Qantas to Introduce Group Boarding and Bag Tracking

[jakeseven7]

Worked well out of BNE this AM.

Surprisingly compliant crowd on a full flight - a pity as I was hoping to see tonnes of walks of shame / gate lice as others have put it!!

Saw one ‘Beep computer said no’ but appeared to be a genuine mistake from the passenger who seemed mortified and ran away to back of queue

 

[CMA222]

I flew out of MEL yesterday. They kept saying wait away from the queueing area till your group is called. There were heaps of people who just ignored them and clogged the access. I was in G1, half way down the queue, and of the two guys ahead of me the first was green to go and the second was red - wait for your group. The guy being rejected told the 'gate keeper' that at check-in he was told they should just board together, even though they were on separate bookings. The 'gate keeper' said "no-you must wait for your group". The guy wanted to argue so she just let him go. They must have later manually adjusted him as being on board. So the system works except when it doesn't.

 

[SeatBackForward]

So it didn't take long for QF staff to figure out a way tk ignore and jusy override it?

 

[jakeseven7]

So it didn't take long for QF staff to figure out a way tk ignore and jusy override it?

Flew back via MEL this AM and there were plenty of people turned away for not checking their group boarding number properly and zero exemptions given. Personally I think the staff quite liked sending people back if you ask me!

It was interesting comparing my weekday ‘corporate’ flight v a weekend ‘mixed business’ flight. The corporates were a lot more compliant and checked their boarding passes compared to the weekend travellers!

I have another flight ex BNE next week will report back again.

Edit: Is SYD up and running yet?

 

[Ansett]

Currently walking around Perth airport a d pleased to hear and see group boarding being enforced.

 

[RichardMEL]

SYD starts Monday

 

[drron]

SYD starts Monday

When we fly out.

 

[elanshin]

It was interesting comparing my weekday ‘corporate’ flight v a weekend ‘mixed business’ flight. The corporates were a lot more compliant and checked their boarding passes compared to the weekend travellers!

Probably much regular flyers and more up to date / seen this in action already. After all this sort of change isn't hard to process, just needs time to get everyone used to it.

 

[Flyfrequently]

SYD starts Monday

Pity it wasn't yesterday.

QF423 was a full flight with many international connections, people just queued willy nilly (and in the Priority line)
Gate staff did an excellent job explaining/ushering to remain seated.

Also, repeated announcements to gate check hand luggage.

 

[Katie]

Interesting experience for our BNE-SYD flight yesterday. Left the lounge when boarding was called, walked to gate 18, priority line was empty, we joined it, scanned theough and hit a big queue to board. Luckily not too full a flight, so no issues with overhead space.

 

[freney]

I was first to board on a BNE-SYD flight the other evening, so can't comment on how the groups worked at the gate. But I was sitting back in row 21, and noticed that while group boarding was a nice idea, this flight directed passengers in rows 15+ to board via the rear. My estimation was that 50% of the traffic past my seat were people sitting in the back who got on the front, and were crashing into others doing what the signs said. One woman remarked to her partner as she passed me heading for row 24, "Oh, people are coming on the back... they're creating a bit of a bottleneck, aren't they!"

 

[RichardMEL]

I was first to board on a BNE-SYD flight the other evening, so can't comment on how the groups worked at the gate. But I was sitting back in row 21, and noticed that while group boarding was a nice idea, this flight directed passengers in rows 15+ to board via the rear. My estimation was that 50% of the traffic past my seat were people sitting in the back who got on the front, and were crashing into others doing what the signs said. One woman remarked to her partner as she passed me heading for row 24, "Oh, people are coming on the back... they're creating a bit of a bottleneck, aren't they!"

Just goes to show how many don't listen, or think they know better..

Or some could have a mobility concern with using the stairs too..

 

[pauly7]

Another seamless experience out of MEL last night. It really has sped up boarding as well as giving premium pax a more reliable priority boarding experience.

A couple of computer says no send backs of naughty ‘gate lice’ for amusement

Flying out of SYD today will see how the rollout has gone there.

Does anyone know if there are plans to roll out to all flights / more ports (at some point?).

 

[Boeyn]

I flew SYD-MEL-SYD last week and had group boarding on both flights. A colleague was on a later delayed flight into MEL, so while I was waiting for them to arrive I hung around and watched a few flights board. So all up, I saw about half a dozen flights go through the process, including mine.

I didn’t see a single case of someone successfully boarding before their group was called. They were either sent to the back or told to stand to the side until their group was called (including a few SGs who weren’t aware QF had moved to group boarding and were quick to convey displeasure to the gate staff about the devaluation in their status!).

I suspect it is actually pretty difficult to manually board somebody in a later boarding group - I noticed that somebody had to standing at the main gate counter (away from the scanners) to open each boarding group using the computer there. This means that if there are only two staff doing the boarding, there is effectively only one person scanning boarding passes, which does slow the process down. They really need a minimum of three staff when in the past two would have been fine.

The only other comment worth sharing is that a couple of the flights I observed weren’t doing boarding via the rear stairs, and called groups 4 and 5 before group 3, which was called with group 6. That definitely confused a few people!

 

[pauly7]

Reporting back on SYD experience.

Again, huge improvement. Told the boarding gate agent and they agreed said it’s been great for them too. Made boarding much faster.

I didn’t hang back to see if there were many ‘turn back of gate lice’, saw just one as I boarded but appeared to be a genuine mistake - a Gold who didn’t listen it was just group 1 boarding. They were sent back to wait for group 2.

Now I would love to see this rolled out to more ports!

 

[dylarr]

My experiences including QF475 SYD-MEL this evening and I'm quite happy with how this new process has been designed. It certainly addresses all of the pain points I had with the previous implementation priority boarding. I hope it rolls out to all of the other ports soon, I don't understand why it's still so limited now.

Now QF seem to have a handle on how to do priority boarding, can they now please fix priority baggage?!

 

[TheInsider]

I hope it rolls out to all of the other ports soon, I don't understand why it's still so limited now.

Airport authorities - can be things like digital signage, the scanning hardware and real physical signage. As you see in MEL, the physical signage is different to all other ports, this is not a QF decision, but an airport one.
It would be fantastic if they brought this into International.

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

Yes! They really need this with international. Boarding is a proper zoo especially for the 380s. My last QF1/2s the other week to and from SIN were actually quite good but I put that down to luck not process design

After having done multiple domestic with this implemented I think we can all see it’s working as designed and working well so may not need every persons domestic data point.

 

[Dmac59]

MEL - CNS yesterday. Impressed with the digital signage at the gate & clear announcements for each boarding group.
I was in Group 4 and witnessed several people ahead of me during Group 3 boarding that were asked to stand aside and wait until their Group was called. Definitely helps that the boarding pass scanner declines those “jumping the queue.”
Inside the cabin there were only minimal blockages, a great improvement Q.

 

[Danger]

It seems to me that the 'computer says no' system is the real key here to priority boarding seemingly working much better. It's not clear to me why Qantas needed all this additional signage when simply programming the scanner to do what the gate agents couldn't/wouldn't or simply refused to do appears as though it would have sufficed.