Originally Posted by
wizzy
I flew SFO->ORD on Thursday night, and had (I presume) the same GA do something similar. There were enough EXP and Plats who boarded to almost fill the jetway, with a little bit of group 1 able to fit in. She asked where group 1 started, and then asked all EXPs and Plats who were in row 20 or higher to step to the front of the line, making sure that no one from group 1 joined that crowd.
We were delayed, and she was trying to expedite boarding. I thought it worked out pretty well. My thought is that if you miss your advance boarding window, then it's right that you're lumped in with whatever group you happen to board with.
Agreed. And if I show up just before boarding time and find that they started boarding early and are already calling group 3, I just get in the end of the line. (I’d NEVER think I was entitled to “cut in” at the reader.) However, this is not quite the same situation as the OP’s case (at least as I read it.) The OP choose to wait, then did get in line. It was when re-shuffling occurred on the jet-bridge that the OP tried to assert status. Where I would have just stayed where I was (I prefer to blend-on rather than stand-out), this is a personal decision. What I see most clearly is that the GA was not going his/her job in the first place. The whole purpose of AA’s group numbers is to board from the rear – if they have to re-enforce that on the jet-bridge, it occurs to me they did not do so at the reader!