Originally Posted by Jeeves
I agree that consistency and enforcement is going to be necessary to make this work. Under the current system, almost everyone boards either at the first class/gold level or the MVP level. There has to be a lot of passenger retraining, since the old system didn't have the enforcement aspect. I think they are going to have to turn people away and tell them in advance over and over that we are only boarding such and such at this time.
On Friday April 28th, I experienced a separate line for row 15 and higher at OAK and they had those passengers walk down the stairs and do a tarmac rear boarding. There was a lot of confusion and crowding at the gate, but that is kind of expected on a new experience.
Once you let the herd loose, its hard to get them back in the barn.
You were most likely on flight 357 or 359. The reason why we do this is both of those flights
consistantly take large customer service delays when we board like normal through one door. The flight comes in full and offloads. By the time the last passenger is off of the plane, we only have 15-20 minutes to board 120+ people. We board as fast as we can, but then the jetway gets backed up.
We have attempted EVERY possible idea on how to get those 2 flights out ontime and nothing works. So we now have resorted to forward and aft boarding. Which is working perfectly and we are leaving ontime. Which is great for us, and the passengers.
It just will take awhile before the regular passengers and the employees to get the hang of it. Both the process and the annoucements. We have only been doing it for a couple of weeks now.
Now with summer coming on us, we are going to have longer ground times...which will be so much more helpful. I also think the new "old" boarding process will help out both us and the flight crew. ^