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United's Current Boarding Process (with Wiki) [2016-forward]{Archive}

Old Jan 19, 2017, 11:05 pm
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Last edit by: WineCountryUA
Source: United Boarding Process

New changes (effective 18 Sept 2018)

You will see some new boarding lane signs in the gate area that will guide you through the boarding process. There will now be two lanes that are color coded : to begin, Group 1 will board through the blue lane and Group 2 will board through the green lane. The remaining Groups 3-5 will then board through the green lane when called, and Groups 1 and 2 can continue to board through the blue lane .

We encourage you to make yourself comfortable while you wait for your group to be called, and well let you know when were ready for you to board. Late arriving customers in Groups 1 and 2 are welcome to continue boarding through the blue lane at any time.

Boarding groups

Pre-boarding

  1. Unaccompanied minors
  2. Customers with disabilities
  3. Active members of the military
  4. United Global Services members
  5. Families traveling with children age 2 and younger
  6. Premier 1K members

Group 1

  • Premier Platinum members
  • Premier Gold members
  • Star Alliance Gold members
  • Customers seated in premium cabins: United Polaris, United First and United Business

Group 2

  • Premier Silver members
  • Star Alliance Silver members
  • Customers who have purchased Premier Access or Priority Boarding
  • United℠ Explorer, Club, Presidential Plus℠ and Awards Cardmembers

Groups 3 5

  • Economy Plus
  • United Economy
  • Basic Economy*

* Customers who have purchased a Basic Economy ticket will be in the last boarding group, except for Premier members, Chase Cardmembers of qualifying cards and Star Alliance Gold members, who will still receive their priority boarding.
Originally Posted by JOSECONLSCREW28
There will also be updated boarding times:

757 & Widebody aircraft: 50 min prior to departure
737-800/900 & 737 MAX 40 min prior to departure
737-700 & A319/A320 35 min prior to departure
================================================== ==============================
Pre Sept 2018 process

Pre-Boarding
  • Unaccompanied minors
  • Customers with disabilities
  • Uniformed members of the U.S. military
  • Families traveling with children age two and younger
  • United Global Services members
Premier Access Boarding
  • Group 1: Premier 1K, Premier Platinum, Business/Polaris Business, and First/Polaris First.
  • Group 2: Premier Gold, Star Gold, Premier Silver, Star Silver, MileagePlus Presidential Plus, Club, Explorer and Awards, purchased Premier Access


General boarding (Window Seats, then Middle Seats, then Aisle)
  • Group 3 - Window Seats
  • Group 4 - Middle & Aisle Seats (Aisle Seats on UA Express)
  • Group 5 - Basic Economy

Customers who have purchased a Basic Economy ticket will be in the last boarding group, with the exception of Premier members, Chase Cardmembers of qualifying cards and Star Alliance Gold members, who will still receive their priority boarding.

Note: If youre traveling with a companion and one of you has a higher boarding status, you both may board with the earlier group.

Note: Self Boarding Gates are being tested at the following gates...
  • IAH - Gate C25/C26 - See Post 2960, Includes YouTube video from CO777DAL
  • IAH - Gate E4 - Old test from pmCO days, See Thread Here
  • BOS - Self boarding gates are now back in *LIMITED* use at least at gates B25 and B26



sUA Boarding Times by Aircraft (AFA)

Previous thread: United's Current Boarding Process (with Wiki) [Revised, May 2013]
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United's Current Boarding Process (with Wiki) [2016-forward]{Archive}

Old May 22, 2018, 9:05 pm
  #946  
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Originally Posted by fumje
Will you have your UA card with you?

Typically the machine will beep when a pass in a not-yet-called boarding group is scanned, which is a prompt to the GA to find out why that passenger is boarding then.
Planning to bring the physical card with me. Do I just show it to the GA?
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Old May 23, 2018, 12:01 am
  #947  
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Originally Posted by Miles Ahead
UA card? What's that?
Yeah, I'm not familiar with the things either.

Originally Posted by Repooc17
Planning to bring the physical card with me. Do I just show it to the GA?
I imagine that would work but couldn't tell you from experience. Surely depends on the GA.
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Old May 23, 2018, 7:39 am
  #948  
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LAX Gates 74 thru 77: too many counters, almost no seating

So if you wanted to really mess up a whole series of boarding areas, just go through the 74 through 77 gates at LAX.

When waiting to decide what to do for a 772HD boarding at Gate 77, I quickly found out that a) because of the number of high seating counters installed for _each_ gate at the end of Terminal 7, b) there's almost no seating whether at the counters or lower chairs so c) you end up standing in the gate boarding lines (for Groups 1 and 2) because there's nowhere else to go.

Really really poor gate area design and implementation.

David
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Old May 28, 2018, 8:55 pm
  #949  
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Originally Posted by fumje
I imagine that would work but couldn't tell you from experience. Surely depends on the GA.
It worked (?)

The question mark because the boarding process at KEF was chaotic at best today, and the (large) team handling the gate really didn't make the process any easier. For starter, we needed every second of the built-in boarding time (almost an hour); even each pre-boarding group took a long time to complete - not sure why the long pause in between each pre-boarding group. This is a brand new route for UA (not even a week old), so there is time to fix. On the bright side, the flight itself was superb, the team on board (Newark flight crew) was amazing. Lost my E+ seats following the removal of my UA info, but my E- seats (row 23) felt roomier and much better experience than PS flights in my experience. Same planes and all - weird. Lunch was simple but edible - ham and cheese sandwich (hot), apple tart, chips, M&M!!

Anyway, back to the original dilemma - I didn't have to show my Plat card, but was allowed to board with Group 1 despite my UA app said Group 3 - could have been due to the chaos during the boarding process. Also, I used the boarding issued by SK (I was connecting at KEF), which didn't have UA group boarding identification.

Also of note, at CPH, I was allowed to enter the SK lounge with just my SK boarding pass. At two other airports in North America on this itinerary, I had to show my UA Plat card, my only *A Gold status at present time.
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Old Jun 4, 2018, 11:50 am
  #950  
 
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UA to change boarding process (again).

CNBC: Wait your turn, Group 5. United is testing a new boarding method this summer

The article isn’t 100% clear, but the gist is that UA is testing a return to 2 boarding lanes, as many here have been advocating for since the CO merger. What’s less clear is if this also means a return to row-based boarding or if they’re sticking with zones.


Moderate note: Moved discussion about Upgrade lists on gate monitors are going away? to a new thread.

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Jun 8, 2018 at 9:05 am Reason: Separate thread created on waitlist created
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Old Jun 4, 2018, 11:58 am
  #951  
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Sounds like the same thing announced months ago and being discussed in the consolidated thread as well as one about CLE.
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Old Jun 4, 2018, 6:34 pm
  #952  
 
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Tried the new boarding process for the first time yesterday at ORD. Can't believe how much of an improvement it was. No giant lines full of group 3-5 people milling around and blocking 1-2. This was so much more convenient for everyone involved, especially at the constrained gate we were at.
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Old Jun 5, 2018, 7:48 am
  #953  
 
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If they're gonna use the monitors, they need to ensure they are synchronized to the boarding process. This isn't rocket science United!!!
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Old Jun 17, 2018, 12:11 pm
  #954  
 
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Testing a new boarding process at DEN

Flying tomorrow from DEN to ORD & got an email from UAL telling me they're going to "enhance my boarding experience" as described below.

Has anyone here gone through this new procedure and did it "enhance" your experience or anyone else's? TIA
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Old Jun 17, 2018, 12:13 pm
  #955  
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Originally Posted by SC54HI
Flying tomorrow from DEN to ORD & got an email from UAL telling me they're going to "enhance my boarding experience" as described below.

Has anyone here gone through this new procedure and did it "enhance" your experience or anyone else's? TIA....
This process has been in use at LAX for some time.

Will merge with the existing discussion where you can read the feedback from others.
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Old Jun 17, 2018, 1:30 pm
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Just needs the red carpet and we are back to where we were before dictator Smisek.
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Old Jun 17, 2018, 1:38 pm
  #957  
 
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Originally Posted by SC54HI
Flying tomorrow from DEN to ORD & got an email from UAL telling me they're going to "enhance my boarding experience" as described below.

Has anyone here gone through this new procedure and did it "enhance" your experience or anyone else's?
It's a BIG improvement. Only Groups 1/2 line up initially, so there's a lot less traffic and gate lice, especially at tight gates.
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Old Jun 17, 2018, 2:08 pm
  #958  
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Originally Posted by findark
UA seems to be trying to copy WN's boarding efficiency and forgetting it's not the two lanes but the fact that nobody needs to be gate lice.
Not correct, alas. Those sitting in the bulkhead row of domestic F do indeed need to be gate lice because they have no storage under the seat in front of them and all their carry-on luggage therefore has to go into the overhead. And if you want to know why they sit in the bulkhead row, it's principally so that they don't have anyone in front of them reclining a seat into their lap to the point that they cannot even get a tray out for a meal, let alone to work on a laptop, and secondarily so that they have a chance of getting their choice of meal for flights that are actually catered..

That's why it would be good to add an additional category after the Preboards for bulkhead F pax, before the rest of whatever Group 1 is going to be called.
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Old Jun 17, 2018, 2:14 pm
  #959  
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Originally Posted by 1P
Not correct, alas. Those sitting in the bulkhead row of domestic F do indeed need to be gate lice because they have no storage under the seat in front of them and all their carry-on luggage therefore has to go into the overhead. And if you want to know why they sit in the bulkhead row, it's principally so that they don't have anyone in front of them reclining a seat into their lap to the point that they cannot even get a tray out for a meal, let alone to work on a laptop, and secondarily so that they have a chance of getting their choice of meal for flights that are actually catered..

That's why it would be good to add an additional category after the Preboards for bulkhead F pax, before the rest of whatever Group 1 is going to be called.
Right - that was my point. The reason that nobody needs to lice on WN is that the exact order of boarding is already assigned. It's literally pointless to crowd the gate before boarding is called. UA seems to be wishfully thinking they can duplicate WN's boarding efficiency by moving to the two-lines-with-refresh model, but is missing the most important facet.

Coincidentally, I try hard to avoid row 1 in domestic F just for that reason
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Old Jun 17, 2018, 2:14 pm
  #960  
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Originally Posted by DELee
So if you wanted to really mess up a whole series of boarding areas, just go through the 74 through 77 gates at LAX.

When waiting to decide what to do for a 772HD boarding at Gate 77, I quickly found out that a) because of the number of high seating counters installed for _each_ gate at the end of Terminal 7, b) there's almost no seating whether at the counters or lower chairs so c) you end up standing in the gate boarding lines (for Groups 1 and 2) because there's nowhere else to go.

Really really poor gate area design and implementation.

David
+1

And because there's little or no seating for the gates at the end of T7, Groups 3 -5 tend to congregate around the entrance of both the 1 and 2 lanes, blocking access for those who have a right to get into them. I also notice that a significant number of pax, apparently not US citizens I fear, line up in Group 2 (even though their BPs give a number in 3-5, and then jump the line as soon as pax with children under the age of 2 are called, even though they either have no children with them at all or children who are clearly well over the age of 2. And the GAs do not police this and turn them back.
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