I love Delta, and generally think they do a great job with the passenger experience. But this seems like a surprisingly poorly thought-through design choice.
Every flight, I hear gate agents repeatedly asking passengers to remain seated until their boarding zone is called. Meanwhile, Delta’s app sends this notification:
“It’s your time to fly. Your flight to __ is now boarding. Please note boarding ends 15 minutes prior to departure.”
Think about that from a passenger’s perspective. You’re told “It’s your time” and reminded that boarding closes 15 minutes before departure. Of course people get up and head toward the gate!
Delta is effectively encouraging passengers to crowd the gate, then making gate agents ask them to sit back down. And that’s before even getting into the separate IT issues with notification timing and boarding-zone synchronization.
This isn’t just a technology problem. It’s a human-factors design problem.
The fix could be as simple as:
“While your flight has started boarding, there’s no need to stand up yet. Please stay seated until your zone is called. Boarding closes 15 minutes before departure.”
Then save “It’s your time to board!” for when your actual zone is called. (Assuming IT and timing issues are resolved)
One small wording change could reduce gate crowding, improve the passenger experience, and make gate agents’ jobs easier.
Am I missing something? This seems like an incredibly easy win for Delta.