vbjd1111

Many of Alaska's boarding pass scanners are face up. I have not observed a difference in whether they turn away folks more often who are boarding out of their zone.

WillBarrett_68

1) this is not the objectively fastest method of boarding

2) airlines don't care about the speed of the boarding process (up to a point, at least) - the current system is fast enough and increasing the speed has no advantage from their point of view.

cmd320

Exactly. I'm allergic to boarding after first class. No one could know that by looking at me.

OhDoctor

You're right -- I'm way behind on the evidence. I guess WILMA is the best combination of speed and favorableness although apparently Gatwick is studying this at the moment.

resolute

I STILL board like this when flying F... Want to be the LAST person on the plane - and the door to close and depart after I board. If I do it right, no one is behind me. Oh, and I travel with my 2 carry on items - part of the benefit of flying F is that they WILL find somewhere to put it, even if there is no space. Why be in a rush to sit longer on a plane? And who cares about a silly PDB? I could care less - you get all you want once airborne anyway - of course I am not a plane boozer either...

Problem is these days is that the GAs are trying to herd people into the jetway well before everyone is seated and they often do a "final and immediate" last boarding call long before the jetbridge is empty. The gatehouse can be totally empty and you walk into that door and there are 100+ people still standing in the jetway - that really irks me! On gates where I can see down the jetway, I will look and make sure there is not a huge crowd before I will get on, and even sometimes tell the agent that I don't want to get on until the crowd dissipates - some agents are nice about it and some act like they are downright combative about it and tell me they are going to release my seat if I don't board (so I let them scan my ticket and then I stand at the entrance of the jetway to allow anyone else to bypass me so I don't have to have anyone else in the aisle behind me when I get to me seat and can organize my self and my carry ons, etc. without the hassle of people in the aisle behind me). It often works out well, and I certainly try to be the LAST person on the plane in F - a MUCH more civilized flight experience, in my opinion. Now when I fly coach, I try to be among the First to board - totally reverse rules! So flying coach is where the Diamond boarding is really worth it and I think DL has it right by allowing Diamonds to board whenever they want to - anytime after the disabled people... and ESPECIALLY BEFORE all the entitled kid people.. LOL

Nuhusky

thanks. I was going to say something but gave up

for clarity no two zones are ever called at the same time
zone 1 - active military and first class
zone 2 - executive plat
zone 3 - plat pro and plat
zone 4 - credit card holders
zone 5 - bad seats
zone 6 - worse seats
zone 7 - back of the bus
zone 8 - might want to walk and don’t expect overhead storage

spryam

Kind of nice: I flew RSW to MSP last night. Lots of children. However, they didn’t call those with children under the age of 2:to board before passengers needing extra time, military and first/diamond. I like this. Not sure when they were called as I boarded with my diamond. I like boarding with first class especially when flying the 757-300 with limited overhead space for rows 14 & 15.

xooz

Since I like aisle seats, when in First I am not in a rush to board, since you just sit there while person after person clobbers your arm with their backpack as they walk by. If FA's would just protect the overhead from the coach poachers, I would be a happy camper boarding "at my leisure".

SJC ORD LDR

Back to front is very inefficient because it creates crowding around each section with everyone trying to find bin space and their seat in the same area. Boarding randomly is much more efficient (aka the old NW method). The DL method is all about how much you mean to them as a customer.

If they want to board planes quickly, watch this video.

VFR

Delta's boarding method is designed to recognize people for status or holding a credit card. People obsess over how quickly to load a plane, but it won't leave until everyone is aboard.

People obsess over getting space for their carry-on. Hopefully once Delta has re-fit most of their domestic fleet with the new bins that hold a full-size carry-on bag for each passenger, folks can relax a bit.

The improvement that I would really like to see would be to replace the hard-backed chairs in the gate area with super-comfy padded chairs, so that folks are more likely to stay comfortably seated until their group is called, or even better when they are paged in the app -- this would let folks spread out across adjacent gates when they are not in use. This would be best combined with a number system that's easy to understand for infrequent flyers, so if your boarding pass says Zone 6, you know you won't be the first to get on the plane and you can stay seated for a bit longer.

MCO Flyer

Agreed. I really wish they would remove those dumb pillars in ATL and replace them with more seating. All the pillars do is encourage people to line up early, therefore creating gate lice.

VFR

ATL is... cosy, so it would be tough to add that much more seating. DTW seems like a prime airport for something like this, since DL has the whole terminal and there's a ton of space.

Lomapaseo

They do serve a nice purpose of the standees next to the pillars that free up seats at the gate

s0ssos

But we live in a society where people take advantage of these things all the time!

anonymokus

I flew through the A concourse in ATL last week and the pillars were gone. Just SkyPriority and general boarding lanes like other cities.