lamphs

Just curious...

Persons with disabilities (persons needing a few extra minutes), active members of the military, etc.

I see a passenger requiring extra time board with an entire family. I see a 'two and under' with entire families.

At LGA today, a passenger boarded first, roller bag, large backpack, and some sort of large bag attached to the roller bag, and no obvious disability. Likely not military. And not GS or 1K as today's FAs had a printed list of the four GS' and 1Ks and thanked those people individually.

Being a bit facetious, what happens if I chose to board with those needing a bit of extra time, other than being dishonest?

itripreport

I understand that Delta's policy with this is GAs are not allowed to question you if you need to board with passengers requiring extra times, I believe its the same deal with United?

Lux Flyer

In order to avoid being out of compliance with Air Carrier Access Act, UA and other airlines will not question the authenticity or make an interpretation of the legitimacy of someone's disability when they self identify as needing assistance.. Plenty of people can have disabilities that aren't externally apparent. As far as UA is concerned they don't care to know the specific details of what the disability is but rather their focus is on what type of accommodation the passenger needs and if/how UA can provide it.

ContinentalFan

Nothing.

Repooc17

On a recent trip from east coast to west coast, with a nested west coast to Hawaii mileage run. As usual to my crazy travel patterns, and true to form as a free agent:

UA EWR to LAX
DL LAX to SJC
AS SJC to and from Hawaii
B6 SJC to JFK
JetBlue boarded the transcon flight in under 20 minutes (scheduled for 20 minutes); Delta's was a regional flight, and fully boarded in under 10 minutes. Alaska's back-to-back were both scheduled for 25 minutes, and both completed under. All flights were full or substantially full.

Leave it to United to have the longest scheduled boarding time (35 minutes), longest actual boarding time (almost an hour), most chaotic boarding area. No one, and I mean no one on the Delta flight stepped into the boarding lane until group was called by the gate agent.

I observe most airlines don't have boarding lanes stretch a mile long (exaggeration) like UA. Also differentiate with at most two lanes (elite and non-elite) only despite officially having multiple groups within each group. I am not saying United needs to copy, but the current boarding process is not working. Simplified the process for a better customer experience, but that is asking for a lot, I know...

PTahCha

Spotted this in SFO - a dedicated boarding lane for pre-boarders.

limey1K

I just stood next to two business travelers who pre-boarded with the Disabilities group. They had a conversation about the boarding process and one of the two said they can’t challenge you, why wait for group 2?

Kacee

This just goes back to the real source of boarding problems. It's not the process, it's the passengers.

chavala

It's the gate agents who let them get away with this

Xyzzy

"My disability is that I can't fllow directions!"

physioprof

GA for EWR-LHR last Thursday skipped calling GS & when they called 1K, I proceeded & scanned my BP & said "Global Services?" The GA response was, "I already called Globals". Lololol...

Boraxo

as expected boarding was perfectly sequenced on our recent flight home from HND. Of course I would expect nothing less in Japan. The preboard and Group1 lines were longer than I expected, maybe an indication of who is traveling now.

oh please. I technically had 4 carry on bags at HND and not a peep from any of the staff. Of course they all easily fit in my biz class overhead bin as they always do, with plenty of space for all my neighbors. This is how it should be, rather than idiotic adherence to rules that make no sense.

While that may be true, it is no excuse, as all their BPs would display a group #. So I tend to believe it is deliberate.

Bingo! EWR at its finest.

the # of high level elites at SFO never ceases to amaze me. IME even worse than IAH, IAD and ORD. Just too many wealthy tech bros racking up EQP on OPM.

they are not allowed to ask the nature of your disability but they can take away your exit row seat. And similarly with service dogs they can ask what service the dog provides.

I’m not so sure. I find AA’s use of 9 groups a lot more efficient with fewer gate lice. Ditto for WNs sequential BPs.

In theory UAs system would work just fine at airports with few elites. But it just makes for a mess at hubs.

Lux Flyer

I'm not sure comparing the boarding times for a 737-Max 9 (AS), an A320 (B6), E175/other regional jet (DL), to what is at minimum a 752 (UA), but has potential to be a 789 or 772 is necessarily the fairest comparison.

VFR

The fact that it says "Global service customers" makes me think it's not approved by United's marketing department.

United747

Also no service/trade marks (that I can see)