Dicksbits

Gatwick-Barcelona 3 Sep: No priority boarding call at all! For an 18.50 flight the gate staff simply began boarding. We were at the back of a long queue, and when we reached the front, other Gold members charged from behind and pushed ahead, probably rightly under the 'board when you like' policy. The lack of any clear control resulted in some fellow Club Europe passengers boarding late and finding they had to put their hand luggage in the hold! Hardly a premium experience!

On the rtn Barcelona-Gatwick service on 9 Sep things were a bit more under control, apart from calling the flight as the plane sauntered up to the gate after landing. A member of staff patrolled the queues and examined everyone's tickets. There was a clear call for Club Europe and Gold / Silver / Bronze members first.

winchpete

On a recent flight from BRU-LHR the priority boarding queue was probably longer than the non-priority queue. It was so long in fact it was almost blocking access to other gates and was hard to see exactly where it ended. When I joined what I thought was the back I was tartly told that "the queue starts over there". I noticed the gentleman concerned was a Bronze level member sitting in row 20 something.

The boarding announcement was made applying the new policy of Club/Gold followed by Silver etc. As I was both Club and Gold I made a point of cutting through the queue by asking this gentleman to excuse me as I made my way to board the aircraft!

In the end the boarding process took just as long as on previous occasions due to excessive amounts/over sized hand luggage.

V10

BRU is a bit of a mess generally - there's just nowhere for more than one boarding queue to go.

With the new boarding system it'll result in more moments like this as the priority boarding scrum stops being a queue and separates into silvers and bronzes waiting their turn. Any golds or CE passengers in the lounge that wait for the boarding announcement will find that it's invariably already started by the time they get down there, and have to work their way past the aforementioned groups with the possibility of the sort of reception that you mention.

I don't necessarily blame the bronze member for speaking up either - anyone regularly travelling this route when the old single priority boarding system was in effect will have witnessed people taking advantage of the general confusion over the queue to push their way in, particularly when coming from the lounge.

BlackBerryAddict

I came back from AMS last night. Announcement was made and boarding was as per procedure, and non-business and non-Gold passenger were sent back.

Same on the way out from LHR.

vibguy

At BRU there are always two boarding queues. There is one for priority and one for general boarding, well separated. The new procedure complicates it because now the priority boarding is in different steps: first CE/gold, then silver, then bronze. They make the boarding procedure announcement very clearly but people do not always comply. They are checking if people have the right priority for boarding and are sending people back who do not have the right priority. I have seen a bronze member who had to go back when only CE/Gold were boarding.
In my opinion the new boarding procedure does not speed up boarding at BRU. It results in CE/Gold to board first though.
The new limits for the hand baggage dimensions are not enforced. People board with larger items, which is normal since it is a very short flight and people not connection at LHR try to avoid checking bags.
Full flights can result in hand baggage storage delays which the agents at BRU try to anticipate by starting boarding early. In general I would say that the agents acting for BA at BRU are doing a great job!

darthlemsip

I flew back from AMS yesterday too (on the LCY flight) and had exactly the same experience as you. Worked so well we were actually done, boarded and pushed back 5 minutes early (and then promptly had to taxi to that runway that might as well be in Belgium)

wythy

This is true for most outstations. The staff are caught in the middle of trying to implement an ill thought out process that doesn't even make any difference what so ever to the length of the boarding process and Policing passengers, some of whom believe the rules don't apply to them.

Castle25

Flew back from Rome(FCO) to LGW in CLUB and the new boarding was used - what a complete waste of time.
We went from H13 and as such it is a bus ride to the plane.
Club was called and then gold but as we all got on the same bus and then had to wait for all the rest of the plane to fill the bus up - get to plane and a big mad dash by some of the other flyers to get on the plane.
I just waited until they all got off to board.

However the crew were fantastic and had a lovely beef curry for lunch

LGW was a disgrace as all of the priority bags came out last....

wellsy

Can they at least get the gate screens to show the current boading group? If you turn up mid-boarding process, who knows whether to hang back or risk rejection if your group is not boarding yet

flashware

I've arrived at boarding once for the screen to say 'boarding to commence shortly' or something like that, then thought OK I'll go up anyway as it wasn't long before departure...... only to get on the plane and find almost everyone seated already!

kt74

Ha! I lucked out then. I was coming back from AMS on the LGW last night, and no boarding announcement was made at all. It just started boarding, and the gate agent was taking people alternately from the priority and non-priority queue. A very pushy Silver couple in row double-digit-something-or-other barged in front of me. Lovely. (To be fair, another agent was trying to enforce further down the queue, but she was fighting losing battle...)

The agent was much too busy putting yellow tags on people's bags to worry about enforcing any kind of priority (Me: "I only have one, small [soft, non-rollaboard] bag", Agent: "the flight is full", Me: "I'm in row 1", Agent: "Put it under the seat in front of you" )

Richmond_Surrey

Priority stickets doesn't seem to work in London ... Not sure what's the point of them if baggage handlers don't make any effort when loading and unloading plane and puttin bags in belts.

BlackBerryAddict

They were also proactively tagging second bags. But then they did have time because our flight was delayed.

Passport control was crap though in Amsterdam. (Not BA's fault, I know). They closed most of the security lanes to allow passport control to catch up.

And I wasn't impressed with the lounge. No food whatsoever, except crisps, pickles and tiny stroopwafels.

Plus a woman came and sat exactly right next to us (twice) in an otherwise almost empty lounge

Globaliser

The main function of priority tags is to stop passengers asking for priority tags.

Fitch

Deleted due to fat fingers