billinghamn

Personally, I think priority boarding should be called in a prioritised order, that being:

1. First
2. Business and Gold members (and equivalent OW)
3. WT+ and Silver/Bronze members (and equivalent OW)
4. WT

That's the only fair way of doing it.

With an extra category right at the top for me and my mrs.

BA6501

Why?

Land-of-Miles

Move Gold in with First (which I think is fair) and you have the AA boarding structure which works very well.

billinghamn

Agreed. Job done after two posts.

What were the rest of you doing for the other 60 posts?

HIDDY

I wonder if that has more to do with the number of status travellers flying at that time of the day? There were no problems on my last GLA-LHR flight. Although busy it departed during a time of the day when more leisure orientated passengers were travelling. It was all very civilised with no signs of people being desperate to board first.
I seem to recall it was done by aft row numbers first but I may be wrong.

TheAberdonian

Really! If so, definitely does make you sound like an a**hole

csutter

Not on international flights though, and don't forget uniformed military (I'll probably regret opening this particular can of worms ): https://www.aa.com/i18n/urls/boarding.jsp

ThatT1Feeling

I find the US approach works well - most travellers are used to it and chancers know they will be kicked out.

I find the LHR boarding to be better than it used to be. At least priority boarding is now proper priority boarding, i.e. before the rest other than parallel queues as it used to be. I do agree that adding in bronzies hasn't helped as it's too easy to earn (my current itinerary is earning 390 TPs alone), but generally Fast Track is most use on short haul where finding baggage space might be an issue. If Fast Track means you'll still be in the first 50% of people boarding, then it serves its purpose IMHO.

If you are travelling in F then I would just wait till the queue dies down. You won't have issues with storing baggage, there is no benefit to being first on, so I would just chill

msm2000uk

Airports which board direct from the lounge are great, but don't help the cause at its root, LHR/LGW.

While I agree that the order system is suitable, the issue is that many premier travellers remain in the lounge up until told to leave, and you can't expect economy passengers to wait for them to waltz along!

I did put some thought into the obvious solution, but the above is the potential hazard of undertaking the boarding process that way.

Glad to see however, that I am not the only one frustrated by BA's boarding extravaganza!

angeloedades

Why?

/AE

exilencfc

Don't know about that - I got the train home. Sounds like a good idea though

corporate-wage-slave

Because they seem to have a genetic predisposition to swing from side to side while they check every row number through to row 22, thereby inadvertently crushing said backpack into the spectacles of alternating aisle passengers all the way down.

McCoy

I don't think that's ever happened to me..

Whereas getting a fat arse in my face, belonging to some sweaty, fat businessman trying to store his mammoth luggage in the overhead, with no concept of personal space is an occurrence on almost every flight I take.

Land-of-Miles

I have no issue with uniformed military boarding before me no matter what class I am in, BA should do this too. I can't say I have noticed the different boarding process on my somewhat limited AA international flights.

In fact I have never heard them announce it in any way other than First Class and OW E on 3 class Transcons. Either way it seems to work.

Captain Schmidt

LX has this at some gates in GVA. *G gets boarded manually first and once they are all clear, the electronic gates are opened for the unwashed masses.