Fiordland

I think airport design is a big part of this. It has been a few year since I have traveled in Asia. However I remember Narita, Taipei, Honk Kong, and Shanghai to all be airports where AC uses gates in concourses of the airport intended for wide-body aircraft where there is no shortage or room to both line up and also to be seated.

Even domestically YVR has gates that are well designed and neighboring flights don't bump into each other. Gates 43, 44,45 is a good example. The counters at these gates are parallel and don't create collisions. The one exception to YVR is that silly gate behind the restaurant, 47. I was there earlier this week boarding a high density 777-300. Lines stretched around the restaurant and once the lineups curve good luck figuring out if you are in the Zone 3, 4 or 5.

YYZ is poorly designed on many fronts including its gates. Coming back from Toronto last week, I was boarding at 40, you have support pullers and garbage bins that force all the lines to merge together and passengers getting onto 39 running into the lines for 40. I was boarding a A321 (a fairly large narrow body).

They need to abandon the zone nonsense where they cant physically cant make it work.

wsommerv

It's a spectacular system when you're in zone 1 or 2. But when you're in zone 3 and you arrive well before boarding to tightly penned line of a hundred 4 and 5, it's a little more discouraging.

The place that REALLY shines at zone boarding is BDA, with a whole separate gate for zones 1 and 2. No fuss no muss. Not to mention boarding from both the front and rear of the plane makes things remarkably painless. In that way it's almost a shame that they're replacing the terminal.

quantumofforce

Met guy in lounge, chatted about work . Get to gate, he's all confused. He doesn't know about zones.

He's zone 1, in economy. That means he's super elite. How do these people exist? Anyway, not going to contact him after the fact for a contract I am looking to hire for.



​​

longtimeflyin

I'm surprised you are surprised. I know of plenty SE friends who travel in Y who board in a zone other than 1. Please keep in mind we are the 1% here on FT.

canadiancow

There's nothing wrong in boarding whenever you please. I sometimes board after zone 5.

But to be SE and not know what zones are... They announce it numerous times before every flight. How can you be SE and have no idea what a zone is?

Stranger

Are there SEs who don't know they have SE status, perhaps?

Jumper Jack

Uhm... could he be traveling with some one else who is actually a SE?

eigenvector

Aeroplan ticket redeemed from an SE's account? I know that bug is supposed to be fixed, but last week I flew with a friend who had a ticket on his SE MM dad's points and he was Zone 1 and got into the MLL without me guesting him.

canadiancow

Last name match?
First initial?
First name?

eigenvector

Last name & first initial.

jc94

You know, AC's inability to distinguish between two J Smith's isn't exactly comforting.

YEG_SE4Life

It is for the son with the same first initial and last name as the SE who used AE points for the son's flight.

nave888

After a busy couple months of travel, I have some observations:

1 - Most stations seem to be doing better with calling Z1 and Z2 separately, and also waiting for those needing extra time until Z2 is done. Very impressed here.

2 - Z2 is generally huge, even on narrowbodies. I think this will become even worse over the summer as more and more CC holders use points for family trips. Seems silly to group *G, E75K, and someone who never flies but has an AC branded CC together.

3 - Z3 seems to be huge too. Now that Preferred seats, P25K and Comfort fares all get Z3 as well, it seems to be a massive group. Makes me wonder how many people are actually left after Z3!

4 - AC IT still can't manage to group people on the same reservation together. Flew with family in early june - checked in at desk both ways. All got Z2 there, but back, I got Z2, they got Z5. Agent claimed there was nothing she could do, it was automatic. MLL agent said the same thing, and I had to tell the GA who let us all on together.

I think that ideally, AC would have zones like this on all mainline flights.

longtimeflyin

Re: #4 . I believe it has been like this since since Air Canada introduced zonal boarding, and the proper way to resolve this issue is to exactly do as you did.

canadiancow

Check in online. Then you can force the system to do it all at once, and I've never had that fail.

With agents it's depended on how they do it. There's clearly a right way and a wrong way.