Priority lane enforcement

[dxwell]

I thought there was a thread on this, anyhoo.
Flying SYD-BNE last Friday evening and queued up in the priority lane with 60 others.
Fabulous VA staff checked status of each person in priority lane and pulled aside those not of required status.
Statement over loudspeaker reinforcing who the priority boarding lane was for.
I gave a huge thanks to the staff members who were so actively monitoring this.
Top work!

 

[flyingfan]

There's this thread that started off about a fail, so glad you had the opposite experience.

Thread 'Virgin priority boarding fail'

Mar 15, 2021

Virgin Australia normally does an excellent job of priority boarding. So I was quite disappointed this morning to experience my first VA priority boarding failure ex BNE.

There were two queues formed at gate 38 - one general lane and one priority boarding lane, both of which were signposted - but only one person scanning boarding passes. This employee was not calling forward people from the priority lane first, and instead the two lanes were basically just merging (with people from the general queue basically being given right of way).

I brought this up with the gate agent when I...

• Mattg
• Replies: 252
• Forum: Virgin Australia | Velocity

• 

 

[AIRwin]

Same happened in HBA yesterday

 

[MEL_Traveller]

But… the real issue is… when did they start general boarding? 99% of the time they give the priority line a 5 second head start, then board the general line as well. So you end up standing in the jet bridge for a good 10 minutes.

 

[Harrison_133]

But… the real issue is… when did they start general boarding? 99% of the time they give the priority line a 5 second head start, then board the general line as well. So you end up standing in the jet bridge for a good 10 minutes.

At least in my experience, nearing 80+ flights on VA so far this year, they've been pretty consistent with not starting general boarding until the priority lane is cleared first – especially in the major ports. And I'm finding that priority enforcement in general has been much better than it has been in a long time.

Of course, that's not to say slip ups don't happen or it works 100% of the time.