They also cut corners in their bag tracking system. They lost a bag of mine one time and when I went up to the counter and showed them the tracking barcode and number, the agent told me that there is no way for them to lookup where my bag was and they had no idea when I might receive it. Apparently they go through the whole production of applying the baggage tracking sticker to your ticket just for fun or something. I was not impressed in the slightest. :rolleyes: They did manage to get the bag to me the following day, so it wasn’t a huge deal but still…
I much prefer the old Southwest system.
Check in at the counter, go through security, go to the gate.
Then the gate attendant makes one call that your airplane is ready to board.
Less than ten seconds later I’m sitting in the window seat of the first economy row, with my little carry-on in the first overhead bin.
It helps that I used to run sub-4.3 in the forty!
So agreed. I mean, yeah; boarding groups make no sense. The last time I flew, I got reassigned at the last minute once, and changed to an earlier flight at the airport once. Both times, I ended up with Group 2 instead of Group 4 or 5. Both times, I was sitting damn near the front of economy class. But I’ll do what the ticket says because, really, it’s a bigger pain in the ass to me and to everyone around me if I try to test things. Also, my mileage credit card might entitle me to board with Group 2 anyway, but. . .again, things I’m not going to test at the airport, you know?
I also agree with enforcing the carry-on rule. I fly with one carry-on and one personal item. That’s it. Additionally, the carry-on (which is the one that goes in the overhead bin) is way smaller than the regulation minimum (it’s here). I don’t do this ‘cause I’m cheap; I do this because I like the flexibility of only having a carry-on. It means that I can catch an earlier flight if one happens to be available for me to reschedule to. It means that I can just walk straight out of the airport. It means that, should I ride public transportation, I have everything on my back. When I see someone trying to sneak on an obviously-too-big roller bag, I get pissed. I mean, I pack light because I respect the right of other passengers to do as I do; this means that I have to be clever, and that I can’t take my entire freakin’ wardrobe. But everyone can’t have a giant roller bag because they won’t all fit; bringing yours is therefore entitlement.
Also, re: deplaning. I don’t normally care if I get off first or last. The last time I flew, however, I had a tight connection, and my first flight was late. On that flight, I had to ask the man in the row next to me to please not wait to deplane (as he was in my way), as I was anticipating a mad dash to my gate in another wing. He obliged, but man, I was antsy. And then I did a flat out sprint with fifteen-ish pounds on my back and another three-to-five at my side. I need to up my cardio.
See, you’d think that this would work, but even on airlines that don’t charge baggage fees there are still people who insist on bringing their giant rolling suitcase with them on board. I usually fly WestJet, who don’t charge, and it doesn’t seem to me that the carry-on situation is any better than it is when I fly on Continental or whatever.
I’ve got to assume that they’re just placing their own convenience above everyone else’s. They must have their bags without waiting at the carousel and they must not risk losing their luggage, but it’s just fine if other passengers have to. If someone wants to use Angel of the Lord’s method and travel light in order to avoid those hassles, then more power to them, I’ve done it myself. But to get those benefits by essentially stealing space from your fellow passengers … not cool.
Parents are the worst at this. Why the fuck do parents allow 8 year olds to get anywhere near the carousel, impeding everybody else from getting their baggage off the damned thing?
A couple of misconceptions here:
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Your bag wasn’t lost - it was likely not loaded onto the plane in order to keep the plane under it’s maximum takeoff weight. It’s easier to remove and re-route luggage than it is to remove and re-route people (and the people are more likely to get pissed off when told to get off the plane because they are too heavy). Note that when you buy a ticket for a flight there is no guarantee that your luggage will get there on the same flight as you - it’s the ideal, it’s what people expect, it’s what the airlines strive for, but no airline in the world actually promises this because they will not sacrifice the safety of the flight in order to make sure that you have your underwear. It’s a pain in the ass…it’s happened to me… but it’s part of the deal of air travel.
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The barcodes and tags identify the luggage when they get scanned through the system in order to route them to the correct flight(s). They do not track them GPS-style within the airport. This is not an airline issue, it’s an airport one - it is the Airport Authority that runs and manages the aerodrome that is responsible for the baggage tracking system. Southwest had nothing to do with it. Most airports simply do not track bags at all points in their system (none that I know of, in fact)- bags are scanned in, they are scanned out and that’s it. To individually find your bag would require sending an individual worker down to sort through all the other identical suitcases one by one in the hopes of finding yours. Not gonna happen.
Seems a good place to post this: The Oatmeal
Hope you’re satisfied, Mr. Miskatonic. You just caused me to fart with laughter, and subscribe to The Oatmeal.
That panel about the “tailwind, bitches”, was what caused the fart, btw.
Hell, all of the comics were funny as hell! A new Gary Larson? 
Q
Yeah, really. It’s really frustrating for situations where I really, really want the carryon (multi-leg flights going for long periods, I want my change of clothes and deodorant and extra book, dammit, and my bookbag can’t carry all that I will need along the way) to have to hover and dart in to board as fast as possible like a dick, because of all of the people who just have bags for no reason because if they checked their carryon bag they’d be charged. Likewise there are some places you get the bag right when you deplane, other times they send it to the baggage carousel, which is a huge pain in the ass and can make you have to go through security again for no reason between legs of a journey or choose to have it checked through – why wouldn’t I hover around to get on the plane first to avoid going through all that?
I’ve had situations where I would have been happy to check it for certain legs and not lug it around, and save some room for someone else (especially on return trips) – but I’d be charged for my consideration. Meanwhile if it’s gate-checked (or someone else’s is instead) costing extra time and energy for everyone, I pay nothing. How does that make sense? You know for a damn fact that not all of this shit is going to fit in the carryon compartments of these planes, why not plan accordingly and set up a system?
Excuse me, but fuck that. I fly frequently, and I pay to check my luggage. I board with a field bag filled with necessities and travel conveniences. I’m 6’3", and the airlines are squeezing seats as tightly together as they can. I am not going to pay additional fees to check my bag and then also give up my leg room to accommodate others’ over-sized carry-ons just because I could fit the small bag I brought on-board under the seat in front of me. I happily ignore the flight attendant’s requests to make room by removing small items from the bins.
I had never heard of the concept of a “boarding group” until the Chicago to San Francisco leg of a flight I took in 2010, nor have I seen it since. The folks at the gate, presumably following your thought process, were not particularly at pains to explain what a boarding group was, connect it to anything written on my boarding pass, or tell us where we should stand so as to be in the correct ones.
They probably didn’t explain what a row was, either.
This is hilarious
My experience is that they deal with it the exact same way. 
apparently for Continental, if your bag is over 50 lbs you pay $200.00 and if your bag is over 70 lbs it is $400.00. I saw this in December of 2011. I would have bought another bag at the gift shop and split my luggage up, one bag at $25.00, one at $50.00 and the cost of purchasing a cheap bag would have been less that what the guy in front of me paid even if he purchased an expensive bag.
TSA website is clear until some local yokel hopped on the adreline rush of being in charge decides a bottle opener key chain (not on the list of dangerous items) is a lethel weapon. you then have 2 choices, toss the bottle opener or fight it and be subjected to all sorts of futher indignities not to mention possibly missing your flight. I chose to toss the key chain.
it is stupid to load the plane from the front to the back, the loading time takes way longer while those folks leisurely arrange all of thier belongings while standing in the aisle and no one else can get by. I also hate the exiting process but other than shooting the people who cant get up and gather their belongings until everyone in front of them has exited the plane I don’t know how to resolve. I almost missed my connecting flight last time because of this. they were paging me prior to giving away my seat due to overbooking. If I have plenty of time and I can’t get all of my stuff together I gladly wave everyone else to go on. I have been the last to exit a plane becasue my carry on had to go several seats behind me and I had to wait on my checked luggage anyway so since I wan’t in a hurry I let those who were go ahead.
What we need is R. Lee Ermey on the loudspeaker making it perfectly &^%$#@ clear to us jackwagons at the departure lounge that we are to remain perfectly still in our seats until the group is called. 
And look, we are allowed one midsized carry-on for the overhead and a hand-carry item that goes under the seat. Would it be too much to ask that the stuff that we need to have at hand between boarding and cruise, be placed in the bag that we will already have at a hand’s reach, before boarding?
The boarding systems I’ve experienced (other than on 9-seaters where I just step in as into a van) are essentially three:
(a) the old fashioned by-rows system, assigned seats called back to front for coach; still common on RJs; however it seems some consulting studies found that it was not the fastest method for the big ones so it was replaced by
(b) the common group systems, used in most US domestic flights I’ve flown (in 90+seaters) since the mid-00’s; still assigned seats but boarded by batches according to your particular airline’s algorithm; and then there’s
(c) Southwest, where there’s NO assigned seat and the boarding group simply means who’s first in line to get onboard and take their pick of seats.
One thing I’ve seen with the (b) type group system is the proliferation of privileged boarding groups. Used to be back in the day, there would be the preboard of families-w-infants/solo-children/special-needs-people and then First Class and then the back-to-front filling of coach. Now, however, I find myself in a sequence that goes, FWI/SC/SNP, then First Class; then Uniformed Military, Plutonium Card Frequent Flyers, and Awesome-Class Partner Members; then Platinumiridium and Gold-plate Card Flyers, Prettyhot-Class Partner Members and anyone with “Priority” stamped on their pass; (and mind you, each of these privileged classes can proceed to board at any point after they’re called); THEN Group 1, 2… and so forth.
Southwest used to be just straight out first-come-first served as you showed up at the gate but as they grew they realized they needed some way to avoid a mob/riot scene at their busier destinations, specially with the coming of e-tickets and online check-in, so they adopted a system by which early check-in and paying premium/full fare secures a place closer to the front of the line to board (Southwest sells a number of seats as “Business”. It’s essentially just equal-or-less than the number of extra-space exit row seats, assigned boarding turns A1 thru A12 and a coupon for one free drink.) One advantage they have is that the take-your-pick system motivates people to ***check in and show up at the gate on time ***. With the AirTran merger SW will be showing up here at SJU later this year, and *that *should be fascinating given our proverbial revulsion for orderly queueing.
No, because they don’t have to, because every airliner in the world has got rows of seats in it (what else would the seats in the plane come in? circles?), and the concept of numbered rows is familiar from numerous other things with tickets (trains, theatres).
Boarding groups are arbitrary and have no reference to any physical layout feature. They are also used by a subset of airlines. If they’re going to help, fine, but there’s a good reason not to have heard of them and a little extra information may be required for those of us who don’t fly, let alone fly this route, every week.
Every flight I have been on with boarding by groups, they have constantly explained what the group number is and where it is on your boarding pass, every time they call a new group,they repeat the information and there are still oblivious people trying to board out of sequence.
Air Canada, for example, doesn’t use boarding groups - they just say “everyone from rows 20 to 40” or whatever. Functionally the same but rather clearer as it relates directly to where you will be headed and sitting (from the point of view of the passenger). Not that boarding groups are hard, but one number is easier to think about than two, and I guess they figure it works out better.
Perhaps you got to the gate late? Perhaps you were reading? Perhaps you were smashed? (Not that I’d blame you.) I have also heard it every time I’ve flow. It is one of those automatic airline things, like telling you how to put on a seatbelt as if all our cars didn’t have them.