United Airlines is changing its boarding process for economy passengers, and your seat preference—window, middle, or aisle—could determine how quickly you are allowed on the plane.
According to an internal memo, the airline will be switching to a boarding system in economy that will follow a window, middle, aisle seat order, or WILMA in industry parlance.
The new process will go into effect on most United flights on October 26. Here’s how it will work: When economy boarding starts, passengers with a window seat will board in Group 3, along with fliers in exit row seats. Next up will be economy fliers with middle seats, who will be in boarding in Group 4. The last regular economy passengers on the aircraft will be fliers with seats along the aisle, who will be assigned Group 5 on their boarding passes.
The new process will also accommodate fliers traveling with companions—multiple customers on the same economy reservation, like families or partners traveling together, will be assigned the same and highest boarding group number. The only exception is passengers in basic economy.
All basic economy fliers, regardless of seat assignment, will be pushed to the newly established Group 6, the final group and the last passengers to get on the plane.
There will be no change in the boarding system for pre-boarding groups like active military or disabled passengers, or for business class, first class, and fliers with elite status.
The airline has boarded its planes using the WILMA method in the past, but stopped the process in 2017 in favor of a standard front-to-back approach. However, the airline’s memo says that since 2019, United’s average boarding times have increased by two minutes, as a result of which, it has been researching a way to streamline its protocol again.
United tested the WILMA process at four boarding points at unnamed domestic airports, including one of its major hubs, and reports that it’s a faster procedure, shaving the extra two minutes off of boarding times. Those two minutes are crucial for both the airline and for passengers, as a departure running behind by even that amount of time can cause tarmac delays that throw off passengers’ travel plans and become costly for carriers.
