My Rant

This past week I traveled to Orlando Florida for the Florida Educational Technology Conference, which was amazing and I will talk more about it in my next post. The only negative of the trip was the amount of time spent in airports due to delays, cancellations and weather. Our flight from Newark New Jersey to Orlando Florida was delayed 3 hours. This picture below was taken as soon as the gate crew began making announcements about boarding.

Now, on every boarding pass there is a group or boarding number, usually between 1 and 8. On every plane I have ever boarded they have always asked group number 1 as well as people who need additional time or assistance to board the plane first, this flight was no exception. There were two families waiting to board the plane, one with a child with a visual impairment, and one with an adult in a wheel chair. As soon as the United worker picked up the phone to make an announcement about boarding the plane, numerous people swarmed the aisle to board. Impressively, the worker made a new announcement saying they would not be boarding anyone at that time unless they were group number 1 or needed additional assistance. The people who did not meet this criteria did not bother to remove themselves from the aisle, but instead pushed over to the side giving the families and group number 1 passengers very little space to get by. I was annoyed and it sparked a conversation amongst the group I was standing with, is there an app for that? Can we or do we have an app that can be downloaded that will notify the passenger when it is their turn to board or maybe even give them a little shock or jolt when they are not following the rules or are making life more difficult for other people? I was very disappointed at the disregard to the needs of other passengers in this situation. Here's hoping an app can improve some people's airport demeanor.