American Airlines Is Expanding Enforced Boarding Groups to 100 Airports

American Airlines is rolling out nationwide technology that triggers an alert if passengers try to board a flight before their boarding group is called.

When people scan their boarding pass at the gate, passes for a group that has not been called yet sound a beep. Gate staff can then ask the passenger to step aside and let people in the appropriate group get on board.

American is now introducing the automatic system to more than 100 airports, including Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), over the holiday period.

Here’s what you should know before your next flight.

Coming Soon to an Airport Near You

The system had been tried out beginning in October at airports with relatively few American Airlines flights: Albuquerque (ABQ), Tucson (TUS), and Washington’s Reagan National (DCA).

The airline said in a statement that it’s being rolled out nationwide, but only at “spoke” airports — meaning those that are not hubs. AA “will continue to gather insights and refine the technology” before using the system in airports where it operates hundreds of flights a day.

The introduction of the technology to American’s hub airports — including Charlotte (CLT), Chicago (ORD), Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW), Miami (MIA), Philadelphia (PHL), and Phoenix (PHX) — has not been scheduled yet.

“The new technology is designed to ensure customers receive the benefits of priority boarding with ease and helps improve the boarding experience by providing greater visibility into boarding progress for our team,” an American Airlines spokesperson said when the system was first tested in October.

“We’ve been pleased with the results of the test so far” is how the American Airlines representative put it at the time. The decision to vastly expand this new boarding system clearly indicates the airline is satisfied.

Passengers appear to be happy with the new boarding technology, too.

“Flew out of ABQ last week and the gate agents made multiple announcements of this new boarding rule. No one seemed to want to be embarrassed by breaking it,” said a Reddit user when the system was first being introduced.

The American Airlines Boarding Order

The boarding order on American Airlines includes 9 numbered groups, but in fact, there are 11. Boarding begins with those needing extra assistance and families with children under 2, followed by ultra-elite passengers who have the invitation-only ConciergeKey status.

In comparison, Delta Air Lines has 9 boarding groups including pre-boarding, and United has 7.

To be sure, the new American Airlines system is not fully automatic; it relies on human intervention. A gate agent has to acknowledge the beep and tell the passenger to step back. But it’s a step in the right direction, and gate agents can use discretion to let you continue boarding — an example of this type of scenario could be a passenger traveling with a companion who has an earlier boarding group.

Final Thoughts

This technology is nothing but good news for American Airlines flyers. Orderly boarding speeds things up for everybody. All passengers benefit from getting on faster and minimizing delays.

Now that the AA experiment with this boarding technology has proven to work, it will be introduced to more than 100 airports nationwide and then to American’s big hub airports.

Other airlines will likely follow suit since technological innovation by one of the U.S. major airlines tends to be followed by its competitors.