HA New Boarding Process Coming Down the Pipe
 

OLCI BPs last week had a section for Zone (replaces what used to read "Priority"). This week, OLCI and card stock BPs read ZONE 1 and ZONE 3 for my wife. Guess they may be moving to zone boarding in the near future? These are on interisland flights. Looks like Plats get ZONE 1. Not sure if there is a ZONE 2 for general or if this will be for Golds.

Got "Zone 1" today on agent-printed BPs at OGG. No status, sat in F. Didn't pay attention to boarding announcement.

Flew through both OGG and KOA today and there were no zone announcements. Just the usual, F+Pualani+Premier Club followed by general boarding.

I hope they do it wheelchairs; Zone 1: F class, Plat, Gold; Zone 2: Premier Club, Preferred Seats and; Zone 3: General boarding all rows. Get rid of pax traveling with kids under 2. And if your Zone isn't called, deny boarding until called.

That makes the most sense to me. Their current process is an absolute nightmare.

HA used to board Y by rows, 19-26 first, then 10-18, then 4-9, or some such. Are the zones the rebirth of that, or are they superior in some way?

Wirelessly posted (iPhone-ETOPS: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 7_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11D167 Safari/9537.53)

That makes sense to me. I noticed last week that there's also an automated boarding lane set up by Gate 55ish. Did not see one this morning by Gate 56ish. So perhaps that's HA's future mentality. Eliminate one GA by automating the process so the boarding lane will prevent you from boarding outside your zone.

Just checked in for our flight to the mainland, I got zone 1, the rest of my family got zone 5.

data point:
only I have status
we're on separate tickets as it was cheaper

My OLCI BP for HNL-KOA tomorrow has zone 2.

I am a premier club member

I hope not- I'd love such a system to be effective, but unfortunately all it will take is one of the many "I don't read or listen" passengers on each flight to reach the automated machine, be refused, and stand there with a blank look to derail the process.

Yesterday headed for the mainland they were calling rows back-to-front. Passing by in the other lane I heard the GA turn someone back for trying to board early, something they too often don't do. Seems for too long the carriers have been trying to change the system rather than enforce the one in place.

The GA yesterday was resolute, no way she was going to allow the "just this once" routine ^

If a family of 5 has different zones on their BP, can they board with the lowest zone one family member has? Say a parent has zone 1 but the minor child has zone 5, would they break up the family?

Did OLCI for LIH-HNL tomorrow and got Zone 2. I'm Gold so it looks like 1 is for First and Platinum, 2 is for Gold and Premier Club followed by 3,4,5...

Also looks like HA is boosting the upgrade rates. It is now $50 to upgrade for Gold into F interisland. Preferred interisland seat unchanged at $10. I would guess all others is $75 for F and still free for Platinum although I think it is a matter of time before HA starts charging Plats for interisland F too. I'm curious to see what the rates are for Platinum and Gold for Transpac upgrades now.

First Class Upgrade info and fee can be found here

Preferred Seats info and fee can be found here

Extra Comfort (starting 08/01) info and fee can be found here

I just completed a trip to Vegas in early June and there was no Zone boarding. Boarding in Honolulu was chaotic because they call Platinum, Gold and Premier at the same time. This triggers a mass stampede of about 50 people moving up to check in. Las Vegas was great. The agent call for Pualani Platinum "and their two guests," then Gold, and then Premier, with the appropriate pause so each group could gather without the mass stampede. This orderly boarding process recognizes the different status levels, which is nice.

Hawaiian corporate should make the Vegas boarding process standard procedure.

+1, but this F boarding before even Plats...

Yes, agree! F trumps FF status :D.