Repooc17

Anyone know what this is all about? The quoted below came to me via text:

I got to the gate toward the end of the boarding, so didn't see anything different then.

DELee

The new 1K boarding group?

​​​​​​​David

bocastephen

What was the group number on your boarding pass vs what it should have been?

Repooc17

Unsure, but I'd venture this was a mass text sent to all available customers on the flight. While I hope this would be to adjust 1K to G1, maybe tinkering with other groups. I was not present at the gate area for almost the entire boarding process...

​​​​​​​My group number never changed. I qualify for preboarding, and the BP never changed/updated.

RobOnLI

Wait. As a 1K you want 1Ks to get lower boarding priority --- move from pre boarding to group 1?

-RM

Repooc17

Yes. UA's boarding process is the longest in my experience of some 120-130 flights/yr across carriers. 1K preboarding is part of the problem.

Sometimes I haven't even arrived at the airport yet when UA has commenced its boarding process. I feel good about avoiding the chaos.

SPN Lifer

It would be a great improvement to the Friendly Skies if we could eliminate the boarding scrum and revert to an orderly boarding process.

halls120

As long as UA continues to treat the boarding process as a way to coax more $$ out of passengers, orderly is but a dream.

VRFast

Boarding the back of the plane first, like the old days?

Kacee

This would be lovely, but it I'm afraid it would require massive personality adjustments by a large percentage of the flying public.

IMO the problem is not the process, it's the passengers.

halls120

…. Passengers who have been conditioned by United to believe they are all “elite” and deserve special treatment.

Kacee

I don't agree (at all) that Mileage Plus is to blame for increasingly poor passenger behavior. We see this throughout society, not just at the airport. We also see it across airlines. While UA has particular brands of poor behavior (which tend to reflect its hubs), I see equally poor behavior on other carriers, both domestic and international.

halls120

you've never encountered people who buy premier status for their flight thinking that they get to pre-board along with all of the GS and 1K? I have.

And while I agree that you can’t blame mileage plus for all of the bad behavior, now that I’m flying other airlines more often, I am amazed at how, even in the United States, other airlines seem to be able to board the aircraft without the drama, you find at the average UA gate.

One thing I’ve noticed is that United really puts a burden on their own employees by understaffing the gate at departure. Every Delta flight I’ve taken out of SEA since moving here has been simply amazing by comparison to the scrum I’m used to encountering at a United gate. Passengers actually listen to the gate agents request to not stand up and congregate around the boarding area until their group is called.

When you don’t have enough employees to answer questions and control the crowd trying to get on the airplane, drama results. In contrast, my most recent UA flight from Munich was amazing. Five gate agents were available during a boarding process that calmly boarded a completely full 789 in under 30 minutes. Part of the reason that boarding was so efficient is there were two passengers requiring extra assistance, no families, five military, no GS, and less than 10 1K passengers.

When everyone is elite, no one is elite

Repooc17

Can vouch - data points LGA/JFK DL vs. EWR UA. DL (and most other carriers) also tend not to have a lot of roped sections for people to line up (vs. UA).

VRFast

I had the opposite boarding experience in MUC. More than enough employees to herd the cats (4-5), but no thinking involved by the employee who was announcing preboarding and boarding groups. Pre board call, followed a minute later by BG1 call, then a minute later BG2, etc. Total scrum and chaos. No boarding group signs....yes, we had some families, people requiring assistance, a bunch of 1K/GS from what I could see.