can I just go after the pre-boards?"
Her: *deer in headlights* "Uh, yeah, that's fine."
She. seriously. didn't. know. what. board. first. is.
I've only ever heard "Board First" mentioned in CLE and MCO. At CLT, they don't even call Elites... in fact two weeks ago the agent boarding the flight called for pre-boarding and repeated over and over and over "those who needs assistances.... those who needs assistances... those who needs assistances" about 20 times in a row over the PA. The JetBlue agent about 30 feet away waiting to make a boarding announcement for their flight was visibly pissed off, motioning at her to be quiet.
Two days ago I went up when the whole pre-boarding spiel was made, which didn't include Board First or elite, as I was in row 1 and needed overhead space. I asked the agent if elites can go ahead and board and he goes "you should have already boarded!" then asked if the boarding pass I scanned was really me. It's absolutely amazing the disparity even between people with one ground handling vendor. At Charlotte, Frontier is handled by G2 Secure Services. They also handle United. I know the United manager (the actual United employee) who said everyone G2 has on the Frontier contract are people that United has banished from working its flights.
Which funny... a few years ago when I worked for an airline as a general manager, my ground handler also handled Frontier and Allegiant. Everyone on those contracts had been kicked off my contract (I had 40 flights a day, Allegiant had 1-2, Frontier about 8 at the time). Everyone who I got customer complaints on, or who left off a bunch of bags, or put a hole in a plane got booted to go work F9.