This won't come as a surprise to anyone on AFF, but boarding for QF437 SYD-MEL was a complete joke today.
Aircraft was downgauged from A330 to 738 at T-6 so anyone with row number >30 on their BP needed a new one printed to reflect their new seat. Despite staff reaching the gate 15-20 min before boarding commenced, they decided to make the downgauge/BP reprinting announcement after boarding had started with about 40 in PB lane and 80+ in general lane.
Of course no one wanted to give up their spot in the long queues, so people were being dealt with individually as they reached the BP scanners and holding the queue up. Unsurprisingly both general and priority lanes were served concurrently with one scanner each. In total boarding took over 30 mins, way longer than any 738 should take, and we departed 20 minutes late.
Downgauges are annoying but I understand they are sometimes unavoidable, but if somebody from Qantas happens to be reading this - here's what should have happened:
- When the downgauge occured, those who were already checked in AND had their seat changed as a result of the downgauge should be notified by SMS to visit a service counter at the airport for new BP.
- When staff arrived at the gate, they should make an announcement before boarding begins to check the row on their BP and notify a staff member if they need a reprint
- Start boarding by serving the entire priority queue using both scanners (obvious one, but needs to be stated because it clearly doesn't happen)
- Have a staff member run along the queues to check BPs and pull any which needed reprinting out of the queue
- Start processing the general queue once priority lane is empty
I'd like to think these steps fall under the category of common sense, but they seemed to be beyond anyone working the gate for QF437 today.