Qantas doesn't care about priority boarding

[PineappleSkip]

I am a mere NB

There is nothing mere about NB

 

[justinbrett]

Boarding at qf10 in London on the weekend, assistance first, then J, then status (CL P1 WP) w Y+, then zones

Exactly the same as my QF104 flight last month (well, no Y+ obviously). SG followed CL/P1/WP (those three were one group).

 

[FL360]

In your example, I would imagine the person requiring special assistance would be already known to staff, at the gate ahead of time and would be pre-boarded, just like any other passenger in a wheelchair/requiring assistance etc.
Whether they are travelling with a status passenger would be irrelevant.

Seen this happen plenty of times - they are boarded before the announcement and some times I've seen them be taken by staff from the lounge early.
Never seen any of these people boarding at any other time and hold up the whole plane (figuratively).

that person would probably be with the P/P1 at the lounge before and only going to the gate last minute........

 

[Hvr]

There is nothing mere about NB

Although, they do often look like meerkats when boarding is announced.

 

[Beano]

In my limited experience I've never had trouble with PB, but I sometimes wonder why they are taking passengers queued at the non-PB scanner. Perhaps it is spill-over from the PB queue? But why a queue? I can understand a lone traveller as next in line but where there are several passengers are they maintaining two queues?

 

[Kangol]

that person would probably be with the P/P1 at the lounge before and only going to the gate last minute........

That's what they would want.
It would be odd if the staff having to wheel the wheelchair to the gate would get to the lounge and let the passenger refuse to be taken to the gate early.
I've never seen that, have you?

 

[Danger]

In my limited experience I've never had trouble with PB, but I sometimes wonder why they are taking passengers queued at the non-PB scanner. Perhaps it is spill-over from the PB queue? But why a queue? I can understand a lone traveller as next in line but where there are several passengers are they maintaining two queues?

No, Qantas doesn't process priority passengers from both the priority and non-priority lane at the start of boarding. Rather, Qantas considers (in its best case scenario) "priority boarding" to be one lane for priority passengers and one lane for non-priority, both processed simultaneously. And that's a big part of the problem.

 

[Beano]

No, Qantas doesn't process priority passengers from both the priority and non-priority lane at the start of boarding. Rather, Qantas considers (in its best case scenario) "priority boarding" to be one lane for priority passengers and one lane for non-priority, both processed simultaneously. And that's a big part of the problem.

I don't feel so guilty about joining the shorter non-PB queue then. I didnt want to queue jump.

 

[luckypierre]

As it should be she says, as I am only there for bag carrying duties….

Yes you have to learn to accept your place in the partnership , makes for happier travels

 

[algae]

I don't feel so guilty about joining the shorter non-PB queue then. I didnt want to queue jump.

Yep i've had several occasions in Perth where the priority boarding or priority security lane is longer than the 'normal' lane. As they're both being processed at the same speed (and often priority security is slower), i'll just join the normal line.

 

[SeatBackForward]

QF seriously stuffs up boarding so badly, it's embarassing.

 

[Cognac]

Interestingly, for QF71 PER-SIN it looks like they have switched which side the priority lane is, which now makes it much easier to get to and join. My flight last week was very obviously only processing PB first.

 

[justinbrett]

No, Qantas doesn't process priority passengers from both the priority and non-priority lane at the start of boarding. Rather, Qantas considers (in its best case scenario) "priority boarding" to be one lane for priority passengers and one lane for non-priority, both processed simultaneously. And that's a big part of the problem.

That's the old system though (granted the new system is yet to roll out to all services).

 

[OZDUCK]

Interestingly, for QF71 PER-SIN it looks like they have switched which side the priority lane is, which now makes it much easier to get to and join. My flight last week was very obviously only processing PB first.

I will be on that flight tomorrow - in the non-priority lane. When we flew it in 2019 the priority line was about three times the size of the non-priority line.

 

[Cognac]

I will be on that flight tomorrow - in the non-priority lane. When we flew it in 2019 the priority line was about three times the size of the non-priority line.

Yeah, the ex-PER priority queue can be a bit of a joke. I'll be interested to know if they have kept the changes though. And the new group boarding system will hopefully help with keeping it orderly

 

[noddy]

Starting to do some business travel again with some interesting observations.

One of the things that annoyed me, and many others I'm sure, is that there never seemed to be much point to Qantas's black priority boarding queue. You just got in with a herd that was the same size as the red queue, sometimes it was longer and slower. Airlines in other countries managed this by boarding priority passengers first which works well and seems to make sense.

Qantas seems to have adopted a new strategy that I've seen now for international and domestic boarding. They have the black sign for Platinum etc but nobody is actually next to it boarding passengers. So you head for it and realise when you get there that it's vacant. So you can turn around and go back to the back of the red queue or try squeezing into the front of the red queue and incur the potential wrath of people that had been lined up there. Well done Q, you've managed to P off both sets of passengers.

Letters and articles from travelers, journo's, business people and so on expressing their utter frustration and contempt for the way Qantas has treated them recently and a determination to avoid them permanently are now a regular occurrence. I flew from Melb to Syd last night and the whole thing, from the plane to the service just felt very budget and unwelcoming. At a premium price of course.

I couldn't help imagining what a great business study for Harvard, Qantas might be 10 years from now analysing Alan Joyce's leadership. He'll go back to Ireland an extremely wealthy man and leave behind an airline that's a shadow of it's old self. Is the damage to brand equity incalculable or will they be able to put a number on it? Is it the most extreme example of a CEO operating exactly in-line with his metrics to maximise short term shareholder returns and his personal compensation with absolutely no regard to customers or employees and what he'd leave behind. He'll have a nice house and a yacht but was it worth it?

Turns out you can measure the destruction in brand equity. More than $1B over the last 5 years. From the AFR:

"Qantas suffered a further dive in the strength of its once dominant brand, tumbling to No. 41 among homegrown names

Qantas’ sinking brand is a “red flag” for investors, said Brand Finance Australia managing director Mark Crowe, as part of the consultancy’s annual survey of Australia’s strongest and most valuable business icons."

Joyce is hiding in Ireland with his mum.
The toe-cutter CFO is now in the top job.
The chairman is hanging around before wandering off later in the year at a time his choosing.

 

[eastwest101]

Its been covered before in this thread Qantas doesn't care about priority boarding.

But the best advertising for status and class of service on an airline is doing priority boarding right, and showing the massive long queue of people waiting to get on the aircraft that pax entitled to priority boarding get on board quickly. And with that comes the issue of compliance, the best advertising for compliance with priority boarding is sending people attempting to get priority boarding (who are not entitled to it) do the "walk of shame" to the back of the non-priorty queue. This of course requires the resources (clear signage and staff) dedicated to do it consistently which either by choice or omission hasn't seemed to be a priority for Qantas. There are some gate design and public address system issues at airports as well that the airlines need to sort out with airport owners who seem quite keen on replacing gate and boarding public spaces with retail floor space and reducing floor space and clear lines of sight to gates.

Flew VA for the first time in a few months recently and they managed to do priority boarding reasonably competently, QF has been a bit more hit and miss but maybe are trying a little harder, is that what other people have been seeing recently? Funnily enough I stayed flying throughout Covid on both airlines and priority boarding worked quite well then!

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

Couldn’t find a neat place to put this but thought QF was very proactive on my MEL SYD today. Our crew hadn’t arrived yet so there were other crew on the ground who volunteered to board the entire plane while the crew ran across the airport to minimise delay. Handed out waters as they do sometimes pre departure.

 

[elanshin]

Priority boarding enforced, boarding staff very deliberately holding back regular line even though priority was almost empty as there was a constant stream coming out of the lounge at SYD.

Almost 100% full flight, guessing at least 1/3rd status PAX. Push back 2 mins ahead of schedule.

Surprisingly decent.

 

[Lynda2475]

They were policing the priority security line at SYD this evening, checking your boarding pass and weighing carry-on.