Major NJ airline has new way of boarding planes and you may hate it

There’s nothing to make you appreciate Sartre’s words on Hell being other people more than traveling by plane. The boarding process alone could be used as an IQ test.

…‘Hey I’m going to stand in the aisle for an unnecessarily long period of time while I stare at the overhead which is full and just wish a bag would  magically disappear.’

…’Hi, I am another passenger and I’m going to try to put my bag in the overhead, see it doesn’t fit, stand there blankly staring for 10 seconds and then try the exact same move when I should have known it still wouldn’t fit.’

These are the thought balloons I see in my mind over people's heads when I’m trying to get on a plane. Make it like a bank robbery. Go in with a plan, quickly put your bag where it goes and sit your ass down. That’s it. Get out of the way.

New boarding procedure by United Airlines

But because there are so many dumb people in the world, United Airlines has come up with a new boarding procedure. It’s called WILMA. This may be a tortured acronym because you’re going to wonder exactly where the L comes from. But it stands for window, middle, aisle.

They’re going to try to board people according to who is in a window seat first. Get all of them in. Then they’re going to move on to the people holding a middle seat ticket. Last will be the people that will be sitting in an aisle seat.

This might sound well and good, but the problem is they’re not going to actually do it for everybody because it would split up families with children.

So instead, they’re going to try to somehow make this work for passengers traveling alone, yet have groups of passengers in another boarding category. Here’s an article on nj.com that gives more details.

Will this idea take off?

Gee, what could go wrong with this plan? I can only think of…everything.

Now United Airlines is a major carrier at New Jersey’s biggest airport, Newark Liberty International. And so this so-called WILMA procedure, (and where the hell does the L actually come from?) might likely affect you if you’re reading this.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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