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Overheard a flight attendant say "boarding complete" 20 minutes early and it got me thinking

I was sitting at gate B12 in Atlanta yesterday waiting for a connection. The gate agent called boarding complete 22 minutes before departure time. I looked around and realized everyone was already on the plane including late stragglers. That's when it hit me that people have been conditioned to rush to the gate like it's a fire drill even when boarding doesn't start for another 15 minutes. Has anyone else noticed how early boarding actually finishes compared to what the app says?

3 comments

3 Comments

stella_baker15d ago

Doesn't seem like habit anymore, more of a learned panic response. I read somewhere that airlines deliberately overbook and then act surprised, so people don't trust the system at all now. You end up with everyone camped at the gate an hour early just to hold their spot.

eva90815d ago

You make a good point. I've noticed this too, especially on flights where people line up 45 minutes before boarding even starts. Do you think it's because people are afraid of overhead bin space running out, or is it more about just not trusting the airline's timeline at all anymore? I wonder how much of that rush is habit versus genuine anxiety.

hannahw3015d ago

Heard a travel reporter say on a podcast that airlines actually design boarding to create that frenzy so people pack the gate area, makes the departure look more full than it is. @eva908 the overhead bin panic is definitely real, but I think most of it is just people being trained by years of last minute gate changes and overbooked flights to not trust anything anymore. Once you've seen a family get split up because they showed up 10 minutes before boarding, you never want to be that person so you just show up way early like everyone else.