Mister Nice

I love the fact that B6 is at BWI and has added FLL and MCO nonstops BUT management needs to audit the BWI station ASAP. The station appears to be understaffed and the staff that are available seem to be under-trained or overwhelmed.

Case in point - arrive at 4:45 for 6:00am BWI-BOS - ticket counter line was long/not moving and only 2 or 3 staff working the counter. I had no checked luggage so I went to the line marked "Check-in only - no bags". I had checked in online but got "Bummer" when trying to pull up my online BP. There is a group of 6 international musicians with bags to check and instruments to check and they are monopolizing the 2 kiosks at "No bags". There is no staff to direct folks and very little signage - pure chaos. The line is not moving at all and there is no one to assist the musicians with bags at the "no-bags" kiosk because they are not supposed to be there with bags. I finally spot an open kiosk down the row and jump to it - getting my BP just before the cutoff time. I am TSA pre so security is a breeze.

The saga continues. The BP and all airport monitors show D4 as the gate for BOS. No signage and no agent at the gate but there is a B6 E-190 at the gate. There are about 20 paxs sitting around and all asking each other if this is the gate for BOS. A couple of B6 pilots are approaching the adjacent gate for their flight and a pax from the BOS flight asks them if D4 is still the BOS gate - they are nice enough to check their smartphones and confirm D4 for BOS. 5:30 BOARDING time - still no signage and no agent. Finally, at about 5:34 a B6 employee comes out and asks what we are doing at this gate. Of course, we reply , "waiting to board the BOS flight". She then informs us that the flight is going out of D8. We show her BPs and gate monitors that show D4 and she shrugged and walked away. We go to D8 - bunch more people BUT no signage and no agent . At 5:40 or so , a gentlemen that appears to be a manager or supervisor hurriedly shouts out that this is the BOS flight and takes a wheelchair pax on to the plane. An agent finally shows up and starts the boarding process - there are no computers at this gate and no signage. The agent then just tears our BP's and piles them up - no scanner and, as stated, no computer so no seat changes etc... Luckily , the flight is not full and the late boarding does not cause a delay. Great flight with superb crew !!!! But they did tell us that they had been in town since the previous morning and the plane had been there overnight so there were no issues with the plane and crew so no excuse or late gate change. Unfortunately, no apology form the BWI staff for all the confusion. VERY unprofessional station all around. Love me some B6 but they need a restart with BWI staff.

dw

Unfortunately, at smaller stations often the same staff that mans the check-in desks will have to board the plane as well. So it's possible due to the s***show you described in the check-in lobby, it took longer than usual to finish check-in, at which point an agent was freed to run to the gate to do boarding.

Obviously what you described is not ideal, but it doesn't sound that different than some legacy airport operations at smaller airports where they've outsourced ground handling.

hi55us

I've flown B6 BWI-BOS a lot (usually departing Boston in the morning and returning a few days later in the evening flight from BWI).

I've had a fantastic experience and also love the airspace lounge they've opened at BWI. Sounds like you caught an off-day. I like B6 out of BWI much better than the cattle call across the way at Southwest...

sbm12

Been closed a few months now.

dw

BUT will be reopening as one of those "The Lounge" outfits run by a Priority Pass affiliate.

hi55us

Thank God. Love "The Lounge" in Boston, much better than the airspace with free drinks.

dw

Oops sorry, that was my mistake. I meant to write "The Club", so not related to the new BOS lounge. It'll be one of these:
http://www.theclubairportlounges.com

Drummer

I looked at your link, and it DOES list the BOS Terminal C lounge.

CMK10

I was at BWI last week and it was indeed a mess. The security line for D at 4:30 PM on a Sunday was over 100 people long. Even Pre-Check had a long line. The bottleneck getting into security really doesn't help. At least some of the gates (D4) for one are renovated, ever since A-B-C got connected, D has rapidly become the worst domestic concourse at BWI.

octr202

Is indeed getting pretty depressing, but I guess there's finally some renovations underway. I'm usually through there a few times per year visiting family (back since most of my BOS-BWI travel was on AirTran starting about 2003), and security at D has always been frustrating. Some of the worst lines I regularly encounter, especially when departing on early morning flights. During one round of construction, it felt like the security line was stretching all the way behind the ticket counters down to terminal E.

I see the current terminal map from the airport shows D1-5 as all closed. In the last couple years it's seemed like B6 has been jumping around the lower D gates a lot, I guess that's likely to only get worse as the badly need rehab continues. There's a ton of gates in D, but unfortunately way too many of them are in the old US commuter gates out at the end, which last time I was there were all but completely closed up.

MDOH

The new security checkpoint for the D/E connector is expected to open by mid November. The full connector will be finished next year.

RWPrincess

I've also seen situations where agents have limited hours in these smaller stations. Once had to wait on line to check my bag in Vegas which isn't what I'd call a smaller station but it seemed they had specific hours to keep the desk open.

I haven't seen the gate agent/ticket agent be the same person since 2010 in AUS. I've been to a number of smaller stations this year. The only thing I've seen outsourced on B6 are the rampers in HOU and MSY.

DrivingRain

That lounge had some nice food at times...