[AIRLINE] Air Canada Announces Zone Boarding

Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge and Air Canada Express introduce a new boarding process which will be based on zone numbers. This typically will include five different zones. In the past, Air Canada boarding has always been set up so that boarding begins from the back row seat numbers and works its way to the front row seat passengers; the purpose of this method was to reduce traffic at the front of the aircraft.

Additionally, at the time of check in, your boarding pass will indicate which zone you will be in when the boarding process begins. Similar to the previous process, you will wait for your zone to be called by the airline agent.

The zones are separated as follows:

Zone 1 has been classified as priority boarding for Business Class and Super Elite 100K clients.

Zone 2 will be priority boarding for Elite 75K, Elite 50K, Elite 35K, Star Aliiance Gold, Premium Economy, Latitude and select TD and CIBC credit card holders.

Zone 3, 4, 5 will be classified as general boarding for the economy ticket holders.

Like in the past, ticket holders who require wheelchair assistance will have priority boarding before all other flyers while individuals with children under the age of 6 will have boarding priority over the general boarding class.

I understand that this was Air Canada’s plan of action to reduce the issues in their previous boarding process. However, this can get extremely political as there seems to be a lot of classifications amongst Air Canada flyers. Qualifications for priority boarding include many members within one particular zone, reducing the value in certain flyers.