More WN testing of front and rear boarding
 

Had this happen months ago at SJC. Old news

Two doors and air stairs have been used in BUR since... forever. No jetways at BUR. They can turn a full plane around in 20 minutes at BUR.
A few years back they came up with a rolling ramp for the nose door, though I believe they still might offer lift service (to the opposite door).
Flying into BUR, sitting in the back is like sitting in the front in terms of quick exit.
BUR terminal is a throwback to the 60's in almost every way, but still my preferred airport in LA.

AA and US before it, have done this on the Shuttle services for years.(offloading only). UA had some double jet bridges for widebodies which it repurposed to narrow bodies on occasion (no longer). It generally works well and speeds up both on and offloading and that is a good thing.

For boarding, it permits WN to allow passengers willing to board through the rear to board contemporaneously with special assistance passengers. It is also a better bet if one is later in the boarding process because most people will default to the forward door and thus a better chance of a decent seat towards the rear.

The only downside is that there will be those seated towards the back who decide that they don't want to do two sets of stairs and want to go forward while others are trying to go back. If they wait 2 minutes, the rear will clear, but it doesn't always happen.

UA did it mainly with Ted many years ago using dual entry jetways. That is until one broke and damaged a 757 (though that may not be the ultimate cause of them cancelling the usage)
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...tway-here.html
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...er-breaks.html

Edit:
Post 5000!

But AA doesn't have open seating like WN. You know someone is going to flip out about "their" (economy, all seat are economy despite what you might think from reading some of the seat stuff on this site) seat being taken by someone behind them that didn't pay for EBCI or BS.

Love it for deplaning at places like BUR where everyone hits the tarmac, not a fan at SJC where you gotta use the air stairs down then hike up the stairs from the tarmac to the jet bridge.

Not a fan for boarding anywhere.

... depends on where you prefer to sit :)

Encounter this frequently in Europe and love it.

I deplaned out the back of a Delta Shuttle MD-80 at BOS once. I got to walk around the plane and then out the exit to the sidewalk. ^

I also found it curious that they put out a release on this now; my first time seeing dual boarding with WN at SJC was in June 2017. And many airlines use dual boarding at BUR since there are no jetways.

Obviously whoever created that web page didn't know anything about the subject and got lots of things mixed up.

They claim that it's jetway front and stairs back, but it's actually stairs at both ends at BUR.

They claim they're "testing it" at those 4 airports, but it's been around at BUR for well over a decade (basically, since WN started serving BUR), but with stairs only.

So if this really a test, they shouldn't have lumped BUR in as a "test" location. There's no other choice at BUR!

And with the many things wrong with that web page, what else might be wrong? (Are they even really doing a "test", or did they conclude the "test" already at SJC last year?)

I somehow manage to miss the "test" at SJC each time I fly there. I'd be more than happy to be a lab mouse!

I really need to check our BUR some time when I'm in the L.A. area. ONT is infinitely more convenient for me though (I do recall the stairs there at ONT too but they are long gone...).

That is a fundamental flaw with WN and can't be fixed. It neither assigns seats nor intervenes in the childish mess over holding seats for later boarders, individuals' "must haves" and all the other assorted juvenile conduct.

Using two-door boarding will come with its own set of problems. But, maybe those will move WN in a direction to deal with the childish stuff.