Zone What?!?
 

Saw this on a boarding card for the first time.

Gate agent had no idea. Purser was clueless. Gate agents on arrival in AMS were stymied.

Only explanation I can come up with is that this indicates a boarding group that is to use external stairs to the rear door. That doesn't chime with seat 2A, though.

Johan

Weird. KLM is going to start using both forward and rear doors for boarding to speed up the process, but as far as I understood only in AMS. Maybe IT has made a start with something new. The combination KL and IT has it's challenges, as has often been demonstrated in the past.

I've had this on my BP from BHX to AMS all the time recently. I just ignored it.

They already do. I've experienced this not only in AMS but also CPH.

The gate agents I spoke to in AMS said that the rear door will not be used in inclement weather.

Johan

Smart move.


Marching out on the apron and waiting under the tail of the plane for someone to open the rear door for you could cause all sorts of complications. :)

Johan

I wonder if they are, yet again, pondering whether to improve (:rolleyes:) boarding procedures. SAS, for the records, have had boarding zones for quite some time now – it tends to work at their main hubs but largely ignored in pretty much all other airports.

G

I boarded from the rear stairs on a KLM TXL-AMS flight a couple of years ago. It wasn't noted on the boarding pass though. I was seated in the 20s. It was a beautiful summer day and in TXL they just had us walk out onto the apron to board steps. There were ground crew steering you around the wings to board in the rear. I just thought it was an interesting experience. And efficient as well.

They are, and they had better get results.

In a recent Luchtvaartnieuws magazine interview with a Cityhopper honcho, this topic came up. KLC has already reduced the number of standby aircraft from four to two, and in a year or so this will be down to one. That will obviously affect their ability to deal with contingencies, so they are focusing on faster turn-around times to maximize utilization and minimize the need for spare aircraft.

Johan

I boarded at a non-hub last week.

Despite being in SAS+ my BC said "Zone B". The gate agent the proceeded to announce boarding for zones A and C (???), followed by Star elites of all shapes and sizes.

Needless to say, I just ignored all that and sailed through the BP checkpoint as one of the first.

On arrival I disembarked through the rear door, as did all other pax. SK figured it was a good idea to park a Schengen flight at a non-Schengen gate, so everybody had to be bused to arrivals. No doubt having planned ahead for this, it took them ages to find some external stairs and a couple of buses.

At CPH Norwegian uses the rear door as a matter of routine, and SK seems to be doing so more and more.

Johan

Surely one needs to question why row 2 should be boarding at the rear? :D

I also noticed this recently, being sat in the EC zone it had rear on. Maybe row 1 board from the front, everybody else the rear...

I also had a Zone REAR mention on my KLM boarding pass (flight out of AMS, boarding pass issued in OTP). It made no sense. I was seated in 1A, and boarding was through the front door only.

Maybe Zone REAR doesn't refer to boarding then hmmmmm :D

As have I, though not on that route! But yeah - no need to get so exercised by this.

Both AF and KL are back in the main terminal at TXL, as Terminal D has now been given over entirely to Eurowings. No more being bussed from the plane to the terminal, or walking across the tarmac to board the plane at TXL.

I just flew out of EDI, there was a lady on the bridge directing passengers in row 15 or above to go down the stairs and board via the rear steps. The rest of us could get on via the airbridge as normal. In the SP line at the gate a lady was asking peoples opinions of how SP boarding worked as there had been complaints. As there were mixed up lines for both sides that is not surprising.
I haven't yet had a boarding zone show up on a boarding card ,either printed or on my phone

They are making process, i've had zone: FRNT for an 1D seat. Then they all ignored it, good old SP was called, pax that needed more time but no FRNT.

I had this on BHX - AMS last week... Seat 3A but boarding zone 'REAR'... Either way, SkyPri makes everything better ;)

Zone REAR appears to be a synonym to "passenger cabin". :D

Which makes Zone FRNT what? The lav right behind the cockpit?

Johan

The cockpit. :D

No mention of any zone whatsoever on my boarding card today, yet they decided to board through two doors.

Hard to tell whether is was a success, or worth the effort. It took four guys to lay out the route on the apron and to cordon it off, and the gate was manned by as many agents. After parents with infants and UMs boarded, they first spent six minutes setting everything up, plastering yellow signs with arrows and row numbers all over the gate and jetway, making lengthy announcements in English and Dutch, etc., before priorty boarding finally commenced, 11 minutes later than announced on the screens.

Once they got going, however, they did manage to board the aircraft in 13 minutes (a 737-700 with 142 seats and 131 pax) and we pushed back at STD-1.

Johan

Some Asian carriers manage to board an A380 in that amount of time but for KLM that's not bad :)

I saw this in Stockholm in February or March and I thought it was a Swedish thing because it was so awful. Designed to make people suffer. Took pictures and sent it to friends. Avoid KLM.

Those sitting from rows 15 and back where forced to board through the rear door, so they had to to go down a stairway into the tarmac, walk to the back of the plane, and then climb the stairs to the rear door. It was -7 degrees outside and very windy (17 knots). The last passengers also got to taste some snow.

Never been so happy to be sitting on the front, but maybe that is what KLM wants, make it a lot worse for those sitting on the back so that more will buy comfort seats. I really can't believe forcing passengers to take a longer and more difficult way to get to the plane will save time.

Saw an Emirates A380 parked at an E gate at AMS yesterday. They must have had a lot of fun!

Gate agents at AMS have assured me that rear door boarding will not be used in inclement weather.

Althought the weather conditions you describe would probably have brought AMS to a griding halt for an entire day, they are not that unusual by Swedish standards.

All the announcements yesterday specifically mentioned that all pax who felt uncomfortable using stairs were welcome to board via the jetway.

Airlines such as Norwegian do this wherever they can, I see it all the time at e.g. CPH. The logical conclusion is that it must work for them. Whether KLM will ever get the hang of it is another matter.

Johan

Just boarded a mainline plane at D gates.

No mention of zones at all, all boarding through the jetway.

Arriving at AMS last week, pax both doors were used for disembarkation. Apart from the fact that we arrived a few minutes late, and that the aircraft was a full 739, I can't think of any reason why. At least as far as I could see, ours was the only flight at the concourse using this procedure.

Everything was set up prior to our arrival, and the whole process was very efficient.

Last month, aft stairs were used for boarding at CPH, but only after a long argument between the gate agents. One of them asked her colleague to set up the jetway for two-door boarding, wherupon a third agent, apparently the supervisor, said that this was not done by KL at CPH. The first agent protested that arriving pax had just disembarded via the aft stairs, and that she had boarded several KL flights that way previously, but the supervisor would not give in. The agent then called somebody in charge, who confirmed that it was fine to board via the aft stairs, as long as the weather was OK and they had the necessary resources available. Even then the supervisor would not relent, but in the end he was finally overruled by somebody.

Johan