United revamps boarding process with the addition of another group

United Airlines thinks it has found a way to speed up the boarding process.

Beginning on Oct. 26, the Chicago-based carrier will revamp everyone’s favorite part of the travel journey: boarding. As part of the policy update, the airline will add a seventh boarding group and spread out economy flyers across four total groups, based on what it calls a “WILMA” — or window, middle, aisle — ordering.

This change was communicated to the carrier’s airport staff on Thursday, as was seen in an internal memo that was shared with TPG.

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The new boarding groups are as follows:

Preboarding

• Customers with disabilities
• Unaccompanied minors
• Active military members
• Global Services members
• Anyone flying with children 2 or younger
• Premier 1K members

Group 1

• Premier Platinum and Gold members
• Star Alliance Gold members
• Travelers in United Polaris, United First and United Business cabins

Group 2

• Premier Silver members
• Star Alliance Silver members
• Travelers with Premier Access or priority boarding
• Select cobranded credit card holders

Group 3

• Window seats
• Exit row seats
• Non-revenue travelers

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Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

• Basic economy customers (in eligible markets only)

As you can see, there are no changes to preboarding or groups one through three. Furthermore, if you have multiple passengers on the same reservation, each traveler seated in economy will receive the highest applicable boarding group given to any one traveler; this excludes those ticketed in basic economy, which will always be in group six.

Today’s group four, which currently includes middle and aisle seat passengers, will be split into two boarding groups. Group four becomes middle seats only, while group five becomes aisle seats only. In markets where United offers a basic economy fare with no full-size carry-ons, those passengers will move to a newly created group six.

While the addition of another boarding group may cause some confusion among travelers and require United to update airport signage, the company believes the payoff will be worth it.

After all, the “WILMA” process saves up to two minutes of boarding time, the airline said in the memo. United tested this new boarding process at one hub and four domestic outstations but didn’t disclose which specific airports were part of the test.

Additionally, the airline claims that net promoter scores for the revised boarding process were higher than those of the existing process.

These changes are coming as a result of longer-than-usual boarding times, United says. The average boarding time has increased by two minutes since 2019, and as any airline executive will tell you, planes don’t make money when they’re sitting on the ground.

That’s why airlines are typically laser-focused on doing whatever they can to trim boarding times. For airlines like Southwest, an open-seating policy means that customers are incentivized to board faster and quickly find their preferred seat.

Over the years, we’ve even seen scientists try to “prove” which processes are the fastest and most efficient.

Either way, the jury is still out among the U.S. carriers. United may now have seven total boarding groups, but that’s nothing on American and Delta, which both have a whopping 10 groups.

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