Virgin Atlantic adds priority boarding for ‘no status’ members of Flying Club
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Virgin Atlantic was pretty late to the boarding group game, having introduced it back in early 2023. Prior to that it was boarding passengers by priority, but without numbered boarding groups.
As with other airlines, it now allocates you a group number based on your status and cabin class. Anyone with higher status or travelling in premium classes boards first; if you have lower status or are travelling in economy you’ll board later.
Virgin Atlantic has just announced an interesting change to its Economy boarding policy.
Effective immediately, anyone flying in Economy Classic or Economy Light who has a Virgin Flying Club number in their booking will receive priority boarding.
This means that they will board ahead of all other Economy Classic and Economy Light passengers.
They will still be behind Economy Delight passengers (which is fair, as those people pay more and have seats with additional legroom) and anyone with elite status in any SkyTeam frequent flyer programme.
Is this a good idea?
I can see why Virgin Atlantic is doing this. Having the ability to build a relationship with customers via Virgin Flying Club has real value.
It’s a bribe – give us your details, and we’ll let you board first on your upcoming trip (and we’ll give you enough Virgin Points for a couple of free Greggs sausage rolls).
I suspect, down the back of the aircraft, a large percentage of leisure tickets are NOT booked directly with Virgin Atlantic. People will use OTAs such as Expedia or book a package put together by a third party operator. Virgin Atlantic will receive the email address of the passenger but potentially not much more – and even that doesn’t come with permission for a lifetime of marketing spam.
I imagine that Economy Classic and Economy Light passengers will now receive multiple emails pre-departure encouraging them to join Virgin Flying Club and add their number to their booking, in return for earlier boarding.
This is all the upside. There are a couple of issues though:
- on transatlantic routes, Delta Air Lines, Air France and KLM members don’t appear to get the same priority treatment, despite these flights being operated as a joint venture
- passengers who are base members of another SkyTeam frequent flyer programme will be treated as if they are not members of any programme
- Economy Light passengers jump the queue ahead of Economy Classic passengers if they have a Flying Club number in their booking, which devalues the latter
- if it is too successful, it will defeat the whole point of doing it as all remaining passengers will be charging forward at the same time!
How does Virgin Atlantic boarding work?
This is the new Virgin Atlantic boarding structure. Whilst it looks insanely complicated, remember that passengers never see this data. All they get is a number on their boarding pass with, in most cases, no understanding of how it got there!
Here is how Virgin Atlantic ranks its boarding groups:
Pre-boarding
Passengers requiring special assistance or with young children are boarded first, ahead of all other passengers.
Group 1
Group 1 is reserved for Virgin Atlantic’s own top-tier customers:
- By seat: Virgin Atlantic Upper Class
- By status: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Gold
Group 2
- By seat: Virgin Atlantic Premium (image above)
- By status: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Silver
Group 3
From Group 3, Virgin Atlantic also gives priority boarding to status holders from its partner airlines.
By status:
- SkyTeam Elite Plus
- Air France / KLM Flying Blue Platinum
- Air France / KLM Flying Blue Gold
- Delta Diamond Medallions
- Delta Platinum Medallions
- Delta Gold Medallions
Group 4
By seat:
- Economy Delight
By status:
- SkyTeam Elite
- Air France / KLM Flying Blue Silver
- Delta Silver Medallions
- Singapore Solitaire PPS Club
- Singapore Krisflyer Elite Gold
- Virgin Australia Velocity Club
- Virgin Australia Velocity Platinum
- Virgin Australia Velocity Gold
Group 5
- By status: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Red
Group 6 to 10 (based on seat row)
- By seat: Economy Classic
- By seat: Economy Light
BJ 
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TimM 
Sandgrounder 
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Blair Waldorf Salad 
Chrisasaurus 
The Savage Squirrel 
Mark 
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William Avery 
Rob 
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Novice 
AC 
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