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Virgin Australia generally does priority boarding consistently better than its competitor. There are a few reasons for this. But the main ones are that Virgin turns people away from the priority boarding queue if they’re not entitled to use it, and they board all passengers in the priority queue before starting general boarding.
Virgin ground staff board domestic flights, unlike Qantas which uses flight attendants. This also means staff are less reluctant to turn away passengers not entitled to priority boarding – because they won’t have to see them again a short time later on board the plane.
But in recent months, some Virgin Australia flyers have noticed changes to the airline’s priority boarding procedures. Here are some of the posts about this on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum:
Priority boarding fail this morning on VA551 SYD-PER. Gate agents began general boarding before priority boarding. Priority boarding didn’t begin until a second gate agent appeared sometime later and began scanning BPs in the priority lane.
– Milefest, 17 February 2023
I had both lines processed at exactly the same time this morning, which is their ‘new’ way of doing things unfortunately- preferred their old way of only doing priority first. I’m still not sure why they changed it – discussion is up thread….
– jakeseven7, 22 February 2023
Two flights last month one out of BNE and one out of ADL. No attempt at PB all. Open slather.
One was one of their one class planes and they didn’t bother at all, I guessed because nobody paid for J but what about status passengers?
The other flight was running quite late and they just boarded everyone at once through front and back doors in one go.
– p–and–t, 22 February 2023
PB at MEL last week was choked – it appeared every 2nd person on the flight was either platinum or gold. And no one was enforcing the PB queue, one scanner alternating between PB and general.
– JuzzyFlightBoy, 27 April 2023
Some forum members suggested that Virgin made a policy change to give gate agents more discretion in the boarding process, in order to make it faster overall. Due to this, some gate agents have decided to start boarding the priority queue and rows 15-30 (for Boeing 737-800 flights) at the same time.
The theory behind this is that most “priority” passengers would probably be sitting in the front half of the plane. This would allow Virgin to start boarding the back half of the plane via the rear stairs earlier, making the whole process take less time. But some passengers with Gold & Platinum status do sit between rows 15-30, and this would represent an overall devaluation in the “priority” benefit.
So, what has actually changed?
We asked Virgin Australia whether this was correct. The airline told us that they did make a minor change to their boarding process last year. Specifically, Virgin changed the timing of its general boarding call to occur shortly after the announcement for priority boarding.
However, we understand that Virgin hasn’t changed the priority in which its boards its guests. It is still official Virgin Australia policy that general boarding will only commence when the priority lane has cleared.
Any priority passengers arriving at the gate after general boarding has commenced will also be prioritised. This means that general boarding should be paused at any time there is someone waiting in the priority queue.
Of course, in practice the rules aren’t always followed exactly as they’re supposed to be. But the good news for frequent flyers is that Virgin’s official policy retains the integrity of priority boarding.
This may seem like a minor consideration, and for many people it is. But for very frequent flyers, it’s a core status benefit as it removes one of the main “pain points” involved with spending so much time in airports – queueing. It also means frequent flyers can be sure of finding overhead locker space on board the aircraft, without having to arrive at the gate early.
