JustSomeGuy1978

Ok I'll play along. You pay for priority boarding (be it through class of ticket purchased, or through status earned due to your patronage with the airline), Joe NoStatus comes along and boards through the priority line. Theft of service???

However, boarding with an oversized carry on which removes someone else's ability to use the overhead bin and forces them to check their bag is... Not Theft of Service???

I'll repeat that rules are great when they benefit you, I'm status and thus must board in a priority line, but become meaningless when they do not, I cannot bring my jumbo carry on with me.

canadiancow

I'd actually call that one trespassing. Theft of service would be sitting in J when you haven't paid for it (with $, miles, or eUpgrades) and taking food/drink.

I don't board with oversized bags. I agree that it shouldn't be allowed.

I'm not sure it would be "theft of service" though. That's probably just a situation where they should simply deny boarding or force you to gate-check (and pay for) the bag.

eigenvector

I was on AC556 YVR-LAX last night.

Good stuff: agents strictly enforced zone boarding and did not allow passengers of higher zones to board early. 1 and 2 were called separately and one lane was kept open for zone 1/2 pax throughout boarding.

Bad stuff: after turning away all the zone 4/5 people who tried to board with 3 (because 3/4/5 was all one line), no announcements were made, so the zone 3s that were at the back of the boarding area (behind all the 4/5s that had queued up ahead of them) had no idea the GAs were waiting for them in order to continue boarding. GAs were saying things like "there are 30 people left in zone 3, we can't board any 4 or 5 right now", but they were not saying this into the PA, so nobody in line could actually hear them. A passenger took it upon herself to start shouting "zone 3, anyone?" while the GAs inexplicably looked on without using their PA system to made an announcement.

5/10 I guess?

JustSomeGuy1978

Trespassing??? You can't be serious. You have the right to board before a Y passenger, not the right to a specific physical space with in the airport. Come on now.

I'm not saying, YOU, board with oversized bags. I am simply trying to draw a comparative between perceived validity of a rule such as priority boarding vs baggage size.

My original post stated that rules are great when they benefit the person affected by said rule, but when they do not benefit the person the rules become less crucial. In it I presented a hypothetical passenger with privileges to board in a priority line wherein enforcement of said priority line is of the utmost importance. However said passenger also boards with an oversize bag (to avoid checked baggage) to the point of taking up space that would otherwise be used for another persons carry on, and then argues that baggage carry on rules are stupid and not important.

Again enforcement of rules should be consistent, not based on how much I benefit from its enforcement or lack of.

No part of my discussion was meant to be a commentary on your behaviour as a passenger.

songsc

This is the part I don't get. Zone 3 can board before Zone 4 and Zone 5, but it doesn't mean Zone 3 must board before Zone 4 and Zone 5.

I have seen this situation at many airports, where agents think Zone number is the exact order, not the priority. Worst case is that if you are in Zone 1/2 and come to the gate after they started calling Zone 3, you have to join the line up all the way back, because there is no priority line any more.

canadiancow

I understand all that. But you're making up a hypothetical person who wants one rule enforced and another ignored.

I want all rules enforced. And this thread is about zoned boarding, so you're likely to see a lot more people who only talk about how they want the zoned boarding rule enforced, because we have other threads for other things.

CT1

AC announced on its website that buyers of preferred seats now get zone 3 boarding. Makes sense.

Some confusing verbiage on there about AC Vacations passengers, didn't understand that part.

Sorry posting from phone, otherwise I would provide link to announcement.

canadiancow

https://beta.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco...n_2228_title_1

My big fear is that this will be implemented the way UA had it a few years ago (and maybe still now), and that it won't be whether you PAID for a preferred seat, but whether you're SITTING in one. Which means Tangoers who have no seat will not only get a preferred seat, but zone 3 boarding to go along with it.

Jumper Jack

..... What about an E75/50 who got an op-up then?

I mean by the same logic he/she should continue get zone 2 no?

jc94

Speaking as someone who almost always pays for a preferred seat if in Y...
Whoooop!

Under AC IT rules i predict any E35 (don't forget them now), E50/75/SE will get Z3 if they get a preferred seat. Regardless of if they pay or get it free. New thread "SE gets Z3 after choosing preferred seat" to come.

I would like Tango to go Z5 actually. I mean call me stereotypical, and I have zero proof of this, but I think there is a significant tango/mass baggage/zero awareness of zone correlation.

YHZ_Flyer

Yes! No more zone 5 when I purchase preferred seats. This will hold me until next year when I get zone 2.

jc94

Hey me too :P

You are even making the same assumption that I am, that Z2 boarding will stay with E35k. Well more a hope than an assumption.

canadiancow

No.

I only even bring this up because UA had this issue when I flew them in Y with no status in 2012.

I was zone 7 or whatever. I asked at the gate if I could have an exit row. The person currently in the exit row did not speak English, so the GA was eager to swap us. My new BP showed zone 3 (and under the 7-zone rules, 3 was not "general boarding").

It's much easier to write this code:
than to start looking through the PNR for ancillary payments.

Well, I think they've fixed MOST of those bugs. The "safe" algorithm would be:

That way, they can add anything anywhere in the code and it won't overwrite a better zone.

But as recently as this summer, I had one PNR with me and a P25K where some BPs said zone 1 for him, and some said zone 4. Same PNR, same conditions, but they couldn't consistently get it right.

So again, very little faith.

ffsim

Honestly, I don't even think there should be a distinction. If you're sitting in a preferred seat and you board last, you're going to struggle to find bin space and you risk holding up the whole flight. Like what happened to me yesterday out of MCO... we were delayed over 20 minutes while the FAs and gate staff struggled to find bin space; the bags ended up in the hold.

tcook052

It does and could've used it last week.