United Airlines has been reviewing their current boarding process and has noticed and heard various complaints about their extended boarding times. This is for domestic and/or international travel. They have heard us and now new changes are soon to be implemented to help with the extended boarding times.
Currently, United Airlines has noticed since 2019, their boarding times are up about two minutes. They have been looking at different technology and what changes can be implemented to bring these boarding wait times down. They have already tested the new boarding changes at one hub and four domestic stations and they were able to see the time difference.
In 2017, United Airlines used WILMA (somehow, it’s an abbreviation for window-middle-aisle) when it introduced economy seating. That’s what when they first started implanting the five-group boarding structure. New technology now has showen they can reimplement the same WILMA boarding procedure but adding another two groups. So now there will be a total of seven boarding groups. See them below:
According to the airline, boarding will begin taking place in this order on Oct. 26:
- Preboarding: Customers with disabilities and unaccompanied minors, active duty military, Global Services members, families with children under two and Premier 1K members
- Group 1: United Polaris business, United first, United business, Premier Platinum, Premier Gold and Star Alliance Gold
- Group 2: Premier Silver, Star Alliance Silver, Chase and certain other credit card holders and paid Premier Access
- Group 3: Window seats, exit row seats and non-revenue passengers
- Group 4: Middle seats
- Group 5: Aisle seats
- Group 6: Basic economy on domestic flights and those between the U.S. and the Caribbean or Central America excluding Panama City and San Salvador
Flying with United Airlines? Leave us a comment and let us know how your boarding process went and if you noticed any changes with getting on the plane faster. We would love your feedback.
Very interesting. I have never heard of WILMA, but it makes sense to lessen the time that a person sitting in an aisle seat has to get up so a window or middle-seat person can sit down. Thanks for sharing!
Definitely is. When I flew to Houston that was my issue. I had a window seat and had to have people move in order to gain access to my seat. Hoping this will change next time I fly. Sounds like it will.