Qantas makes major change to how passengers board domestic flights

Qantas passengers travelling domestically may notice new systems for boarding from Monday, as the airline begins a rollout of new “Australian-first” procedures aimed at speeding up performance times.

The improved boarding systems will be implemented across four major domestic airports, starting with Brisbane Airport on June 3, followed by Perth on June 10, Melbourne on June 17, and finally Sydney on June 25.

Qantas passengers will now board in groups.Credit: Getty

While airlines have largely used systems such as boarding from the back to the front, or seating premium cabins and high-ranking frequent flyers first, Qantas’ new system will assign passengers a group number from one to six on their boarding passes, which will determine when the passenger can board.

The location of a passenger’s seat in the aircraft will affect their number allocation, but cabin and frequent flyer status will still be a factor.

The overhauled group boarding procedures will apply to all domestic routes departing Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, operated by Boeing 737 and Airbus A330 aircraft.

The new procedures, which follow months of trials conducted from mid-2023, mark the “most comprehensive change” to the airline’s boarding processes in more than a decade, according to Qantas’ domestic chief executive Markus Svensson.

“Group boarding is designed to minimise the time our customers spend waiting to board and allows them to get settled more quickly,” Svensson said.

“We know how important on time departure is to our customers, so this process is also about doing everything possible to ensure we depart on time.”

Qantas’ new system will assign passengers a group number from one to six on their boarding passes, which will determine when the passenger can board.

In the trials, Qantas tested a number of boarding options including boarding passengers in zones starting with premium cabins or high-status loyalty customers, followed by groups in the middle of the plane, then the far back and the front.

It also trialled using the back door of its planes more regularly – a system already utilised by Jetstar and Virgin Australia to accelerate the boarding process.

Professor Rico Merkert, an aviation expert at the University of Sydney, said while this method is new to Australia, boarding passengers by a group number is not.

“It has been widely used in the US for some time but also in other jurisdictions, such as Singapore,” said Merkert. “Qantas trialled the system last year and seems to have found it working, which is no surprise and is all about improving aircraft punctuality and utilisation.”

Will the new system help reduce boarding times? Merkert says yes.

Chiefly, it will address boarding delays caused by a recent surge in Qantas high-priority status frequent flyers – a hangover from COVID-19 status extensions and status matching exercises with Virgin Australia.

“Those passenger can board the plane first, regardless of the cabin they are booked in, which can lead to long queues and inefficient boarding,” said Merkert.

“Given the new system will be properly policed through boarding pass scanners, these passengers still be priorities but a loyal business class passenger will likely be in a different group than a loyal passenger flying economy class.”

The rollout comes on the back of new airline performance data for April 2024, which saw Virgin Australia edge ahead of Qantas as the most punctual domestic carrier, with an 82.6 per cent on-time rate, compared to Qantas’ 79.1 per cent.

Airline on-time arrivals (79.2 per cent) and departures (79.9 per cent) in April were below the long-term average, of 81 per cent and 82.1 per cent respectively.

Merkert said Qantas may also consider following All Nippon Airways by combining the groups with a system that allows window seat passengers to board the aircraft first.

“At least in economy, that holds in my view a lot of additional potential for smoothening the boarding process as it reduces crowding in the aisles,” he said.

In May 2023, Jetstar implemented a raft of changes to address its poor punctuality rates, including earlier cut-off times for check-in, bag drop and boarding.

Jetstar passengers travelling domestically are now required to arrive for check-in and bag drop at least 40 minutes prior to scheduled departure time, and to line up at the boarding gate at least 20 minutes before.