Airline Adds Premium Boarding Group That Requires a Queue to Board Early

Passengers who buy the airline’s Premium Boarding Group during the 24-hour purchase window receive a boarding document marked “Pending Premium.” The document directs them to a 90-minute pre-queue kiosk before ordinary boarding begins.

Because the kiosk verifies purchases in timestamp order, a late buyer cannot simply join the front. The airline instead offers an “early validation” charge, which opens a separate appointment slip; those slips are processed before the original pre-queue,

Under the boarding rule, Premium Boarding cannot be called until the pre-queue clears. Group 1 customers, premium-cabin passengers, status holders, and eligible cardmembers continue through the normal lane, passing the kiosk while Pending Premium passengers compare timestamps on paper.

At boarding time, the first validated passenger receives a printed instruction to join the “final pre-queue” beside the boarding door. The only open lane is marked “Queue for access to Premium Boarding Queue,” and a line is already forming beneath it.