A New Way To Board

American Airlines is going to experiment with a new way to board passengers on large aircraft. Currently, they board by zone. "Now boarding zone one". I have never really understood what the zones were, so it was kind of handy to have it printed on my ticket.

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Well, American is going to try something new. First-class passengers, active military, and people with kids will still get on first. But when they get to zone three, that will now going to be passengers with window and exit row seats. Next, they'll call the middle seats. Followed by the aisle seats.

And finally, they will call you poor flyers without a boarding group number on your boarding pass. But to me, that's what you'd want. I WANT to be the last guy to get on the airplane!

I get that they're trying to eliminate people having to get people who sit in an aisle seat and then having to get back up and stand while the window seat and middle seat folks get situated.

The problem is that there are a lot of flyers who will have no idea that this new system has been implemented. These are the same people who can block an aisle at Costco that's three carts wide.

I only fly once a year, so I fly first class: to Mexico. I enjoy boarding first, screwdrivers, and endless grief from people who are going to Mexico with our group. I hear "Must be nice", "Suck it, Wilson" and others that I can't repeat.

Fly the friendly skies.