trlaura

As I hit my 200th leg of 2010 this week, I have continued to watch the boarding process take all of 30 minutes, flight after flight. The top 3 things I now wish for are:
1) Start charging for any carry on that does not fit under the seat.
2) Board from the back of the plane, period.
3) Consider banning any type of wheels on luggage.

FlytheTail

I agree, the boarding process is much longer now that it has in the past. Yesterday, I was on an MD-90 from DEN to MSP and it took a full 40 minutes for boarding. Your wish list seems a bit extreme but the only one I object to is #2 because a major perk of being an elite or in first class is early boarding. I don't want to give that up.

dd992emo

Let me chime in with my mantra...Remove overhead bins from all aircraft! Boarding will be much faster and you will experience more on time departures.

sobore

Add economy plus, or legroom extra, or whatever you would like to call it. ^

ND76

just for people to pass the boarding pass scanning machine.

I have just one morning and three flights as a pretend GA to go by. In each case, boarding was very orderly, but it takes 20-25 minutes to scan all the BPs on each flight when the airplane is mostly or completely full (I was involved with the boarding of a 767, 757 and MD-88).

I learned that it is DL's goal to start general boarding 35 minutes before scheduled departure time (they will start the pre-boarding before that).

Believe it or not, DL's management from top to bottom are obsessed with on-time performance. I saw a flight go out 66 seconds late, and the head GA at our gate was worried that he would face recriminations (it turned out that the captain did not finish all the checklist items, and it was his "fault"). The average GA at ATL was under heavy pressure to get flights out on time.

Dawgfan6291

You going to cover the bill?

Crazyhotelguy

How about marking the bins with seat number spaces... Each seat is allocated 1 space. Fit it or check it.

ShopAround

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...ntl-fleet.html

mrbrad

This is actually something I would be 100% behind. I never check so not having overheads would be a huge annoyance to me. However, it is frustrating when people take up a whole bin for themselves, so a designated space would go a long way. If you remove the overhead, what are you going to do with that extra space? Totally inefficient.

On a less serious note, humiliation is a great motivator. Make sure everyone on the plane knows which idiots are forced to gate check and are causing the flight/boarding process to be delayed.

Evan!

I'm guessing your carry-on has no wheels.

Surprise surprise. "I don't need/want/use it so get rid of it."

dd992emo

I would support that idea. The bins would have to be sectioned into individual seat spaces and probably wouldn't be large enough for most rollaboards. Fine with me.

Why would you have to do anything with it? It isn't that much space. Would it be any more inefficient than the boarding circus that currently exists?

mrbrad

I'm just saying that the planes were manufactured with overhead bins in mind. From a space-usage standpoint, it is wasted space. Certainly in reference to boarding, removing the overheads will speed things up.

Maybe DL could "gift" a few lucky fliers the true "lie flat" experience. Even comes with a privacy door.

yamakake

You beat me to this one. But I'd suggest that DL sell time in the "lie flat" berths, on top of the ticket price for a conventional seat (as not many people would want to spend all of a long flight in a berth, especially not such a cramped one). That way more than one person could benefit from a few hours of napping and DL could maximize revenue.

Curtain better than a door.

dd992emo

Pullmans on a plane. I like it! ^

greasy

My top wish for any carries is TO BOARD FROM ALL DOORS AT THE SAME TIME.

I don't know why is it so difficult as a lot of gates has the ability for 2 sky bridges. But why only use them for bigger planes. If the bridges are available, use them all ! Have row 1-20 board from the first bridge, 20-40 from the 2nd, and 40-60 from the third.

I can ganrentee you the boarding process can be cut down to 15-20 mins.