Re:Expedia Drops American Airlines Tickets From Listings
by lionheart on Sunday January 02, 2011 @12:37PM
(#2060474)
The reason you can't board by window seat first is that most people aren't traveling alone but with friends and family who are sitting next to them.
Try telling mom and dad that since he wanted the window little Johnnie has to get on first and they can follow ten minutes later.
Re:Expedia Drops American Airlines Tickets From Listings
by thwarted on Sunday January 02, 2011 @01:03PM
(#2060558)
Delays in boarding are slow because of people sitting next to each other who are not traveling together. If you have a minor with a window seat and you are sitting next to them, there's is no reason you can't board at the same time; you're not going to be getting up to let someone in after you've sat down.
One abuse I don't like but see often is the "we are traveling with an extended family of adults and one baby, so everyone gets to board 'early' due to the traveling-with-infant rule".
2 things (note - this is all from a 'economy' flyer standpoint)
1) The quality of my flights is almost always determined by the passengers around me - crying babies, rude/loud people, people too large for the seat next to me, etc. These factors play far more in to me having a good or bad flight vs AA/BA/Virgin/Continental/United/etc.
2) Boarding is insanely stupid. I'm not sure I could come up with a worse way except to say 'everyone get on whenever' (even that might end up being better in some cases). What needs to happen is to board by seat position relative to the windows - window seats should board first, then middle seats, then aisle seats. The time spent waiting for people who are in an aisle seat to get up, let window people get past, then repeat the process for middle-seat passengers is crazy. It's painful to watch this process play out in slow motion when it's so simple to fix. At least try it - I've been flying on and off for 25 years and have never seen this approach tried, nor heard of it being tried.
Granted, the 9 levels of 'special' customers (silver, advantage, bronze, elite, elite plus, gold, bronze+, etc) might be miffed if they didn't get on 3 minutes before everyone else, but the average time for boarding passengers would be reduced.
Rant over...