Pre-pre-boarding announcement at Dublin telling everyone about Group 0. Good to hear, but seeing as Group 1 can’t ever board before groups 2-3, not sure what they’ll achieve here. Let’s see.

So DUB-LHR gets a “yes” for group 0 boarding, but boarding for everyone else was a bit of a mess.

After children under 5, Group 0 called and five people standing over on the side of gate 204 (the usual for LHR flights) walked over in front of the main queue. The tensa barriers also appeared to be less “tight” than they were, so anyone coming the normal way could have walked past other people waiting, though it would have been a bit of a pain.

Once group 0 was finished, they then called Groups 1 and 2 together and boarded everyone from the priority line - apparently not a single person was group 3. I suspect they just weren’t checking, as someone in front of me certainly gave the appearance of not flying more than once in a blue moon. What complicated matters is that the area where the group 0s were waiting also held another 10-20 people who I’m guessing would have been group 1s (who used to be the first to board) and who now merged with the main priority queue, but being able to queue jump rather than wait in a line. People who had been standing for 20min boarded after people who just walked up and skipped in front.

All in all not a total disaster, but not exactly a premium experience for BA Golds or people in CE either.