American Airlines tries enforced boarding zones in interesting new test

1 month ago 20

Washington DCA National American Airlines New Concourse Gate 35X Zach Griff - 42

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Trying to cut to the front of the boarding line may not work for much longer with American Airlines.

That's because the Fort Worth-based carrier is testing new technology that will help gate agents enforce the boarding order. The new software alerts the gate agent when a passenger is trying to board before their group is called. News of this software trial was first reported by View from the Wing and independently confirmed by TPG with an American Airlines spokesperson.

If you do try to board before your turn, the computer connected to the boarding pass scanner will display an alert message and sound an alarm to warn the gate agent not to board you.

The agent can manually override the alert in certain cases, such as if you're traveling with a companion in a better boarding group. But for the most part, lining up early and boarding when you want to will no longer be possible on American.

For now, American is branding this new technology as a beta test, only available at a few limited outstations. The airline has been piloting the software in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Tucson, Arizona, and it'll shortly enable it in other locations, including its hub at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).

American says it's been pleased with the test results so far, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the airline expand this software worldwide.

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"We are in the early phase of testing new technology used during the boarding process. The new technology is designed to ensure customers receive the benefits of priority boarding with ease and helps improve the boarding experience by providing greater visibility into boarding progress for our team," a carrier spokesperson told TPG.

For American, it seems sensible to increase the enforcement of its boarding groups. Priority boarding is a perk of elite status, and not strictly enforcing the boarding order eliminates one of the key benefits of earning status with the airline.

Value check: Are airline credit cards worth it anymore?

Another big consideration is that several AAdvantage cobranded credit cards include priority boarding, and reserving this perk for those who sign up for cards should help the carrier generate more sign-ups.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with this technology in the coming months. Loyal flyers who want to maximize their chances of finding overhead bin space will likely be rooting for the feature to start popping up at other airports — and on more airlines.

American currently uses a nine-group boarding process, with the full group breakdown as follows:

ConciergeKey: ConciergeKey members
Group 1: First class, active-duty U.S. military members with military ID, business class on a two-class international plane, Executive Platinum elite members
Group 2: Platinum Pro elite members, Oneworld Emerald elite members and business class on a three-class plane
Group 3: Platinum elite members and Oneworld Sapphire elite members
Group 4: Gold elite members, Oneworld Ruby elite members, AirPass members, premium economy, Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® cardmembers, travelers who bought priority boarding and eligible corporate travelers
Group 5: Main Cabin Extra (excluding basic economy), eligible AAdvantage credit card members and AAdvantage members who have earned 15,000 Loyalty Points
Group 6: AAdvantage members
Group 7: Non-AAdvantage members with a Group 7 boarding pass in economy class
Group 8: Non-AAdvantage members with a Group 8 boarding pass in economy class
Group 9: Basic economy travelers

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Featured image by

ZACH GRIFF/THE POINTS GUY

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

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