qoodoo

I've done 28 segments this past month and not once did they board children before elites.

I did have 1 segment where he split up the elites by plat, gold, silver.

Halo117

You are correct. there is a study.http://leeds-faculty.colorado.edu/va...g/boarding.htm

The thing is open seating which is not apart of the study is actually the fastest where as with any assigned seating there is no benefit over the methods is you are boarding a full plane.

Now I don't get why CO doesn't go by elite status, but saying that boarding by rows is outdated is a stretch. I'll chalk this up to UA folks thinking the sky is falling. For those of you who wanted the merger we all knew CO would be calling the shots.

halls120

Which is what many UA GA's do as well. I don't see what all the fuss is about with regard to children. What is going to be different?

In any event, there is a solution. If the boarding process becomes a zoo, we simply start flooding 1KVoice, PEVoice and the UAL Survey with negative comments. If enough FF's complain, maybe the IT folks will learn how to make CO's systems print a zone number. It can't be that difficult.

FriendlySkies

Perhaps the boarding time for all aircraft will change?

A319/A320 - 35 Minutes
757/767D - 45 Minutes
76I/777D/747 - 65 Minutes

nova08

May I ask how this is a Big negative for 1K's? No where has it been stated that somehow you are losing 1st priority boarding (Military personel don't count because if you have issues with that you have far bigger problems). Even if Zone boarding goes away we are all still going to have our elite status' printed on the BP's just as CO and UA both do currently. I fail to see any reason why you still can't board First/GS/1K and so on with a non Zone boarding system.

fastair

Do you know me to state things are true, when they aren't? Children are after elites. If your employeer is the us military you go first.

Nova, most of the military is on contracted city pairs to contracted airlines. There is very little loyalty or discretionary spending, especially by those traveling in uniform required to board 1st.) One's chosen career does not influence high yield spending on private businesses and as such does not need to be rewarded to increase loyalty and spend. For a propaganda move, on a carrier that is worldwide as well as part of a worldwide alliance that has similar benefits across the entire alliance, the decision to put regional patriotism ahead of unified star alliance policies and revenue/frequency rewards seems to not have problems associated with it. Failure to see this to me is a bigger problem than the ability to see all the drawbacks of any given procedure. Blinders on, or blind patriotism, either way, is less beneficial than open eyes and open minds. You may feel strongly that US patriotism should trump profitability, and profit generating repeat business, and that is your right, but to say that a person that may have an issue with that has big problems is just an ignorant and cloed minded statement. Not everyone world wide is a big fan of the US, our foreign poicy or our military. On WN, that only flies within the US, that may work, but UA flies to some places that aren't too keen on the US military and the elites of those places, used to boarding 1st may take offense. They also have the ability to direct their spending to other carriers, which most people on govt contracted carriers can't do (for the most part.)

Critic

45 posts. Just saying.

Like cerealmarketer says, let's see what SFOGate has to say about this before everyone hits the panic button.

For the record - I may not fly the sheer number of segments as some of the FTers here, but I do my fair share - and I've NEVER seen families w/children pre-board on CO. At most, I've seen CO agents pre-board wheelchair bound pax, but only those SO disabled that they'd slow boarding to a crawl. Otherwise...as a lowly Silver, I've boarded before any number of small children, elderly & disabled pax, and even a blind woman with an assistance dog.

FWIW, I suspect we'll see the current CO system retained - Military, F, Elites (by level on heavy flights), Y by rows - until CO can graft the zone boarding system onto SHARES, or until they develop something different.

iceman77_7

You've got two reputable UA insiders in fastair and worldtrav saying the OP is largely correct. I'd take it at face value. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

sinoflyer

Mr. Smisek, this is one change I KNOW I won't like.

fastair

I already have enough trouble on flights to YQB or YUL trying to get the French-Canadians to board with just un, deux, trois... zones, now "le rows deuxieme a dix sept" (or however you spell it) or others whose english isn't so good to board when I call there rows in a language they don't speak will be far more difficult then pointing to a big number "4" and saying "wait until 4!"

Perhaps I should brush up on my French, Spanish, Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Hindi, German... so I can properly enforce the boarding, at least learn the numbers one thru 100 in all languages, and just assume the language based on physical stereotypes of the individuals. Not quite PC, but will be much easier to do then to try to board by row number. Again, this is an intl carrier that flies to many countries and connects with partners that fly to many more, not WN, where for the most part the population speaks the natl language.Sometimes, the tail should wag the dog, and in cases like this, talk to front line employees and repeat customers instead of having office folk decide what way to best integrate "the best of both companies equally."

Zone1

I was starting to wonder what today's enhancement was going to be. But as my signature says...

boat9781

While I personally don't care between a zone system or a row system, I can see why a zone system might make more sense—it provides more flexibilty to garner additional incremental revenue.

For example, you can offer someone in row 24 a $19 zone 1 BP without affecting elites in negative manner. But in a row based system, the only real way to differentiate someone who paid the $19 would be to tag them "elite access."

Then again, perhaps they could board elites, then those who paid for early boarding, then rows, but that just seems cumbersome.

fastair

Not that I think this would go over well here, but I also think many would see it as acceptable given the fact that it generates incremental revenue. I would have those that pay for early boarding, board 1st. Really, ahead of elites. If you want to spend your own cash for the purpose of boarding 1st, it should be 1st, just like a first class seat goes to those who want to pay for it, and then to the loyalty program elites. Most people understand that to sell a product > to give it away as a reward in terms of business strategy.

The looks I get on people's faces when they paid for premiere boarding, yet have to wait until after red rug boarding and prem exec/star gold boarding is pathetically priceless. "You mean to say, I paid to board first and I have to wait for all these people to board before me? Did they pay double my early boarding fee to board extra early?" It is tough to keep a straight face and explain that they paid to board after the uber-elites, but before the rest of the common folk. I bet there are not to many "repeat customers" of the premiere lane boarding once they get told to please step aside until seating area 1.

Same in the future. A guy gives you $15 to board 1st, and he has to go after a bunch of people who paid nothing extra to the airline, some paid extra in terms of frequency, or premium cabin, some signed a contract with the USMC for a few years in exchange for college and pay, but a specific fee for pre-boarding, then getting left in the dust as a dozen or so go ahead? Pathetic business decision.

goirulz

Interesting, this is highly reminiscent of the boarding zoo on CX flights, especially elite-heavy long-hauls like JFK-HKG. It's kind of absurd when J/F pax, elites (MPC SL/GO/DM/DM+), AND non-elites (GR), are indiscriminately lumped into the priority boarding lane. As one paid F customer behind me once put it, "What's the point of the regular line??"

Yet, despite all that chaos and children/handicapped boarding before priority pax, CX consistently manages to board a 777-300ER within 30-45 minutes. Granted this experience comes on a different non-US carrier, but still, maybe non-zone boarding might not be that bad?

mh3265a

+1. This news is very concerning. I've always felt that United's boarding procedures were stronger. I'm surprised their going to boarding by rows....ugggghhhhh.....so much for on time departures.