Test of new boarding procedure
 

According to a newspaper article in 20 min LX will test a new boarding procedure for short haul flights. Link Persons with window seats shall board first, followed by persons with middle seats and then with aisle seats. Persons booked together will be allocated to the same boarding group. Apparently, LH already introduced such boarding procedure, at least testwise.

Does anybody know when these new procedures will be tested and has anybody already made experiences with LH?

LH tested a few things this spring to see what gets a aircraft turned around the fastest. The usually pick a flight which is notorious for delays and try out things to make it better.

If I recall correctly, LH had a "column-based" (rather than a row-based) boarding order about a decade or two ago. It didn't work.

Shuly

LH did this about twenty years ago because people hated it and no one, not even in Germany, complied.

It makes sense provided you still board premium first otherwise if you're in 1C there will be no room in the overhead which was a problem on many flights IIRC.

There's a mythbusters episode about this. I remember watching in my youth. IIRC the conclusion was it doesn't make much of a difference. Front to back, back to front, perfect order, I recall all was tested.

The most important thing any airline can do to speed boarding is implement and stick to strict hand luggage requirements. TK get this right every time and flights leaving LHR T2 are usually great too.

If only it was everywhere.

LX Rolling Out Boarding Groups
 

So I just downloaded my boarding passes for two LX flights to my passbook, and both contain a slot next to Gate and Seat called "GRP". I wonder if that means boarding groups are coming?

I know HONs and Fs would be first in line for that but I actually dont like it if it'll be anything like United.

Yes they are experimenting with different boarding in order to cut down delays

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.20min.ch/15687919

Doesn't this usually fail because of letting status pax board first? In theory boarding window-middle-aisle makes sense, but in practice if you let your elites board first and they are seated in random spots then you lose much of the efficiency gains. At least, that's been my experience on UA, but then again almost everyone gets to pre-board for one reason or another on UA these days (e.g., just signing up for their credit card puts you ahead of the regular boarding). Maybe LX can make this work if they restrict pre-boarding to a much smaller group of pax.

Most of my European flights are almost full or full. The problem is not window-middle-aisle boarding, it is carry on luggage: either more than the allowance, or finding that one or two overhead bins are already full from the outset with crew bags. Boarding sequence will not address this.

Studies show that random boarding is more efficient than window-middle-aisle. That's part of the reason why WN can turn an aircraft faster than any other US carrier.

+ 1

And the crew bags in the first couple of rows are really annoying

I can directly compare United and Swiss, and United is still a lot more slow to fill the same plane.

Not to mention Boarding Group 1 means nothing. Army veterans, children, people with disabilities, GS, and 1K board first. And the line of that entire group in my experience is comparable with the line in Group 1, which is usually fairly large.

This has yet to cause my luggage bin bag to be misaligned with my seat, but it's irritating to be given Group 1 and not board first. I'd rather be given Group 2. And have that group above be Group 1. And I wish the categories of passengers qualifying for Groups 1 and 2 were a bit more narrowly defined (or the statuses hard to get). The lines for both and then Group 0 are, in the aggregate, always huge.