2 weeks Ago By Lisa Martin
You set the alarm for stupid o’clock and the Uber arrived on time. You navigated the bag drop queue and survived the security cattle grid shoes-off-laptops-and-liquids-out palaver, only to be picked for the random explosives trace test. “Gate lice” in action.
Credit: iStock You made it to the gate with enough time to queue at the loos and buy an overpriced coffee on the way, and then, just as you are slipping into holiday relaxation mode, the shame beeping begins. If the airport departure experience wasn’t soul-destroying enough, American Airlines announced last week that it is introducing a new power trip for gate agents – trialling new technology to clamp down on so-called “gate lice” (the swarms of people who try to cut the line and board early). Now, at three US airports in Virginia, New Mexico and Arizona, passengers who try to board ahead of their assigned group will be publicly shamed with the alert, before being sent back to wait until their section is called.
Loading Qantas is shifting to similar technology, having rolled out group boarding on B737, A330, and 787 flights departing from Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney’s domestic airports in June. Under the new system, the pass scanner will only permit passengers to board once their group has been invited to do so. If a traveller is not eligible to board yet, the pass reader will issue an alert to staff, and they too will likely be sent back away.
From an airline’s commercial perspective I understand that time is money, and that it’s important to reduce delays by having people board efficiently. Over the years, airline experts have dreamed up all sorts of fancy boarding systems – window-to-aisle, the reverse pyramid, the Steffen method – to improve turnaround times and encourage travellers to obey the very simple rules..
