So American Airlines changed up their boarding group numbers. Groups 6, 7, and 8 are basically general boarding for economy.
I have been on 10 different flights so far, and I notice that about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the people in general economy are in group 6 and the rest are in group 7 (no one has been in group 8). On every single flight I have been on, I am in group 7*.
Has anyone been able to figure out what distinguishes these? By looking at my seating and others’ seating, I don’t think it is seat position. I am in their mileage program (and I am actually getting close to gaining status at this point).
I have started to wonder if it is by alphabetical last name (my last name is later in the alphabet). It seems that people consistently either get group 6 or 7, it doesn’t change.
*Take my last flight for example, I was traveling with a group of 6 other people. Some were near the front of the plane, some near the back. Some were window, some were aisle. They were ALL group 6, except for me. This meant that when I got to board, the luggage bins were full and I had to check my bags. This resulted in me waiting an extra 20 minutes at the luggage carousel late at night, while everyone else went home. Cry me a river, right?
Edited to add: Wrong forum! I have asked for move.
It’s based upon your the fare code that you paid. If you are buying your tickets far in advance and paying a cheaper fare, then your are going to be in a later boarding group.
As you suggest, 6, 7, and 8 are all “economy”. 9 is “basic economy” which is a new recently-invented class for people who pay less but get treated even more like cattle. Group 5 is for economy people who have paid for extras (I think this includes exit row seating, preferred seats, &c).
I think that within the 6, 7, and 8 group, conventionally are done by when you check in and if people are consistently in the early or late groups it is because they consistently check in early (e.g. by printing out their boarding pass at home, or using the AA app) or late.
Groups 6, 7, and 8 correspond to what used to be the main boarding groups 2, 3, and 4. IOW the bulk of economy passengers. As between 6 through 8, which group you’re in depends almost entirely on where your seat is.
Group 6 is the forward portion of generic (i.e. not extra-room) economy, Group 7 is the middle and group 8 is the far back. In shorter aircraft group 8 isn’t used at all and 6 is the front part and 7 is the back part.
The reason forward boards before aft is that people are selfish oafs. If we board the back first, those people will stow their luggage above the forward seats then go back to sit. Which means when the forward seats board later the only overhead space is in the back which creates two-way traffic in the aisle when they’ve stowed their bags then have to work their way forward to their seat.
Group 9 (cheap-ass “basic economy” which is still in experimental mode in only a few markets) is boarded last, despite the fact they’re mostly middle seats precisely to ensure the overheads are full before they get on. They’re not supposed to use them, but policing that is impractical.
[Rant mode = ON]
If everybody was able-bodied, paid attention, complied with the boarding sequence, brought on only what they should, and stowed it only over or under their own seat we could board 150 people on a 737 or A320 in 10 minutes flat. It’s been tested with all employees playing the role of passengers and it works.
The problem is none of those 5 prereqs are true with the real passengers we’ve got. So instead we’ve got to use a process “optimized” for the harmful behaviors of real passengers and that way takes 30 minutes to board the same headcount if all goes only typically badly.
Throw in some especially non-cooperative people or unusual amounts of carry-ons or coats or kids or “service” animals or … and it easily stretches to 45 minutes and we’re 15 minutes late off the gate.
People are pretty nice when I show up late and cut into the boarding line at the designated number. I’m sure that if you queued up sooner, no one would notice.
So passengers have to pay to check a bag, and they have to pay to get a boarding group that allows access to the overhead bins? The people who set the prices for airlines are geniuses.
This may also explain why passengers try to get away with everything they can during the boarding process.
The reaction of most mainline airline employees to the “basic economy” product being rolled out industry wide was pure rolleyes.
The problem the mainline carriers face (including media darling Southwest) is that Spirit and the others are selling exactly that crappy no-frills low-base-price-plus-fees-for-everything product and getting *lots *of takers. That segment of the industry is growing like a weed.
The mainline legacy carriers which now fully includes Southwest need to do something to compete on price. What they can’t do is sell a better product than say Spirit does for a lower price than they do now. If they do that, they simply cannibalize their existing next tier up revenue.
So they do the next best (worst?) thing. Offer a limited number of seats and features aping the crappy unbundled product Spirit does but in nicer seats with more legroom for the same price Spirit does. And hope like heck not too many of their existing customers defect to it.
I’m not suggesting this is a good development. I am suggesting it’s a predictable development given the changing marketplace that will have all sorts of unpleasant side effects as you suggest. But it wasn’t created out of random pointy-haired bossedness.
And several attempts to study how to improve seating times have all shown that chaos works the best, mostly because, as noted above, chaos ensues regardless. It’s why I’ve given up and just started flying first class all the time. Quick on, quick off, not so much chaos.
Fortunately, being “late” out of the gate rarely means being “late” in to the destination gate any more, because most airlines have started over-estimating gate-to-gate time, in order to reduce the stats on late flights. I can’t recall the last time I was actually late into a destination gate, and that’s despite being as late as 30 min. out of the departure gate. While I know that, objectively nothing has necessarily gotten better, subjectively you feel better because of this. And, of course, it makes it easier to plan connecting flights with 45 min. gaps between arrival and departure, without feeling like you’re at risk of missing the connection for the stupid idiot who delays your initial flight’s departure. :mad:
That was what I assumed it was, but it was not what I had observed. When I traveled with coworkers (they all group 6, me group 7), some sat forward of me, some sat behind me.
Oh, I know. My dad was a pilot so I’ve kinda watched the industry for decades. People complain about being nickle-and-dimed on fees, but they’ll buy the cheapest ticket even if it means driving 50 more miles to the airport and taking a steamer trunk as their carry on. The legacy carriers want to compete, so they do what they gotta do.
I’m kinda the opposite. When I’m booking a ticket I look at where it’s connecting and what type of planes it’s on. I’d drive a travel agent nuts.
Are the boarding groups effective in speeding up boarding? It always seems like it’s more about “rewarding” loyalty program members. My recent Virign America experience was that they had a ridiculous number of programs, including their Visa card users. For each of these they’d announce those members could board, a few people would trickle on, they’d wait a bit, and then they’d announce the next extremely specific group. My United flight didn’t seem that much better.
On my recent flights from Australia to China and China to the US, both with Chinese airlines, it was just a mad free for all. They announced the start of boarding, and a giant seething mass of humanity stormed the airplane. It seemed … effective. These were full long haul flights, and we were boarded in about 20 minutes or so.
This has been studied, and there are ideal patterns based on the premise that everyone boards independently. Unfortunately, groups travelling together like to sit and board together, which is inconsistent with “optimal boarding”. And, as you note, people buy their way to priority boarding, which is a revenue stream to give up.
Southwest tops the charts of these things, because seats are not assigned, so people can react to a backlog by finding another place to sit instead of waiting for it and compounding the problem.
The article also mentions “random boarding” as a good solution.
We just need to build new aircraft like some of the old ones (L-1011, DC-9, MD-80, etc.). Didn’t some of those models have Air-Stairs in the back? Just board from the back and exit from the front! FIFO! Then First Class boards and moves to the front and uses the overheads. All the way to Last Class that gets the back seats and the bins that are left.
and
You didn’t turn off “Rant mode”, but we understand and sympathize completely!
There have been studies about using multiple boarding doors to speed the process. Right now we already have issues that boarding catering on the main deck and boarding cargo down below can interfere; you can’t get the catering truck past the cargo loader or vice versa. So often they have to be done serially, not simultaneously.
Clogging up another access point on the airplane with another jetbridge and its support structure makes that worse. One place it *could *work slick is the A380. Given the two decks, it’d be fairly easy to build a dual jet bridge that connects to a cabin door on each deck more or less directly above each other. It’s still only on the left side and only forward of the wing line, so it’s only blocking one quadrant for ground servicing. But for whatever reason Airbus didn’t put the doors together that way.
Aeons ago I remember some dedicated docking stations for the 747 that had 4 jetbridges. One on each side connected to the forward most doors (between first class and business class) and one more on each side connected to the next doors aft, just ahead of the wings (between business and coach). It was awesomely effective at quickly (un-)loading the jet via both aisles. It also required the terminal be modified specifically to park 747s, and only 747s, at that gate. That didn’t get implemented very many places.
Airstairs, gigantic carry-ons, and less than ideally fit passengers don’t exactly meet modern standards for ADA compliance, customer convenience, or avoiding getting rained on.
I do work through one airport which still uses portable stairs to board the 757. It’s friggin amazing how fast we can de-board and re-board 180 people using two cabin doors instead of just one. But if we have just one infirm passenger who needs to use the handicapped elevator attached to the portable stairs that eats most of the savings. Most days at that airport we use a single portable ramp thingy that lets people drag their wheelies or their wheelchair up from tarmac to aircraft level. It also has a rain /snow cover which is better than nothing.
So why don’t airlines enforce carry-on regs? Sucks to be the guy who complies, yet doesn’t get to use the space above my seat.
I still comply, because I figure the ONE time they enforce it, it will be when I have something oversized. But if there are rules that consistently are not enforced, it is very tempting to act as though there are no rules.
Is the airplane door the real bottleneck? When boarding, there’s always a small wait to get your ticket scanned, a small wait to get through the airplane door, and then a long wait for everyone else to finally get their ass in a seat. I’m not sure if it would help much to get everyone on the plane in 2 minutes if there’s still gonna be 30 minutes of futzing around before we’re ready to push back.
When getting off, one door is fine. The plane parks at the gate and opens the door, and if I’m at the back of the plane I know I’m not moving for 5-10 minutes while everyone in front of me wrestles their luggage out of the bins. Once I’m in the aisle and walking forward, it’s a straight shot to baggage claim or passenger pickup.
It would be so much easier to have no seats on the plane, just straps everywhere. Then you just get on, sit on your carry-on, and tie some straps around you! Or maybe just stand and fill the cabin with a semi-permeable solidifying foam!
