American Airlines’ New Gate Lice Treatment is a Bit of Head Scratcher

American Airlines announced yesterday that it is rolling out new technology to deter “gate lice” passengers from attempting to board out of turn. The airline has installed new software at select airports that will make an audible sound if a passenger attempts to board before their assigned group. The software is currently in use at the Albuquerque International Sunport in NM, Reagan National in Washington, D.C., and Tucson International in Arizona. Near term expansion plans include Ausin-Bergstrom in Texas and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta.

Airline boarding is never fun, with each doing it a bit differently, and none managing to take the cattle call feel out of it. But the new American Airlines plan seems to miss the mark. The real problems for airlines like American are the folks who block the gate awaiting their boarding group to be called. These people (amusingly) are often referred to as gate lice by airline employees. They are the folks, for example, holding Group 9 boarding passes, but who crowd and block the gate area starting when Group 1 is called. People understandably want to speed boarding along, but the gate lice folks tend to slow and frustrate the process for the entire plane.

Everyone, including the gate agents, can see the boarding group numbers, so an expensive new software system identifying when folks are trying to board out of turn seems a little wasteful, especially when that cost will no doubt be passed on to the flying public. The better approach would be to implement some system like that used by Southwest Airlines where only those in a given group can begin lining up at the gate. Such a system could alleviate both the boarding out of turn issue and the gate lice crowding issue.

Kudos to American Airlines for trying to make the process more efficient, but the simple solution usually beats the more complex and costly one.