New Boarding Process, beginning 1/7/2014
 

flew US 433 FLL to PHX this morning.. bright and early at 630am the gate agent announced first class then US chairmans and AA exec plat as the next group... then the remaining status levels.....wasnt thrilled as US plat ..but i guess this is indication of things to come..

oh.. and the number of people boarding chairmans and aa exec was ridiculous..

Which is probably why the agent divided the boarding between upper tier and "regular" status...it's not the policy.

Jim

I heard three separate gates (with different gate agents) board Chairman's and EXP explicitly after boarding the first class cabin while waiting for my flight at BDL today. Perhaps it is going to be policy?

Odd to see it at FLL and BDL on the same day…

Perhaps there has been an announcement change then.

Jim

I can confirm this happened in CLT today. So there mostly likely has been a script change. With the gate layout on B Concourse you can really hear all the boarding announcements for surrounding gates and every GA boarded all the flights in the surrounding gates the same...

1. Special assists and Uniformed Military
2. FC, US CP, AA EXEC PLAT
3. All other US Preferred, AA Elites, Star Golds and Zone 1
4. Zone 2
5. Families
6 and Beyond....by Zone

My Home Regional Airport Boarded the same except omitted FC as they haven't installed that cabin in the Dash-8 yet :)

As I somewhat implied upthread, it does make sense at least until AA and US get a feel for how many elites will be on flights. Especially for US, being the smaller of the two.

Jim

As a CP, I think this is a good thing (for me at least :-)).
It recognized a tier separation of CP, from the rest of the Plat, Gold, Silver.

Goodness gracious! Having Platinums called with the other Elite levels is almost a slap in the face. I missed CP by a half dozen segments. If the current boarding process continues, I guess it is one way to show some additional courtesy to the highest Elite levels with the two airlines.

Fortunately and selfishly, my upgrade percentage for 2013 was over 85% and since I am almost always boarding with First Class, the new Elite demarcation may not affect me too negatively. Not sure how the combined impact of the Elites will influence my upgrade ability this year...and beyond.

:eek:

LOL to #6. After zone 1 its a free for all. I do think that CP and Plats should be grouped together, the 90-120 segment threshold is much harder to achieve than "regular" elites in my opinion. Although as a CP, its nice to get distinction after first class.

My lowly Gold status (formerly Silver) isn't too impacted by this but occasionally when fighting for space in the overhead bins by a bulkhead this might matter.

You Plats should be worried anyways since AA is a 3 tier system, soon you might be with the rest of us "regular" elites :p

Not sure if any of the US people received any type of communication, but an email came to AA elites a few days ago that mentioned the following reciprocal benefits to be implemented as of yesterday:

Elite benefits
Elite members of each airline can now enjoy select reciprocal benefits when flying either airline, including First and Business Class check-in, complimentary checked bags, priority security and boarding and many more. (emphasis mine)

Yeah, the boarding is what this thread discusses. Prior to yesterday, an AA elite with no US status flying on US boarded with the unwashed masses. That changed yesterday and now elites in either program, flying on either metal, have boarding priority. Just note that "priority" doesn't necessarily mean first to board but rather boarding by status priority and before the unwashed masses.

Jim

Absolutely - AA's had a bunch of different "priorities" for a while...think of the SNL skit. Though I'm sorry to say that I've seen some elites that fit the latter category, as well... ;)

Once the merge is complete, it will become more orderly as there will be less statuses. Any merger is transitionally messy. What else can you do? I will, however, be happy when it is done.

Where would AA Citi World Elite credit card holders fall in this list?