Originally Posted by
Maxwell Smart
So was it an anomaly that those that volunteered in advance were not given priority?
No.
Originally Posted by
Maxwell Smart
If not, then just what's the point of volunteering at checkin if you need to still proactively get the the podium ASAP if they make an announcement asking for volunteers?
The primary purpose of the check-in question is data gathering for UA — what would people accept in a hypothetical VDB.
In practice, agents in a VDB situation are trying to do all of their regular pre-departure tasks
plus looking for volunteers. If the person with the lowest bid happens to be available at the gate, they might call that person and ask if they’re still interested, but I doubt they’d spend more than two minutes on that before opening it up to the crowd. It’s just so much easier to deal with the volunteer standing right in front of you than it is to deal with a list full of people, some of whom are going to change their mind anyway, and many of whom might not be in the vicinity of the gate when they’re trying to get the list sorted.