Northwest Elite Lane boarding
What's up with Northwest's special red carpet for their elite lane boarding? What a bloody waste of money, especially during these financially strapped times. Each gate now has a red carpet, a sign and a queue divider to keep the Elite passengers from the other passengers ;) Not that this is anything new, but it's finally gotten on my nerves as something totally stupid! These are in place at the major hubs and the smaller airports. Here is the best thing about them, they are never ever used! Why? You wonder, quite simply the make no sense for anyone. The elite side is always the farthest from the gate agents and where their scanner is, so it becomes an impossible situation for the gate agent. Next, the line divider isn't long enough, there are at least 16 people on each flight that could easily use this lane, and it is only 3 people long, so as queuing goes, not a very good implementation. Add to that the fact they don't get used, so there is no seeing them used so that everyone can learn from watching. This being said, quite a poor implementation and waste of fundage.
Here is what it would take to make these work.
* They could double up on the ticket scanners and gate agents so that you could actually process two lines side by side, but this would be rather expensive, however with two agents assigned to each gate, you might be able to increase the level of customer service to something that was acceptable.
* You could make the lines longer, add some additional signage and more labeling on the floor (I'm a big fan of putting directions and signals on the floor for where people are supposed to stand, etc.), and then perhaps stagger the lines. The idea behind the staggering would be to move the elite lane right next to the scanner and increase it's length, then the lane for the "others" would feed into the elite line about halfway up the line, so that when they got up to the ticket counter they would be where the elite's were, right next to the gate agent.
* You could overall increase the queue length to roughly 50-100 feet this way, you could give customers guidance on how to stand in the hallway / aisle and not block other customers who are walking from gate to gate.
If you can't find a way to make them so employees and customers want to use them because the make for a better experience, then hopefully they came with a satisfaction money back guarantee and you can recoup your poorly spent dollars!
Here is what it would take to make these work.
* They could double up on the ticket scanners and gate agents so that you could actually process two lines side by side, but this would be rather expensive, however with two agents assigned to each gate, you might be able to increase the level of customer service to something that was acceptable.
* You could make the lines longer, add some additional signage and more labeling on the floor (I'm a big fan of putting directions and signals on the floor for where people are supposed to stand, etc.), and then perhaps stagger the lines. The idea behind the staggering would be to move the elite lane right next to the scanner and increase it's length, then the lane for the "others" would feed into the elite line about halfway up the line, so that when they got up to the ticket counter they would be where the elite's were, right next to the gate agent.
* You could overall increase the queue length to roughly 50-100 feet this way, you could give customers guidance on how to stand in the hallway / aisle and not block other customers who are walking from gate to gate.
If you can't find a way to make them so employees and customers want to use them because the make for a better experience, then hopefully they came with a satisfaction money back guarantee and you can recoup your poorly spent dollars!
posted by travelGoo @ 08:27
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