British Airways to start boarding passengers by group from 12th December

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• DavidK says:

  18 Nov18 November 13:57

  Am I the only one that doesn’t care about boarding priority?

  • Richard G says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:14

    Nope. I turn up as late as possible so that I can spend more time in the lounge / out of the sardine can. I can’t say I’ve ever been worried about not having space for my carry on, because my carry on tends to fit under the seat anyway.

    • Julian says:

      18 Nov18 November 17:18

      Ditto I always make a point of boarding last to avoid the horrendous scrum in the loading walkway thing that attaches to the side of the plane and also so that if the plane isn’t full up I can sit in any better looking seat on the plane than the one their computer has arbitrarily chosen to assign me to.

      Also in Economy one may not like the look of one’s computer assigned neighbouring passengers (lots of mewling, puking kids etc) so if free seats make that possible again I would reassign myself elsewhere. Plus if there are whole empty rows of two, three or four available and I am assigned to a row with one or two other passengers already in it then that again is where I like to reassign myself. Ditto with Emergency Exit row seats, although they are normally mainly taken at the end of boarding 95%+ of the time.

      The only threat to all this is very late boarding passengers who are still in the Duty Free Shop when the last person at the boarding gate (i.e. myself) has boarded. For that reason I probably won’t deploy the above strategy if literally only 1 or 2 seats on the plane are unfilled at the end of boarding. Although even then I might still reassign myself to the more favourable seating location once the plane has taken off.

      • the real harry1 says:

        18 Nov18 November 17:20

        you could just have written: ‘I prefer to board last’

  • Trevor says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:16

    Yes

• Jules M says:

  18 Nov18 November 14:31

  Gold should align with Business class. Silver with PE where it exists. Bronze before economy.

  I’ve never thought, regardless of status, that anyone should board with First unless they’ve paid for it.

  I’m GGL, so it’s not like I haven’t ‘earnt the right’. But how long does it take to give priority to the 8-14 people, who’ve generally paid a decent premium, to get on beforehand?

  Boarding has always been shocking with BA and I’ve flown in the US a fair bit where they use groups to good effect. It’s not perfect but it’s 10x better than BA.

  • Talay says:

    18 Nov18 November 17:37

    I agree.

    First should stand out but in reality, such travellers are more than likely to be in the lounge or shopping and waiting for no-one to show as first class would simply delay the eventual business class scrum.

    So I can see the logic, though I also see the First argument.

  • Lady London says:

    18 Nov18 November 22:00

    Good idea Jules.

  • john says:

    19 Nov19 November 09:41

    Gold and First fit as Gold card holders can use first checkin and lounge, so differentiating it here wouldn’t fit with the theme.

• Paul says:

  18 Nov18 November 14:42

  I’ve never cared about boarding first anyways. You spend enough time relatively immobile. Even when I have boarding priority I don’t take it up.

• Andrew says:

  18 Nov18 November 15:03

  On a Friday evening domestic from London to Edinburgh, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were only a handful of passengers who didn’t have Gold status.

  It’s a Gold Scrum. I usually just sit and wait until the last few dregs are waiting to go through then wander across.

• RLawler says:

  18 Nov18 November 15:05

  This comes as welcome news to me!
  I just flew shorthaul on BA yesterday and the experience with all the ‘hand-baggage’ was a farce. I’d say approximately 80% of the passengers had cabin sized suitcases meaning, me as a full paying fare customer who checked my bag; had no where to put my hand baggage.

  I don’t doubt there will be issues implementing but something needs to change on these shorthaul routes especially.

  • Talay says:

    18 Nov18 November 17:34

    This is a product of the airline policy of charging for baggage. In the old days, much of this would have been checked but as that now costs, it goes in bags which go in the cabin.

• bagoly says:

  18 Nov18 November 16:30

  Years ago, Lufthansa tried to reduce the scrum by boarding by “Zones” (I think it was largely windows first, then middles, then aisles) but it wasn’t enforceable and was dropped.

  The difference now at T5 is that BA is installing electronic gates which will be less subject to thinking “Can I be bothered with the hassle of refusing this passenger who is coming forward too early?”

  For short-haul, where there is a shortage of overhead bin space, this makes it more worth having status.
  For long-haul, on most ‘planes where non-Premium passengers walk through Club, I think Club should be given the scheduled to go last (and only invited when the last WT passenger has actually reached the ‘plane, to avoid standing waiting on the airbridge.

• Sussex Bantam says:

  18 Nov18 November 17:27

  Every single SH flight been on recently has been preceded by a request from the gate staff for “volunteers” to have their luggage placed in the hold due to a shortage of overhead space. In return for this the volunteers are allowed to board first. I wonder if they will become group 0…

  • Lady London says:

    18 Nov18 November 22:04

    Hmmm…I think BA must have copie DCC that idea off Easyjet or Ryanair

• the real harry1 says:

  18 Nov18 November 17:31

  self-upgrading – now there’s a thing

  you board last, then see if there are any spare seats in Business 🙂

  • Nick_C says:

    18 Nov18 November 19:11

    Self upgrading – I’ve seen it tried a couple of times.

    Once flying PE/WT+ from LGW to MCO, a family tried moving forward from Y before take off. The FAs spotted them almost immediately and sent them back.

    On my CW flight to LAX this year, the upstairs rear cabin was about half full. People moved round, and FAs were working both aisles to provide great service. Three hours into the flight, the main meal service was over, the lights were dimmed, and the presence of FAs diminished. A couple moved forward from the rear of the plane and took two of the many spare seats in CW. The FAs didn’t notice. I wondered how often this couple tried it on and got away with it,as they knew the best time to have a go. If one of them hadn’t taken the seat next to me, they probably would have stayed several hours.

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