Pre-Boarding and gate agent in Houston, TX July 20 flight 3.
As passengers, you expect us to follow the rules, most people do. The rule most broken and allowed to by the boarding agents, is pre-board. I was flying home on flt 3 out of Houston on 7/20/07. I printed my boarding pass as soon as it was available, arrived at the airport and stood in line, as I do more weeks than not. As pre-board was completing, a group of 10 or so teenagers got in the pre-board line, as they approached, the agent said something to the girl that was in the front of this group, she said something, he laughed and let them board. When group A started boarding and I got to the agent, I asked him why he let them pre-board, they were obviously not handicapped nor under 4 years old. He laughed at me and told me it was his niece and cousins, I asked for his name and he refused to give it to me. Once on the plane, this group of kids was laughing and talking about how easy it was to pre-board.
If we as passengers are expected to follow your rules, the least that we should expect in return is for your employees to follow those same rules. Pre-board is grossly abused, and allowed to be, by your employees. For the past 21 months, I have watched this almost weekly, some agents try very hard to follow the rules, others do not seem to care, allowing the 4 year old that is obviously 7 to preboard with the parents and 6 other adult family members!!! As well as those that should be in the C line per their ticket and they don't want to wait. Not only are they allowed to preboard but they are also allowed to sit in the exit row and "save" seats with the attendents supporting this!!
I believe that pre-board is needed and should be used for the handicapped and immediate family of infants and small children. But, let's begin to follow your set of rules.. I just needed to get this out of my system.
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