Changes to Airline Boarding at Kansas City Airport

If you haven’t been living under a rock in the past year, you know there have been some difficulties for many passengers flying on large airlines lately. To further complicate matters, disparate groups of travelers can make the Kansas City airport boarding process time-consuming, counterproductive, and frustrating for all involved. The reasoning behind this is simple enough: There are too many special groups of elite or special access passengers on flights.

There are elite groups for the savviest travelers, groups that can use the lounge, groups for parents with small children or families with special needs. All in all, people can feel powerless over their airport experience due to overcrowding, boarding groups, and other unforeseen slights. Once you’ve completed your trip to the airport with your KC limo service and gotten to your gate, that’s all to often when the traveling stressors begin – especially at the large and crowded Kansas City airports. Some of the large airlines are addressing the issue:



American Airlines

Larger airlines are concerned with their passengers feeling disempowered. Beginning on March 1stof this year, American Airlines was the first of these airlines to make large scale changes for their passengers. Now, customers will be assigned a boarding group of one through nine. Boarding group one is parents and small babies, as well as active military. Boarding group nine are those with no special considerations that have purchased “Basic Economy”. Pre-boarding will also continue to be offered for those needing extra time. Hopefully this will help with Kansas City airport boarding.



Delta Airlines.

Additionally, Delta Airlines is also experimenting with their boarding procedures. Delta’s plan is not just conceptual and categorizing, but it’s also geographic. At the Delta hub in Atlanta, there are physical zones with labeled pillars containing group names like “Premium.” Passengers line up in their boarding zone to avoid chaos at the gate. Customers have positively reviewed this approach thus far.



Southwest

Southwest Airlines has been using physical zones and written groupings for boarding for years, and we’re not sure why it hasn’t been embraced by other airlines much earlier. The budget airline groups people into A, B, or C groups – depending on when you reserved your boarding pass. Southwest also doesn’t assign seats.



United Airlines

United Airlines, on the other hand, isn’t changing their boarding structure at all. Their current system is similar to Delta’s, with five lanes for boarding in several different groups. Not without its own flaws, the system works enough of the time that United doesn’t see the need for change at the current time.

When frustrated passengers get shuttled around during the boarding process, it can feel inefficient and impersonal. This leads to increased annoyances and customer unkindness, as well as inflexibility on the part of the airlines. When you use a KC limo service to make it to the airport on time, you should have a seamless security screening process and an efficient way to board.

If you’re taking one of these airlines through a regional airport such as Kansas City, book your car service through Prestige Transportation. We can’t solve your boarding problems, but we can provide a stress-free ride to the airport in an excellent coach! Give us a call or book online today – we’re excited to work with you!

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