United Airlines is in a completely different league than the competition when it comes to the quality of its customer-facing technology, and in particular, the app. The airline recently rolled out some positive app changes, and there’s one update I find to be particularly cool.
In this post:
United Airlines’ new boarding progress app feature
United’s app was already great when it came to showing boarding progress for a particular flight, but that has now been taken to the next level.
The airline has added a “virtual gate” feature for those booked on a flight, which gives customers real-time updates about which groups are boarding, along with a progress bar that shows how many people have boarded.
A Threads user shares a screenshot of this. The app status bar now shows “what’s happening” at the departure gate. You can see which groups are boarding, which group you’re in, when boarding ends, how many people are booked on the flight, and how many of those booked passengers have boarded.
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United Airlines’ technology is on a different level
United’s app has gotten so good that the airline is at that point where it’s adding features that are arguably not even really necessary, but instead, they’re just cool and show such a high level of transparency.
It’s funny, because when I saw this feature, I couldn’t help but show it to Ford, and say “isn’t that cool?” He was a little confused… “okay, but what does one even do with that information?” I thought about it, and I struggled to actually come up with reasons that this is super useful. Instead, it’s more that I love this kind of stuff as an aviation geek. I guess there are a few potential uses:
- It’s cool to see how booked a flight is in general, and to get a sense of how close boarding is to being complete, what the odds are of an empty seat next to you, etc.
- I’m not sure there are all that many practical implications in terms of how one acts at the gate; most people want to board as early as possible to store their bags, and if you’re not worried about that, you can simply show up shortly before the time at which boarding ends
I know United is aggressively retrofitting its domestic aircraft with new interiors and larger overhead bins, but I was reminded of the United Boeing 737-900 flight I took early last year, where boarding was pure chaos, and the gate agent announced that the plane only had room for 65 carry-on bags, meaning only one in three passengers (roughly) could have a bag accommodated in the bin.
In a situation like this, I suppose that seeing the progress bar of the number of people who have boarded would almost make me nervous.
Bottom line
United’s mobile app has a new “virtual gate” feature, which shows an unbelievable amount of information about boarding progress. In particular, I think it’s cool that the app displays how many people are booked on a flight, and how many of those passengers have already boarded. I’m not sure it’s necessarily that useful, but it sure is fun!
What do you make of these new United app features?
This is another area where Delta needs to improve. United definitely has the premium tech!
More concerning is the number of airlines that abuse the last call on the status panel, especially with security at gate airports like SIN. No one wants to be in a holding area inside the gate for an extended duration without toilets, crowded and often without a seat for a widebody boarding.
SAS has had something similar in their app for years. I really like the feature as it lets me know whether to run to the gate, or if I'm already on the plane how much of pax we're missing. All airlines should have this :)
This is actually very practical in some situations. If your flight is delayed, sometimes the posted departure time is not accurate. They might end up delaying further or sometimes they fix/resolve an issue and end up boarding sooner than the original delay would imply. If you like to wait out delays in the United Club or Polaris Lounge instead of the gate area, you might worry about missing your flight. Knowing not just when boarding...
This is actually very practical in some situations. If your flight is delayed, sometimes the posted departure time is not accurate. They might end up delaying further or sometimes they fix/resolve an issue and end up boarding sooner than the original delay would imply. If you like to wait out delays in the United Club or Polaris Lounge instead of the gate area, you might worry about missing your flight. Knowing not just when boarding started but exactly how far they’ve progressed would let you comfortably wait in the lounge — if you get a notification that boarding started and you see more than half the plane has boarded then you know you need to hustle to the gate immediately. But if there’s 250 people still waiting to board you can make a quick stop in the restroom to freshen up, etc. head over more comfortably.
If you’re in the United Club there are usually attendants who can let you know how far boarding she progressed when you leave for your flight for this exact reason. But now even folks who wanted to wait in say a restaurant rather than the club or who are still going through security will have this at their fingertips. It helps everyone rush when you really need to rush but also relax a little longer when there’s still plenty of time before your flight willl actually leave.
I think this feature could be very helpful for those of us who fly standby, whether rev or nonrev, so we can have a better sense of likely no shows at :15 out.
It is useful for doing the mental calculations on the probability of the empty seat next to you remaining empty as the passengers board.
Kudos to UA on this one.
What do I do? Get a shift on to the gate or run out of overhead bin space.
I am flying DL tomorrow, and as I check the DL app, I realize how much further ahead UA is in this area.
Delta's app looked like it was developed by a third grader.
Sorry Tim
So if I am making a tight connection, I can see how much I have to rush to the next gate.
It's probably info for UA to help monitor how efficient their boarding process is, how long it takes different groups to board etc. It costs them nothing to share it publicly.
In theory you could use this to push back against gate agents when they say all bins are full and show them it's impossible when only like 20 people have boarded, not that you'd win...
I'm not sure how useful that information is. If you're traveling with a second bag and you don't board with your class or group forget about having that bag anywhere near you.
Thats actually an improvement and useful due to how the actual gate announcements often justy seem to be timed rather than relevant. Final call, but the plane hasnt arrived yet etc
I like this......will probably result being confident I have time to get an extra drink at the lounge.
Why?
To show what groups are currently boarding, how many passengers have boarded already, and how many are left to board.
VS -
Coming from someone who seems to take issue with Philipppine Airlines for unarticulatable reasons, I'm not surprised to see you asking such a moronic question here....
So if I am making a tight connection, I can see how much I have to rush to the next gate.
Delta and Air Canada have had this. It will actually show you percentage boarded
The main purpose of a feature like this is to subtly communicate that United has invested in the technology and processes to be very much in control of your journey
If I had to guess, there’s a population of passengers that tend to board late, and perhaps United is trying to create a greater sense of urgency among this group. I could be totally wrong, but I don’t think they would have spent resources on this unless they had identified a problem that this would solve.
How is this 'fun'?
Because it is a unique innovation and is pretty cool to be able to view boarding status in real-time?
although I just refresh the seat map as of now but going forward it'll help me confirm if the middle seat next to me will stay empty .
This would be great to see when I should leave the lounge so I don’t miss the flight, boarding start is good but percentage complete to tell me just how close we are to the end is very nice
Exactly, I'm perplexed by the fact that this isn't mentioned in the post. I'm perennially sick of leaving my drink unfinished and dashing across the terminal with 'FINAL CALL' plastered across the monitors only to be met with an enormous queue which has barely started moving (and boarding by group makes it even worse when I have priority due to status or cabin, as they don't tend to keep the priority lane open after the initial boarding call)
Perhaps United should pay more attention to how clean their aircraft is before spending more on that useless feature.
Won't this just create more gate lice, not less?