Family Boarding Age Change?

[parpitt1]

Had a connection in Midway yesterday and the gate agent did the boarding "speech" about lining up and when he got to family boarding, he said "up to 2 parents with children 12 and under may board After the A-group, and Passengers needing Extra Time, A-list without A boarding, and On duty military.

Did he go rogue? or have they raised the age to 12 years old now for Family Boarding?   

BTW- it was for a flight to Fort Myers, FL  (I did not hear the agent for my connection to Omaha give the speech)

[SoCalFlyer97]

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@parpitt1 wrote:

Had a connection in Midway yesterday and the gate agent did the boarding "speech" about lining up and when he got to family boarding, he said "up to 2 parents with children 12 and under may board After the A-group, and Passengers needing Extra Time, A-list without A boarding, and On duty military.

Did he go rogue? or have they raised the age to 12 years old now for Family Boarding?   

BTW- it was for a flight to Fort Myers, FL  (I did not hear the agent for my connection to Omaha give the speech)

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Hello-

I think the Gate CSA misspoke. Below is Southwest's Family Boarding Policy:

Southwest offers Family Boarding, which occurs after the “A” group has boarded and before the “B” group begins boarding.

• Up to two adults traveling with a child six years old or younger may board during Family Boarding.

[floridaguy]

Go the "contact us" link at the bottom of the page and file a complaint.  If the gate agent cannot recite the policy correctly, they are incapable of doing their job.  We already have enough conflict with boarding, let alone raising the age for family boarding to 12.

ENOUGH

Also, what is A-list without A boarding??

[dfwskier]

A-List without A boarding is that group of people that are A-List that for whatever reason have B or C boarding positions.

Those that bought inside of 36 hours

Those that did a same day change, etc

I'm sure there are others...

[dfwskier · Accepted solution]

The agent went rogue. That is not the policy. This is not the first report of this happening.

Wanna P.O. EBCI buyers?  Put even more people (that should not be there) in front of them when boarding

[DancingDavidE]

Maybe - there was another announcement recently about if you have kids that were 7 and older but younger than some upper age (maybe it was 12) to see the gate agent and they will try to accommodate the flyers - maybe that group already asked about it and that was the accommodation?

There were also several other reports here and on other flyer forums about announcements including 12 year olds, so it might be a pilot of a new policy. 

So I'm not sure that the announcement was rogue necessarily, or whether anyone actually used the extra years for boarding or not. 

[floridaguy]

I have concerns that all of this exception to the boarding rules deteriorates what makes Southwest special and also efficient.

Everyone wants to basically choose their seat, whether it is to abuse the preboarding policy and get on first or fuss about sitting together to the point that Southwest keeps accommodating all of the complaining.  I believe in what Nixon called "the silent majority" where most people are just fine the way things are.  A few very loud people are disrupting the business model to the point that Southwest will be just another airline.

It also appears from my recent flights that the gate agents at MCO have been told to follow the policy and that includes "family boarding" and the number of carry-ons, as well as size.  I haven't seen any riding lawn mowers, pianos or bass boats carried on the plane lately.

[SWFlyer007]

I've been a teacher for over 30 years and have taught some lesson with rote memorization and on auto pilot.  However, every now and then I say something that a student catches or I catch myself saying that isn't what I meant to say, it happens.  I guess I'm a rogue teacher who is incompetent at doing my job.