British Airways (BA) will start testing a new boarding process, which will allow most premium passengers to board the aircraft first on certain flights. Trials begin on Tuesday, September 11.
The new boarding structure includes new boarding group, known as Group 0 (zero), for Gold Guest List (GGL) members; the highest status tier in the airline’s frequent flyer membership programme, and invite-only Premier members, the airline’s high-spending VIP status passengers.
For GGL passengers flying between London Heathrow or Gatwick, and New York’s JFK International Airport, and between Heathrow and Boston Logan International Airport, the new boarding group will allow them to board the aircraft before the other passengers.
Considering how elite these statuses are, there are likely only a handful of GGL or Premier members on each flight. It is unlikely that having them board first will impact the waiting time for the rest of the passengers, reported simplyflying.com.
The news service speculates that the airline is testing this priority group to avoid combining all the premium flyers in an effort to reduce queue congestion and re-emphasise status ranking. This will put these high-spending, invite-only priority status levels in the same leagues as American Airline’s pre-boarding for super-elites.
Simpleflying says no airline has completely figured out how to implement the best structure for messy boarding processes.
