PTravel

As I mentioned in my post, non-frequent-flying families tend to be inexperienced flyers and more likely to monopolize overhead bin space and poach seats. At least that has been my experience.

That's a good question. For what it's worth, I've noted that, on international carriers, it appears to be less of a problem, at least on the carriers I fly (KLM and Lufthansa, primarily). Recently, I've had to fly SNA/SJC a lot. I've been flying WN for scheduling convenience and my avoidance of express jets. I usually pay for Business Select which doesn't cost that much more and puts me in the A group, which boards before families with small children. There's a lot I don't like about WN but, at this point, I see little reason not to choose it over UA.

I hope to be retiring in a few years which will mean the end of business travel and no longer having to contend with ever-increasing unpleasantness of the domestic legacy airlines.

Bonehead

Bingo

kevinflyer

It seems like both sides have spoken, so I'm not sure if I can provide a new view point, but I did have a few questions that I keep seeing come up.

There is a concern over seat poaching. What are we talking about? When we fly we currently take up three seats. I was only able to get two together in a plane with 3 across per side. So I couldn't get the window, instead, I booked a window also in E+ but a different row. Then when the flight boarded, I asked to switch the window seat in my row with the one that I booked somewhere else. So window for window. How is this so bad? With all the complaining about kids, wouldn't you rather sit in another window seat than with my wife and two kids?

And the issue with taking only the overhead bin space above your seat. Isn't this a general problem and not one just about families? When I board in group one, on each flight I see at least a few people that board in group 1 that put both bags plus their jacket above their seat, thus no one else can fit. This doesn't seem to be a family only issue.

Kacee

When WN changed their boarding process a few years back to (i) eliminate the line-up, and (ii) move families behind Group A, that was a huge game changer for them. It basically turned them from a low cost kettle shuttle to a viable business travel option which commands full fares from business travelers. It was certainly the key that made me shift most of my short-haul flying away from UA.

They now absolutely kick UA's butt on the Bay Area - SoCal routes - so much so that UA is no longer even a reasonable option on any route except SFO-LAX.

And now UA is completely ignoring the key lesson of WN's incredibly successful boarding process revision - do not put families in front of your full fare business travelers.

bmwe92fan

+1 - and I'll go back to my original point 28 pages ago - I think we can all support the concept - but there really isn't a way for it to be executed properly - even by an operationally strong carrier like WN - and especially by UA....

dank0014

Dead on, they don't learn from other airlines mistakes, they don't learn from their own mistakes (when they did this back in 2012 already), and they still won't learn from their mistake on 2/15.

Like I mentioned in my economics post (unbiased to either direction, but rather how is this a smart business move from a revenue standpoint), this will easily result in a net lost for them (not up front, but approximately 6 months after implementation and at a slight loss per flight).

This is one of those short sighted moves they make where they just care about the "now" vs. the "future" and we can probably guess someones bonus or merit is directly tied to getting family complaints down. Sadly, that person probably doesn't quite understand how the entire process happens but rather just focusing on 1 letter of the alphabet.

If poorly executed, I will be out the door and take my $50k with me. Though not much, it just takes a few of their higher revenue passengers to leave to make an impact.

UAInsiders acknowledgement (very late may I add) doesn't address the key issues, oddly enough says a new process is coming for boarding but can't release any details (indicates they have no clue still), and proves the point made earlier that UA doesn't go back on something when they announce it until they are proven wrong. It's this lack of insights from their top fliers that has been causing large proportion of them to leave the UA, as well as companies exploring new contracts with OALs. They just don't learn.

If UA wants to become the new large Frontier, than so be it. Just don't count me jumping on your bandwagon.

Agreed, but we all know execution is not their game. I would support some change, but we all know how UA operates.

Bonehead

In defense of UA, they're theoretically putting a (hopefully very small) subset of "families" before the elites.

Theoretically.

username

I think another thing they might want to work on is managing the direction of the lines. A lot of the time, they end up disrupting the traffic on the concourses.

califcoast

We all know execution is always the problem...which is why everyone is panicking and there are already stories of any and every family with kids boarding early.

Yet, I suggest there is a way for UA to implement this simply by having a pre-board category on every ticket that fits the criteria, which should be simple for UA to categorize. THERE WOULD BE NO 'FAMILY BOARDING' CALL - only the pre-board announcement, and they would HAVE to allow more time for this to work!

Since I know most haven't read this entire thread, I am quoting a portion of my post from p.12. Would love to hear any further improvements to these - FLY18725 already suggested making pre-boards check in with an agent who could push for bags to be checked and verify their validity (though GS would obviously need to be exempt).

AlwaysFlyinSomewhere

I believe UA is aware of the problems of people lining up and disrupting traffic in the concourse. This is addressed in my post#446 above. UA is studying ways to keep people seated in the boarding area until their boarding group is called. They will likely add additional seating to help accomplish this.

exbayern

I do not post on FT much anymore, nor fly UA much anymore. This week I flew UA several times (and had a sharp recall of how miserable it is to fly UA....) The boarding was a mess, even though I was in F and one of the first in the Boarding group 1 chute. (I also dislike that chute system but it is another thread)

In each case, the boarding was delayed, and we departed late. In each case, it was families with often not so small children who delayed us, by being able to board in front of group 1, and by blocking the jetway, door, and aisle to other passengers.

LH boards families first. I fly LH on average 2-3x a week, and there is zero issue from this most of the time. The reality is that UA lacks enforcement in general on various things, including oversize carryon. LH can board a full A320 in 15 minutes, even by preboarding families. In each case this week, UA left 20-40 minutes late even on not full flights due to the time it took to board. From my vantage point in F (I was trying to determine why it was even worse to board UA now in February 2016), families were a significant part of why the boarding too so long.

Just a view point from someone who managed to fly over 250,000 miles in 2015 on non-UA carriers, with no issues really from families, and saw the sharp contrast on UA this week.

Kacee

That's the key here. If they could implement the policy consistently as intended this wouldn't be much of an issue at all. I suspect most of us know how poorly UA staff enforces boarding rules already though, and that knowledge is what underlies probably 85-90% of the negative comments in this thread (the remainder being the fringe kid-haters).

Bonehead

They had better not prevent me from lining up early when boarding The Devil's Chariot...I bought a small rollaboard that I call my "CRJ bag" and the only seats that don't send me to the chiropractor on that accursed aircraft are in row 1 (bulkhead), so no underseat storage.

For the most part the whole issue with folks lining up early is of course overhead space (well, the lack thereof), and so if they want to mitigate the problem they will have to either reduce/eliminate checked-bag fees (yeah, that's going to happen) or get really aggressive at gate-tagging bags in Groups 3-5. Otherwise people are going to get antsy as soon as the lines start to form, as they do now.

P.S.>> Hey United...you can keep me in my seat by putting ERJ-175s on my routes now serviced by The Chariot.

halls120

Sorry, but "lack of seating" is NOT what drives people to get up and stand in line.

When you set up your departure gates with five lanes, that is partially what attracts five times as many people getting up and standing in line. I don't care if you're in the C concourse at Dulles which has wholly inadequate seating, or the international terminal at SFO which has a lot of seating at every departure gate. The same thing happens 15-20 minutes before boarding starts, no one will be standing in line. As soon as the first person walks into the group one line, it starts. every line quickly fills up, no matter how much seating is available in the boarding gate area. Why? Part of it is herd mentality, but the other part is everyone knows there is a limited amount of overhead storage space and no one wants to see their bag gate checked.

Before the merger, I would stay in the Red Carpet club until after boarding started. I would then proceed to the gate, knowing that I could use the red carpet lane to get on the airplane, and that there would still be overhead storage space available.

Now? I'm never first to board from group 1, but I'm never the last.

When I fly British airways out of Dulles, I stay in the club until boarding is announced. I then proceed to the gate go through my lane, get on board the aircraft and whether I'm sitting in club world, world traveler plus, or world traveler, I don't worry about not having enough storage space, because BA enforces the carry-on rule.

Kacee

Well to be fair you're also flying a widebody on BA TATL. Limited overhead space is typically only an issue on single-aisle aircraft within the Americas.