Priority boarding on QF domestic - what is the story?

[pshepvic]

Something else that I thought of that I don't know if it has been mentioned before. Lets say the PB line is empty. A non-entitled member tries to use it - this effectively means they are pushing in front of every other pax boarding, not just using a lane they are not entitled to and potentially holding up entitled pax when they are arrive.

This means it is even more important to send offenders to the back of the line. They do not just inconvenience J and WP guests, they are also being selfish and inconsiderate to every single person in the non-PB line who are doing the right thing.

 

[SeatBackForward]

The solution is really easy if QF don't mind forking the cash out to pay for the extra staff to just stand at the front of the PB lane. That itself will deter most of those intentionally abusing the PB lane.

This person could then request the appropriate PB entitlement or politely point out the general line to those not entitled. They already do this at some airports for the priority security lanes.

This removes all issues about single/ double gate agents or any concerns about the air crew fearing the wrath of disgruntled passengers.

It could even come out of the QFF programmes budget as its something specifically about their rewards programme.

 

[Pleb Status]

QF625 BNE-MEL today not offering PB at all as only one FA at the gate. Everyone is using the PB lane and no one in the 'normal' lane. I suppose everybody gets to feel special today.

Although PB is an absolute joke at the best of times it now appears to be only for wide bodies.......

 

[ozbeachbabe]

QF625 BNE-MEL today not offering PB at all as only one FA at the gate. Everyone is using the PB lane and no one in the 'normal' lane. I suppose everybody gets to feel special today.

Although PB is an absolute joke at the best of times it now appears to be only for wide bodies.......

No sure what gate you departed from but it sounds as though the gate reader & thetefore the F/A were on the right hand side marked 'Premium Boarding'.

Even if the boarding call says for PB pax to use the right hand lane & general boarding is on the left, pax will not line up in a lane that has no FA there so all pax end up in the PB lane.

If the gate reader is on the left hand general boarding side you have tbose pax plus the WP's as well because they assume that if there is no FA in the PB lane then PB is not offered on that flight.

Even JQ & TT have a more efficient boarding process.

 

[Pleb Status]

No sure what gate you departed from but it sounds as though the gate reader & thetefore the F/A were on the right hand side marked 'Premium Boarding'.

Even if the boarding call says for PB pax to use the right hand lane & general boarding is on the left, pax will not line up in a lane that has no FA there so all pax end up in the PB lane.

If the gate reader is on the left hand general boarding side you have tbose pax plus the WP's as well because they assume that if there is no FA in the PB lane then PB is not offered on that flight.

Even JQ & TT have a more efficient boarding process.

You are correct Oz. Gate 20 at BNE and your description of events is like you were there.

Talking to the CSM on the way down to MEL, it would appear that QF have cut the number of cabin crew down from 5 to 4 on the 738 so they are only sending 1 FA up to the gate. If this is the case, those who travel regularly on the 738 might as well forget about PB in future as it will never work (in the current form) with 1 FA at the gate (it did not work with 2 FA either).

 

[medhead]

You are correct Oz. Gate 20 at BNE and your description of events is like you were there.

Talking to the CSM on the way down to MEL, it would appear that QF have cut the number of cabin crew down from 5 to 4 on the 738 so they are only sending 1 FA up to the gate. If this is the case, those who travel regularly on the 738 might as well forget about PB in future as it will never work (in the current form) with 1 FA at the gate (it did not work with 2 FA either).

There is absolutely no reason to cut PB with only one staff member scanning. If crew think that is the case then they really don't understand the point of PB. Is that because qantas has failed to communicate to them?

 

[777]

To be honest as a regular VA flyer who dropped in on this thread about 100 pages back to congratulate you all on getting QF to lift their game I'm amazed this is going on still. We flew VA out of DPS last week and there was no attempt to do priority boarding. Total fail admittedly. But I tried to think back but I couldn't actually remember the last time I'd been stuck in a queue to board. I fly a lot - enough for triple platinum on VA - so that's a pretty good failure rate.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

To be honest as a regular VA flyer who dropped in on this thread about 100 pages back to congratulate you all on getting QF to lift their game I'm amazed this is going on still. We flew VA out of DPS last week and there was no attempt to do priority boarding. Total fail admittedly. But I tried to think back but I couldn't actually remember the last time I'd been stuck in a queue to board. I fly a lot - enough for triple platinum on VA - so that's a pretty good failure rate.

It's simple.
QF just don't care about PB.

 

[LiamR]

To be honest as a regular VA flyer who dropped in on this thread about 100 pages back to congratulate you all on getting QF to lift their game I'm amazed this is going on still. We flew VA out of DPS last week and there was no attempt to do priority boarding. Total fail admittedly. But I tried to think back but I couldn't actually remember the last time I'd been stuck in a queue to board. I fly a lot - enough for triple platinum on VA - so that's a pretty good failure rate.

+1 Hundreds of flights on VA, priority boarding has failed once!

I don't believe for a second that PB isn't possible with only one Cabin Crew, because it happens hundreds of times every day, just at the opposite end of the terminal

 

[opusman]

It's simple.
QF just don't care about PB.

That much is obvious, but they should therefore remove it as a listed benefit of status.

 

[mrpooky]

Most of the QF flights I've taken recently have been QFLink flights, for which I've never seen a PB lane. But I took SYD -> BNE at 17:05 on Saturday (QF540?) and the PB lane didn't work too well, although it wasn't as bad as the free-for-all that some have mentioned.

I'm SG, so I lined up at the end of a very long normal boarding lane like a good chappie. PD lane was empty, so the FA was inviting the head pax on the normal lane over one at a time, as expected. Immediately after I arrived, however a good 20 or so pax arrived and headed straight to the PB lane. The few BPs I saw wore no status, and only one or two of them were seated in business by the time I boarded.

The FA on the PB lane didn't bat an eyelid; just kept smiling and scanning BPs, regardless. I was a bit disappointed to see that it still doesn't seem to have improved in the last few months since I last caught a regular QF domestic flight.

There is no way this will work unless QF enforce it!

 

[gogo419]

The excuse "well I should just board them anyway" that FA's have told AFF members is useless. Because there is always a bottleneck entering the plane.. So if they send them to the back of the normal queue, yes it may take an extra 30 seconds to scan some extra BP at the end.. But everyone is going to enter the plane in the same amount of time..

I'll admit to using the pB line a couple of times last year as a SG.. Mainly to see of they would deny me.. But as usual they barely batted an eye lid.. What I should have asked is why didn't you deny me using the WP line?

Is there any SG's willing to try this and try and get a different response out of the FA?

gogo

 

[Danger]

I took a transcon flight last week where priority boarding was in place and announced, but still work as it should.

The gentleman in line in front of me was flying in Economy and when he presented his boarding pass to the gate agent I could see that not only did he not have appropriate status, he had no status at all, none whatsoever, with any oneworld airline.

Then my boarding pass was scanned. Once again my AA Sapphire status was printed on the pass and, once again, no polite kick in the bum to the back of the regular line by the gate agent.

It seems gate agents are trained to do one thing: scan boarding passes. And that's it. Not even a cursory glance at the pass to see if the passenger is eligible, something that isn't at all difficult in the three, four or five seconds it takes to scan a pass these days.

 

[Red Roo]

QF584 PER-ADL. Thanks for following up.

A trend here as QF590 PER-ADL yesterday was not using any form of PB either (gate 14 if I recall correctly). Signs etc were available but they were stacked way over to the side of the gate area (5 or 6 metres away). As I have never seen PB enforced in any way whatsoever, the J boarding experience without the PB infrastructure was no different to when it is actually in place.

Thanks for these examples. I've passed them on.

 

[Red Roo]

Yesterday did 3rd SYD-MEL rtn daytrip in 2 weeks &am down 2pm back both full 763s. PB worked seamlessly in both directions again as the non PB queue snaked off into the distance. Maybe I'm constantly lucky. Only gripe was the way the security staff closed 1 of the 3 normal security lines at Tulla with no warning and directed those in the queue to the front of the PB line . At least the pax apologised for being steered in front of the queued PB pax.

While we don't manage the security screening lines, I'm glad to hear of your recent positive experiences with Premium Boarding.

 

[tuapekastar]

I think this has been alluded to previously in this thread but given they are FAs doing the boarding there may be a real level of discomfort rejecting, and potentially having a big argument with, people you are going to have to spend the next one, two, four hours serving. If ground staff were doing the boarding it wouldn't be such an issue, potentially an argument, but the pax are then out of your life.

I know in a number of my work places, we had ID that we were supposed to wear (I only did if I absolutely had to, hated wearing it), and official policy was that we should 'challenge' anyone seen not wearing an ID card. Bollocks to that, I wasn't employed to be a bouncer, and maybe the FAs feel like that. Not an excuse for PB not working but possibly a significant contributing factor? (apologies to the person who posted a similar view already)

 

[tuapekastar]

Apparent fail on QF769 at MEL gate 11 today. We wandered from lounge to gate prior to the flight being called and people were lined up in one line (you guessed it, the priority line). The flight was a little delayed and there was no announcement re PB, and TBH the signage just does not cut it. The huge sign is just not indicative of where to go and the small signs with arrows are, we'll, just too small.

 

[MelUser]

I agree - we need the USA style "gate agent" who do will do anything to make sure the plane is boarded orderly and gets away on time!

 

[boomy]

I noticed that most problems with priority boarding are usually on 737 flights where they put only 1 attendant to board everyone and and then the priority line is not so fast anymore.

On 767 flights MEL-SYD SYD-MEL priority boarding usually works well.

 

[Anna]

the small signs with arrows are, well, just too small.

The small signs also are double-sided with PB to the left on 1 side and PB to the right on the other side. They are easy to swivel around. I have noticed people in SYD fiddling with the small signs while standing in line and turning them around so that the sign is then indicating PB in the wrong line.