I actually sat and watched because the flight I was trying to get on to was oversold. Some unlucky person didn’t make the flight so I got their seat and boarded as the very last pax.

There was the proverbial elk migration around the boarding gate. They called zones 3, 4, 5 and people seemed to emerge from the herd and queue to board when their zone was called. It seemed to sort of work?

I like to board first and this reduces gate lice. But if you are someone like CC who has Z1 and likes to board “at their pleasure“ you are going to have fight through the herd to get on board.