travel.flier

Sadly, before June 2011 it was the opposite. UA was the gold standard. AA was always less efficient. they made modifications to be like PMUA. Unfortunately, PMUA turned into COdbaUA and now have lots of wasted time.

it takes CO 2 agents twice as long as it took UA to board a full flight with 1 agent. Higher costs -->higher fares. go back to the old way!

ChicagoUnited

I have only one wish on this issue -- that they would determine reasonable boarding times (I prefer UA's old ones, the CO ones seem exaggerated) and then HONOR them -- publish the countdown at the gate and board when they say they're going to board. CO employees never understood that published boarding times set consumer expectations and their lazy-seeming execution of this made the airline seem sloppy.

Dsybok

For the record, you are wrong. PMCO routinely took 45 mines to board a 752 and PMUA could do that in 30 sometimes with 10 min to spare. the CO boarding process was in every way inferior to UA, its not really debatable, I've timed it 15 times in a six week period, and in no case did a fully loaded CO flight EVER board faster than a fully loaded UA flight.

Pingtung

Unless you have the actual numbers, you can't definitively say someone is wrong. It's all anecdotal evidence.

I do completely agree with you that I've experienced the pmUA process to be faster than pmCO before they started this whole modification process. The current zone process leads to just a mess right before boarding. I'm willing to give the GA's some time to get used to the new 8 zone boarding process before passing judgment though.

pigx5

It's so funny that PMCO likes to sell flights with only 30 minutes connecting time but like to board a flight 45 minutes before departure......

N1120A

It is abundantly clear that the PMCO process took longer and the modified process still takes longer. Indeed, the modified process exists because the PMCO process was drastically inefficient.

Actually, I think SHARES contributes, as last minute issues are more difficult to deal with.

LAX-SFO shuttles are the most glaring example.

Not to mention the ability to get bin space quickly or board a bit later in the process for the myriad reasons someone would. As a 1K, its a huge difference when I get to the gate and they have started allowing the Blue Carpet Rugby Scrum (BCRS) after F/GS/1K.

Its not the UA procedure.

You have no evidence that UA would have changed a thing. A bad economy should mean lower load factors. Baggage fees were already ridiculous and pushing overhead use to max levels. Meanwhile, UA still boarded in the 30 minute window with time usually to spare.

pdx1M

I am certainly not an appologist for all things UA but the UA boarding process really did work better. I actually think a large part of it came from putting premiers on both carpets rather and all on the blue. These folks are likely the most used to boarding processes - the GS/F/1K folks generally knew the drill and if there were enough to matter would let the GS be up front to not cause a scrum there. Before boarding started the GAs would generally make it clear that the PEs would be first on the other line and that tended to create discipline keepers over there (e.g., comments to zone 4 folks to not get in the way yet). All this seemed to keep the order on the 2 lines a bit more under control and the net effect was that it really did work better than the current system. Now having said all this, I did notice in a couple of recent flights that GAs were being more aggressive about telling people to stay out of the chutes until their group was called and if this practice took hold everywhere it might get things under control. But really - 45 minutes to load a 757 is pretty silly. Some of us really would like to do something more useful with that extra 15 minutes, and if the scrum continues then you just have to be there 5 minutes before the gun just to avoid the worst of that.

Kaix

Customer base issue for sure. I've flown ANA domestic around Japan a lot recently and they can get a domestic 500+ seat 747-400 boarded in 10 minutes. The majority of the pax have only a briefcase or very small bag as a carryon that I've seen. They also have two boarding lanes and everyone scans their own BP.

sprokofiev

The current boarding times on what is passing for a 'boarding pass' (what a COnvoluted mess) reflect what subCO does currently. UA boarding times for domestic narrowbody flights will remain at 30 minutes.

Effective in April, as a result of the recent subUA AFA Agreement, boarding times on the 757 will be increased to 40 minutes for domestic flights, matching the domestic boarding times for subUA widebody aircraft (747/767/777).

However, subUA A320/A319 boarding times will not be changing from the 30 minute boarding times.

Seeing how much manpower subCO takes to board a 757, I suppose it makes sense that they have so much time built into their modus-operandi.

And yes, SHARES can't currently accomodate the idea of boarding 'window, middle, aisle'.

raehl311

I can't imagine this lengthens boarding time. One of the most efficient boarding methods is actually random boarding, and more people in the elite lane increases randomness. I actually somewhat wondered if they specifically made that change to reduce boarding time...

If short boarding time is your primary goal, and we're going to sit elites at the front of the plane, then elites should board 2nd to last... right before F.

I find that unlikely. I almost never see a boarding process where the bottleneck isn't getting people seated. The last person is on the jetbridge long before the last person is through the door to the plane, with a nice back-up of people out the plane and onto the jetbridge.

When that's the circumstance, the problem is not the computer at the gate, it's the order the passengers are let on the plane.

UA's boarding process stinks because of boarding order. F then Elites then everyone else is one of the slowest ways to board.

The fastest way to board would be even row window, odd row window, even row middle, odd row middle, even row aisle, odd row aisle; even faster if you subdivide that in back-to-front.

Almost as fast, but much easier, is "everybody just get on the plane".

exerda

In my limited PMCO experience, the delays in boarding did seem to be in getting everyone seated. I don't know why that would be such an issue, but it was.

Yet UA managed to board that way before CO meddled with the process in, typically, significantly less time than CO did. I don't think this was due to SHARES much, but there was definitely some reason for the difference.

If anything, PMUA was more elite-heavy than PMCO, so if boarding F then elites was really part of the problem, PMUA should have had it even worse.

This was a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," yet bullheaded folks at the merged UA seemed to think they had a solution in need of a problem.

chasbondy

According to 1 FA, she speculates the 45 minutes is an effort to get people out of the lounges so they will serve less free beer and wine

entropy

The CO process is dramatically inferior to UA's. We only need to look at when they tried to move it to UA for some experimental validation.

Why is CO's inferior? Because they flow everyone though at once, and then try to do this "EliteAccess w/everyone who has a pulse". With UA, the F passengers, and the few GS/1K that might be in Y go on, and for the coach GS/1K by virtue of their experience flying, usually are able to lock and load pretty fast. Then they do it so people can flow properly onto the plane. CO is a free-for-all, especially in the EA line, so you have people up front backing up the line to go to the back of the bus at all times.

Luvs2snowbordbut1kSEA

+1 then depart at T-10 with connecting passengers on the ground. I have had this happen a couple times at IAH when making the 20 minute walk to the B gates.

SEA1K4EVR

That 15 minutes is enough time for an extra cocktail in the lounge