Qantas to Introduce Group Boarding and Bag Tracking

[Quickstatus]

To whom?

Good question as these days it's all self checkin. But to the roaming agent?. If the pax want a carry on tag and better boarding prospects, that's the step. Otherwise it's boarding zone X

Or at the gate

 

[Volando]

Or they could work harder to convince people to use checked baggage and thus reduce pressure on overhead bins. Besides the bag tracking, which is woefully late given the underlying tech already exists and just wasn't shown to the passenger, the following should also be done:
* Ensure all fare types include at least one bag of checked luggage and commit to keeping this permanently as a marketing point (as Southwest does in the USA).
* Fix priority baggage - this will help encourage business and elite travellers not to go HLO . Contracts with baggage handling companies should incur a penalty if priority baggage is not handled correctly.
* Upgrade airports with technology to display at the carousels how long until the first bags arrive, updating when final bags unloaded etc - in use at other airports for many years now
* Go back to actually measuring bags at the gate when suspiciously large and force gate checking if over the size (rather than letting it continue "if there is room" which encourages scofflaws)
* Give flight attendants the authority/power to remove small items from overhead bins and direct passengers to put them under the seat - I know this is done to a limited degree, but if passengers refuse they should be ejected for interfering with a flight crew (or similar).

Couldn’t agree more. I’d add one more, utilising tracking tech, to encourage checking bags:

A genuine SLA from the airline that priority bags will be on the belt within 15 minutes of parking at the gate and all bags by 20 minutes. If they fail to deliver there’s a token but decent amount of ff points as compensation. Hard to guarantee when baggage handling is outsourced to the lowest bidder of course.

 

[dk4]

As nice as all this spin about priority boarding is, realistically IMO that's not the story here.

I think the real story is - Qantas trying to reduce its B737 turn around time from whatever it is now (35m?) to some other quicker metric, by formalising the rear door boarding and disembarkation processes, just as the other airlines do.

 

[Blackadder]

Some positive changes by QF imho.
Hopefully the boarding by groups move will lead to PS/OWR , some priority boarding over the NB/Non FF crowd.

 

[DC3]

Some interesting ‘over-thinking’ posts on here.

 

[Lynda2475]

Ensure all fare types include at least one bag of checked luggage and commit to keeping this permanently as a marketing point (as Southwest does in the USA).

All Qantas fares already include checked baggage.

Carry-on can be enforced at the gate (not check-in because there is no longer any manned check-in at major domestic airports)

 

[dairyfloss]

Some interesting ‘over-thinking’ posts on here.

That’s just what happens when someone says “a change is coming” but doesn’t tell you what it is!

 

[VPS]

And the entire process will fall apart when the weather is poor. Who is actually going to board via stairs when it's raining?

People who follow rules because they were told to use the rear stairs . I’m a rule breaker

 

[SYD]

All Qantas fares already include checked baggage.

Carry-on can be enforced at the gate (not check-in because there is no longer any manned check-in at major domestic airports)

Someone will confirm but the bag drop weighs and counts bags - so you’d expect a “computer says no” if you exceed the limits? Or get a “Please pay now $$$”?

There are still staff checkin areas - presumably for those over their limits

 

[justinbrett]

As nice as all this spin about priority boarding is, realistically IMO that's not the story here.

I think the real story is - Qantas trying to reduce its B737 turn around time from whatever it is now (35m?) to some other quicker metric, by formalising the rear door boarding and disembarkation processes, just as the other airlines do.

Considering Qantas has been doing this for 8 years already - I think you’re way off.

It’s just changing the order pax board, nobody claimed it’s going to be any faster. If anything, it will be marginally slower. Complete random boarding (close to what QF use now) has been shown to be the fastest method of boarding.

 

[Blackadder]

Someone will confirm but the bag drop weighs and counts bags - so you’d expect a “computer says no” if you exceed the limits? Or get a “Please pay now $$$”?

There are still staff checkin areas - presumably for those over their limits

Correct , had that issue with my partner on a domestic flight attached to a international.
Staff at the counter just waived the additional fee the bag drop said was required.

 

[TheInsider]

All Qantas fares already include checked baggage.

Currently......!

Tbh I can see Qantas wanting a slice of the lite fares that so many other 'full service' carriers offer around the world.

Who knows if they actually would though.

 

[Volando]

Currently......!

Tbh I can see Qantas wanting a slice of the lite fares that so many other 'full service' carriers offer around the world.

Who knows if they actually would though.

Which will only make the carry on issue worse than it currently is.

All the bad press of lost and delayed bags post Covid seems to have encouraged even more kitchen sinks than there used to be.

 

[RSD]

Unfortunately didn't happen to me after a LAX- BNE. Had to chase up with lost luggage.

My pet peeve with baggage collection is that there is no consistency with regards to what gets sent to oversize baggage collection and what doesn't - to the point where I've been travelling with 2x Pelican Air 1626 cases and a 1646 case and you guessed it - the 1646's both appeared on the carousel and the 1626 was sent to oversize baggage collection

Post automatically merged: May 31, 2023

You can also board with contactless NFC if you have an osaifu-keitai phone and your JAL Mileage Bank number loaded. Even faster than scanning barcodes.

Anyway, I find those scanners fun since they actually make a different tune for different status tiers

this video contains the automated boarding gate chime for
JAL (Sapphire or above)
JAL (General)
ANA (Diamond)
ANA (Platinum/SFC/Premium/*G)
ANA (General)

not included in the video is the chime for
JAL (Special Assistance)
JAL (Error)
ANA (Error)

Looking at that youtube video I can see why they can board so fast in Japan - window seats before middle seats before aisle seats - logical really isn't it!

 

[Quickstatus]

I've never seen such an efficient use of boarding groups and such efficient boarding pass scanners. Unlike the Qantas ones that take 2-3 seconds to scan and register, the JAL ones scanned and registered quicker than a grocery store scanner

Carry on baggage volume?
yes dont know why the QF scanners have a long latency but I don't think the scanners are the bottle neck because invariably after the scanners, there is always a queue at the aircraft door.

 

[RichardMEL]

My two cents:

Groups/Zones for boarding is all well and good (US airlines, and others, have been doing this for years) and one can argue how efficient it is vs the current, or WILMA, or whatever, but for me QF's biggest issue with this I fear is actually enforcing it.

As we all are beyond acutely aware, QF's handling of Priority (or Premium if you prefer) boarding has been "Consistently Inconsistent"(tm) for years - specially when it comes to policing. Now I don't really care on a ADL-MEL flight unless I've been stuck someplace where I need an overhead.

It's going to take a lot of effort to change the current mentality of the current QF boarding virtual free for all on domestic flights. To make this work better, they're going to have to make a huge effort to actually check if you're boarding with the correct group and all that. If they don't, or it's poorly applied from place to place (or even gate to gate) then they may as well not bother imo because it will become even more of a mess.

So I await to see how this will work out in practice. There will be absolute mass confusion by all initially - that's to be expected - but moving on from the first few days/weeks of implementation for staff and pax to get used to it, it will need buy in (and QF staff don't have a lot of incentive for buy in right now imo.. so that shall be interesting too as a side note) but it will be a big undertaking imo.

It doesn't worry me as a passenger - not just because I imagine I'll usually be in group 1 (being LTG or higher an possibly in J mostly) but in general - having used the zone system for years on numbers of airlines it's absolutely fine. That probably won't be the same for some others.

so we'll see.

 

[Volando]

An interesting observation in SYD this evening: carry ons were being weighed at the entrance to the security queues - both general and priority. I saw a couple of WPs sent scurrying to check in over weight wheelie cabin bags. This is a very good sign and very sensible to catch people land side to send them to the bag drop machine instead of dicking around weighing carry ons at the gate.

I’m still not a fan of boarding by group/zone but at least if they address excessive carry on habits in parallel with introducing group boarding, the latter has slightly better chance of being effective.

 

[Quickstatus]

I saw a couple of WPs

Or a couple of non WP who managed to sneak into the priority security lane

 

[Volando]

Or a couple of non WP who managed to sneak into the priority security lane

…with ten year old vintage WP coasters still attached to their bags. Lol. We’ve all see them. Re-living the glory days.

 

[Quickstatus]

Re-living the glory days

Mrs QS uses them on her luggage even though....