ctporter

Interesting chance to "vent" about activity at the gate when boarding in the recent survey. Of the entire flight experience for me the time at the gate waiting to board is the most annoying. Although I do not fly SW I look with slight envy at their number things (cattle stalls?) and the family boarding area in a separate area, and wonder does that system actually work well? I really wish the GAs would do much more proactive announcements. Let people know in time to gather up all their stuff that "preboarders" will be boarding in x minutes, please come and line up here...(wherever). I see so many families getting to the boarding lanes after they have called for FC because they did not realize they only have a minute or so before other groups will be called. And for heavens sakes, tell me that boarding will NOT happen as stated on the board and your boarding pass, i.Then stick to it or update the moment you know you will not hit the stated time.

Eastbay1K

Yes, can you imagine offering a refreshing beverage on the jetway when in line? What could possibly go wrong when handling two carryons, having a very important phone conversation, and grabbing a drink?

ctporter

LOL!!! But, Do you recall when Horizon used to offer free coffee (and newspapers) at the C2 gates at Sea? I was thinking the beverage offerings would be similar to that, for folks to drink while seated in the gate area rather than as folks board.

mbluecpa

An opportunity for a "photo op" as you enter the plane? A welcome mat at the plane entrance?

I did like the questions about service, potentially not from carts, and the desired time from hitting cruising altitude until service commences.

missamo80

This should be merged with https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...community.html by the mods.

Neil

PV_Premier

The photo op thing is sort of dumb. This isn't disneyland. Imagine the GA's at the destination hawking the photos for $20 each. Admittedly I didn't do the survey, so I don't know how the question was worded.

AKCuisine

I think mbluecpa was joking about the "photo op," PV_Premier. But if not, the questions on my survey were different - and did not include any queries about photos or a "welcome mat.

My survey did include an item about whether it would be nice to have the pilot in the boarding area to make announcements about the flight. Um, excuse me? Personally, I don't think that's a good use of his/her time ...

dave1013

The photo-op and welcome mat questions were on my survey, as well as the one about the talking pilot in the boarding area. Interesting that different folks get different survey versions.

So, AKCuisine, what do you have against photo ops and welcome mats? JK

jrl767

imo there are actually several root causes of boarding area chaos:

• passengers who think "a little extra time down the jetway" means "a little extra time to navigate the aisle with my four family members, each of whom has four carry-ons"
• passengers buried in screens, phones, etc and oblivious to GA announcements
• passengers who don't care about GA announcements even if they do hear them
• crappy airport PA systems where GA announcements are basically unintelligible anyway

oh, and unrealistic estimates of boarding time that cause passengers to start turning into gate lice at least 10 min before any pre-boarding activity actually starts (which GA announcements like "We will start pre-boarding in a few minutes" only aggravate)

Idaho Territory

NO CAROL, YOU CANNOT "Just check" TO SEE IF YOUR MASSIVE ROLLER BAG WILL FIT! CHECK IT!

jinglish

As an MVP who boards with elites or F and doesn't really have any problems with the process, I answered with 4 or 5 on all the initial satisfaction questions and then only got asked about in-flight service.

I just hope they're not considering playing music in the boarding area like VX. They were blasting N*SYNC at PDX before my mileage run.

mbluecpa

Unfortunately, I wasn't joking. In the free form response boxes I commented on gate lice but that was not among the multiple choice options. jrl767 summarizes the real issues with boarding perfectly, and I will add off-script announcements like this morning's combined call for people needing assistance, F, all elites, and all partner elites to board at once. F + upgrade list summed to about 60.

Buster

I commented on this, as well as the increasing trend of people bringing older and older kids for preboarding (a few trips ago I saw someone preboard with a preteen when they called for families with children).

Finkface

No, you weren't joking. I got the same options: pilot in the gate area, photo op, refreshing beverage on jetway, welcome mat, crew member taking drink orders at the boarding door. Are they kidding me? Just enforce the damn boarding order (and that includes only those REALLY needing to preboard), the carry on limits, and for heavens' sake stop the gate lice so one can actually reach the podium! That's all I ask.

sltlyamusd

Not to mention a great way to slow down an already slow boarding process...