My air travel has picked up a bit over the past few months. As my recent threads regarding obese people wanting free extra seats and moving walkways in airports were such big hits with the teeming millions thousands, lets see if this gets as much traction.
I’ve noticed that there has been a significant increase in people attempting to “cheat” the pre boarding provisions. I say cheating in quotes, as no one from the airlines atttempts to correct anyone that strays away from the strict interpretation of these provisions.
Families with small children. On a recent flight I counted as least 3 families pre-board after this announcement where the youngest kid in any group was 8.
Passengers with disabilities - There was a group of at least 10 people that boarded a flight with one grandmother that was in a wheelchair. They should have one adult that is with them, not the entire family reunion. I’ve seen perfectly ablebodied passengers hop a nearby wheel chair and roll themselves up to the gate agent to preboard when this announcement is called and then hop out of the wheel chair after they get into the jetway past the gate.
Active members of the military - Some airlines check military ID, some don’t. I’ve seen at least two different times when a passenger has been turned away because they didn’t have military ID.
Frequent flyer status - This is usually printed on the boarding pass, but usually see people without the status try and board early.
I don’t really get it. The plane isn’t taking off until we all get on. I do get that people want to get on before the overhead bins all fill up. But they will just check it to your destination for free, once you’re at the gate.
People want what they want. They don’t want to wait in the aisles behind other people who can’t seem to figure out how to stow their stuff and get out of the way. They don’t want to stand around in the boarding area waiting for their section to be called. People try to game the rules because they don’t see any down side, and they have no shame.
I can also see why the airlines don’t always enforce the rules very carefully. They say “small children” not “children 5 and under” or something, because it would cause them to have to check ages and that would delay everyone. Are they going to say “I’m sorry, your child is not small enough to require pre-boarding?” That’s an invitation to arguments and the occasional fist fight.
What I do is just relax and remain seated until they call my section, and then get in line. I usually don’t have a carry-on bag, I hate using them, so I don’t have to worry about stowing one. I hate being anxious, so I have trained myself not to care how fast or slow the line is moving, and things like that. I wish more people would be like that, but I have trained myself not to care very much about that either.
The travel subreddits are full of these stories. From my experience, on Southwest, there are an amazing number of wheelchairs boarding but very few when deplaning. I assume there are miracles happening as the flight ascends and gets closer to God.
I don’t think it’s a trend across the industry. I’m a million miler on United and IME they went through a period when there was a lot of confusion about their (pre) boarding process, but in the past few years, they seem to have gotten clearer on their instructions and strict on who boards when (Boarding process (united.com)). Mostly, I think, because the billpayers (frequent flyers) complained enough to make them tighten up.
They do, however, allow family groups to board together. I have never had a problem with this (I’ve never seen 10 people with one old lady, but I have seen 4 or 5).
What is little known is that they do this for all boarding groups. If you are a Group 1 boarder and you are traveling with someone who is in Group 4, they can board with you if you inform the ticket agent when you both scan your tickets during boarding.
There are some flights where I can hardly get down the jetway because of the massive numbers of wheelchairs parked there, and often I hear calls for extra ones.
SW is excellent in that lining up with numbers decreases the milling and the fighting to be first that’s common for other airlines, and also families board after A group, so there is less of an advantage.
I suspect the reason that people push to board early is to cram their carry-ons full of all their worldly possessions in the overhead bins.
Not surprising. Once you’re seated in the plane, you can relax and do whatever you do to pass the time until the flight is over. The boarding area is a temporary place to wait, full of the tension of those who want to get on the plane. The atmosphere is always unpleasant, which is why I try not to care about all the things that everyone is tense about.
My Zen calm sometimes deserts me when I see the worst of these. Their possessions have possessed them and made them very unhappy.
Checking it to your destination is fine when flights are dependable. If things get wonky with your flight, your ability to get on a new flight is going to be dependent on whether there’s time to get your bag moved over to the new flight. If there’s not time to move your bag, you’re not getting on the new flight. Or they say they moved your bag to the new flight, but they didn’t really get it moved over so you end up at your destination without your bag. Or they lose it altogether. Having your bag with you means you can try to get on standby lists during the 6-hour unplanned layover when your flight gets cancelled. I’ve had too many flight glitches this past year that I’m only flying with a carry on and keeping it with me if at all possible. Getting on the flight early means that my bag is in the overhead above my seat rather than in some random bin or having to get checked.
I hardly see any wheelchairs on flights - may be 1 per flight, if that? Is it because so many flights are domestic in the US? I think most of the flights I take are either holidaymakers going to the continent or business travellers. That might cut down on the wheelchair users I guess!
For me, the boarding area is the last place where you can move around freely. Once you board the plane, you are shoved into a tiny seat with no extra room around you to move at all. Once you are seated in the plane, there is so little room that you can’t fully open a laptop. It’s still usable, but the laptop screen isn’t at all that great of a viewing angle. There’s enough room to read a book, but that’s it.
I tend to hang back a bit in the boarding area, just so that I can minimize the amount of time I spend cramped into that miserable little plane. The boarding area doesn’t make me feel anxious at all.
Someone wants to cheat to board early? Go for it. I’m happy to let you go ahead of me.
I like to board as early as possible so I can get seated and put my armrest(s) down. I don’t want a stranger sitting next to me without an armrest between us.
I feel the same way, I’m all about relaxing in the boarding area happy to let the hoards jostle in line and board first.
On the plane I get no pleasure from looking at the faces and or their asses if they have to turn sideways all layered up with bags and backpacks coming down the plane aisle.
I’ll wait watch the parade and then saunter on the plane hands free no luggage.
Sometimes it’s one or zero, sometimes it’s a ton, anywhere from 5 to 10. I’m sure there’s a pattern based on route, but I haven’t paid enough attention to figure it out.
Since I’m retired, I fly off hours, so that may have something to do with it. The maximum I saw was when we transferred in Vegas. Back when I was flying for work I hardly saw any.
I’m currently sitting in the gate area waiting to pre-board a SW flight with my spouse, who was wheeled over in one of the airline’s wheelchairs. He can walk, slowly and for relatively short distances, but we learned on our first post-diagnosis trip that if he tries to walk all the way through the airport without assistance, he’ll be in pain and mostly immobile for at least a couple of days. Our daughter is traveling with us, and it would make sense for her to come with us to help stow things more quickly, but they want just one person to pre-board with him, so we’ll follow the rules.
The fact that it’s not possible to run an airline solely by selling tickets for air travel at a price that would be profitable if the ticket was honestly priced.
Every major airline remains in business because of deals with banks to push credit cards (made more from the credit card partnership than their gross profit on all other activities last year). Take that away and goodbye to AA, United, Southwest, and Delta.
Without credit cards and add-on fees, how much would it cost to fly economy class from New York to Orlando? At least $600. What is the price that the average hick has, based on absolutely nothing but gut feeling, decided that “should” cost? Around $200. This is the fundamental problem of running an airline even before the post-COVID decline in business-subsidized travel.
So you get the constant nonsense fees for things that used to be included in the price of the ticket, the degrading of service and quality over time, and planes full of people who should be taking the bus or more likely shouldn’t be wasting their money on travel at all. And they all want to carry their luggage on because it costs money on every place except Southwest, where checking is still a gamble because airport baggage handlers are unreliable and scummy. And planes were never built for that, and there isn’t enough room, and therefore boarding order becomes a huge gameable aspect of the system, and we end up with 12 different groups in the hierarchy and 25 people with fake disabilities on every plane.
Given that, I think it has gotten better. My most recent flights did not seem to have people gaming the preboard process. It seemed there were always people sneaking through in the wrong group back in the day.
And getting on early is a necessity for Southwest, if you are not traveling alone.
I just want to keep my bag nearby. Time was, I used to be able to store my bag under the seat in front and still sit comfortably. Not these days. I use to have an actual suitcase that could fit under the seat! Seems like a fantasy.
And why do military get special treatment? Can we go back to not worshipping “the troops” please?