Zone Boarding

[Squonk]

According to an internal memo, US Airways will begin Zone Boarding very soon. The concept is simple. You board by zone number that is preprinted on your boarding pass. It eliminates a lot of confusion for our in frequent fliers and standardizes the boarding process system wide. A novel concept if presented and implemented well. That being said, this is the company that brought you MetroJet and Business Select.

The company memo broke down zone loading as follows:

Zone 1- First Class, Chairman Preferred, Gold Preferred and Star Alliance Gold

Zone 2- Silver Preferred, Bank of America Visa Signature Card holders & US4*
*(US4 is entry level Dividend Mile membership)

Zones 3 - 8 will follow depending on the size and configuration of the aircraft.

In my opinion, this is another blunder in the making. The company will alienate the Silver Preferred passenger by grouping them with the US4 passengers. The US4 passenger count is generally a large percentage of the total passenger count on any given day. This will gridlock the boarding process and defeat the purpose of restructuring the process. This will slow the overall boarding and cause departure delays. I propose the following:

Begin by boarding First Class passengers first. They deserve it and it promotes the product.

Zone 1- CHPR, Gold Preferred, Silver Preferred, Star Alliance Gold and Bank of American Signature Card holders.

Zone 2-8 Everyone else starting from the rear of the aircraft moving forward.

Can anyone shed any light on this newest brainstorm? Perhaps someone from the Crystal Palace will see this and comment.

 

[El Gato]

Please tell me you are joking...If that is true, then the airline is doomed even if the unions make the sacrifices needed. No concession, no paucity of employees, no professionalism can overcome bad management. Who cooked that idea up? Ben Baldenza?

 

[WestCoastGuy]

I dunno...seems like every bone head idea starts out from some bean counter in an office that says to himself...."gee, this looks great!" We'll still have the Gold and Silver members, knocking old ladies off their walkers to get on first Half the flights consists of Gold, Silver, Chairmen, United Prefered and Star Gold members. Not much left to board after that line gets boarded.

 

[ELP_WN_Psgr]

Squonk is right, this is a dumb move, although we might disagree on why.

My first comment would be you need to get rid of the assigned seating, but that's just a personal preference.

If you have assigned seating, and no doubt USAirways will continue to do so (assuming they have any seating at all), then the only thing that makes sense is to board people from the back of the plane forward.

How many people sit in F? How many actually paid for their F seat? Why do you want tp put those people on first, and then subject them to all the "little people" stampeding through their cabin on the way back to steerage?

If you board rows 23-26 and then 19-22 and then 14-18 and so on and so forth you have a steady stream of passengers climbing on the plane which would enable you to turn your aircraft faster, which means you could get more utilization out of it, which would ultimately lead to more efficient operations and reduced costs.

Let's say I am on a business trip in the East. I am from El Paso, so my FF memberships are Rapid Rewards and AAdvantage. It makes no sense, really, to sign up for anybody else's.

But I have to go from Rochester to Charlotte or something on business. My employer has purchased me a full Y ticket to do so.

Your airline starts parading all these "special people" in front of me...Chairman's Preferred....Double Platim Encrusted Zircon FF Award winners....you name it. They all get "special" recognition (not to mentioning stealing all the overhead storage space) while my full fare Y ticket gets me a middle seat in Y with 30" pitch.

How happy am I going to be? Not very. Does it really matter to USAirwyas? Maybe not.....I live out West where they are insignificant (if even present in any given market). Is it good business to alienate anyone? As a general rule, no.

What would be refreshing is if airlines treated everyone alike but everyone well. The "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others" routine gets very old, very quickly. Perhaps if you are one of the "special privileged people" life looks pretty good...but are there enough of them to keep your company afloat....if the great unwashed masses sitting in Y get annoyed and find other firms to whom they can give their travel dollar.

 

[JayBrian]

AA boards by zone.



Jay

 

[Schatzee]

It doesn't matter how you do it, someone is going to be b*tchin........

They should board first class, then the coach cabin by rows starting from the rear of the cabin.......

If it's not this, it's "I 'm a Chairmans and my friend is a Silver and he's upgraded and I'm not." Well if the Chairmans would purchase the same kind of fare, he would be upgraded.

And if that doesn't cover it, there's also the "I didn't get a snack basket" or "The flight attendant wouldn't let me have 2 blankets" and last but not least, "I don't understand why I can't sit in the exit row, it is a removeable cast. What is the number to Consumer Affairs?"

 

[Frontier69]

Now dont forget all of the internal memos that have to be distributed and all gate agents being briefed. Just another waste of time to implement another useless way of putting pax on an acft. Just goes to show that the CCY mgmnt have little experience in the field. I'd love to see one of the N.E.'s work a bank of flights on a Fri or Sun nite in PHL that are oversold with bad weather. Yeah like that will ever happen---->NOT

 

[KCFlyer]

Hello Jay,

I was to say the least skeptical when UA went to Zone boarding. I have to honestly tell you that it works very very well.

Unlike the MOOOO Lines at SWA. If I pay more then I pay for the Lakewood BlueClaws ticket I want an assigned seat. I rather watch my bumper rust then stand in a "Cattle Chute" for a ticket that cost $15.00 less for 2 hours to have a prayer of an aisle seat.

[post="173654"][/post]​

Bob...too bad you are an "elite" passenger who gets preferential boarding. Most of the non elites are stuck in an unairconditioned "passenger chute" waiting to board the plane. But we know that the only wasy US will survive is to cater to the elites even more and screw the rest of the "just passin' thru" customers.

 

[longing4piedmont]

Well not to burst your bubble I KNOW for a fact that BBB has worked the kiosk in BOS for a shift.

[post="173657"][/post]​

Then he must be a slow learner because rumor has it he still has his secretary call and make sure his boarding pass is waiting for him at the ticket counter at DCA. Seems to get upset with the T/A staff when it isn't.

 

[FLYUSAIRWAYS]

In my opinion, I say we do it the JETBLUE way. Start boarding all window seats first, all A and F seats. This way, it does not matter which row you are in, because when you get to your assigned row, you will be out of the aisle, putting your stuff in the overhead compartments. After all A and F seats have boarded you do your center seats, B and E seats. Once again board them all at once, because once you find your row, your out of th aisle. Then board all aisle seats last. Seems to work for them. Just throwing in my $0.02.

 

[Singleflyer]

US is one of the few majors that DOES NOT use zone boarding. AA, UA, CO, DL use zone boardinf and I beleive NW uses it as well.

I do not have elite status on all of those airlines, so I know it works well for all passengers. It just takes the confusion out of the rows that are being boarded. It easier to see the zone than if you are in the correct group of rows at boarding time.

Itis a small but positive move forward, and does keep the crowds at the gate smaller.

 

[bofie]

Zone boarding works great on UA. I've wondered why U didn't do it. I guarantee you that UA has data showing that it helps.

There is a lot to be said for scattering the seats of the people boarding at any one time so that fewer bottlenecks occur. This is what appears to happen on UA.

Don't forget that the U execs are really not stupid people. I expect that some thought has gone into this move..... Or maybe they want to sabotage the airline....right! that's it! This is part of the master plan, isn't it?

I have to smile when I read posts about how inept the leadership is. If you all are so smart how come you ain't VPs etc?

 

[El Gato]

In my opinion, I say we do it the JETBLUE way. Start boarding all window seats first, all A and F seats. This way, it does not matter which row you are in, because when you get to your assigned row, you will be out of the aisle, putting your stuff in the overhead compartments. After all A and F seats have boarded you do your center seats, B and E seats. Once again board them all at once, because once you find your row, your out of th aisle. Then board all aisle seats last. Seems to work for them. Just throwing in my $0.02.

[post="173665"][/post]​

FLYUSAIRWAYS, that is EXACTLY what I have been thinking that we should do for years. It is the most efficient and logical way of getting people on the flights fastest and with the least problems. But logic is something this company is not very big on, is it?

 

[longing4piedmont]

I'm no fan of DL, but as my second airline of choice, it does seem to work better. I'm a PLT over there too so I do get to board early as well. Every once in a while you still get the person in line who does not have a clue and they make them get out of the line. There is just no way to board a plane without this type of stuff happening.

 

[longing4piedmont]

It doesn't matter how you do it, someone is going to be b*tchin........

They should board first class, then the coach cabin by rows starting from the rear of the cabin.......

If it's not this, it's "I 'm a Chairmans and my friend is a Silver and he's upgraded and I'm not." Well if the Chairmans would purchase the same kind of fare, he would be upgraded.

And if that doesn't cover it, there's also the "I didn't get a snack basket" or "The flight attendant wouldn't let me have 2 blankets" and last but not least, "I don't understand why I can't sit in the exit row, it is a removeable cast. What is the number to Consumer Affairs?"

[post="173655"][/post]​

We are not all that way. Nothing sets me on edge more than when I see or hear another CP act like a jerk. I also had enough converations with consumer affiairs to know that we have more than our fair share of them as well. It does make us all look bad, and for that I'm sorry