Status points without flying
 

Leaving Christchurch tonight on a regional flight. Saw the guy in front of me swipe his boarding pass, enter the boarding area then just walk on back out the exit with an arriving flight.

Is this like a common thing people do if they want to do a status run, or is this man a genius?

Hopefully there is something more than what you have described - otherwise all pax are held up as they page for him.... In any case, he shouldn’t collect APD/SP if not boarded - the pax manifest would not reconcile as well.

I have never heard that before but hey... Why not! There is probably some legitimate reason we shouldn't do that though outside of just status point hacking 😉 like the airlines freaking out if they need to find you etc.

At least on the turboprops, they usually do a head count before leaving the gate...they would realise pretty quickly that they haven't boarded I'd have thought?

Doing that would cause major issues. Headcount wouldn't match so they'd identify the missing pax then start the offloading process.

You certainly wouldn't earn any points..

I never noticed they did a headcount. Makes sense though!

This would work. Scanning boarding pass is the only time their system counts you as having boarded but this poses a major security risk and should be brought to NZ's attention.

Imagine if he had a checked bag and the plane would have taken off with a checked bag whose owner's was not on board, which is not acceptable anywhere in the world.

It can't work - the headcount is to prevent this very scenario from occurring because can easily get confused at WLG, AKL and CHC regional due to the setup and people routinely have ended up on the wrong plane (I've been on flights on two occasions where this has happened). Obviously on an A320 there is no need for a headcount because there is no way to escape once you've walked down a jet bridge.

Headcount on a turboprop is for W&B reasons as much as anything else.
The AC is divided into zones and the passenger count for each zone is given to the flight crew. Dash 8's in particular are nose heavy and you will sometimes see people from the front moved to the back when the load is light.

Scanning the BP at boarding is the last step to trigger SP & AP, however it will be undone when the head count is done and they have realized you are not on the flight.
I have once unboarded myself (carryon only) but went straight to the gate agent and let her know.
To not board or unboard and not let anyone know is a dick move as they have to spend time to figure who is not there.

Kind of related, after arriving on a regional flight to CHC last night the flight attendant emphasised that you must make your way back to the terminal to scan your boarding pass if you are transferring to another regional flight. I swear I haven't heard this announcement before.

I only ever hear this at WLG.

A couple of months ago I was flying via CHC and our flight out of DUD was delayed and then we were held on the tarmac at CHC for ~10 minutes...meant the transfer was very tight so they instructed us to go straight to our connecting flight at gate X...we walked via the sheltered walkway and from memory a lady marked my name off on her list, but we didn't enter the terminal at all.