WILMA: The First Airline Boarding System That Makes Sense!

Retirement gives loads of time to muse over things…  much of this musing leads to being grumpy - but sometimes you see the sense.

Let’s start with the musing.

My wife and I checked in together for our recent flights with United to Puerto Vallarta. We’d booked separately after I managed to save £700 using an AMEX offer — a story for another day.

My wife, we’ll call her Jane, as well that is her name, and wife sounds a little formal for us friends.

So Jane would always be assigned group 4 for boarding and I would be assigned group 5. Basically this meant that Jane was invited to board before me.

But why?…

And this is where the musings began.

I convinced myself it was because I’d attached my Aer Lingus frequent flyer number to one booking.

So on the DEN to PVR, I decided not to add the Aer Lingus frequent flyer number, thinking I would be promoted to group 4 as well. But this didn’t work.

Further musings followed. This time involving the internet.

And there it was;

WILMA

United Airlines uses a "WILMA" (Window, Middle, Aisle) boarding system;

Group 3 - Window seats

Group 4 - Middle seats

Group 5 - Aisle seats

At last sense in the world of boarding an aeroplane. No more trying to get past the aisle passenger to get into the window seat. It makes so much more sense. Brilliant idea.

Of course this then leads to even more musings…

Why doesn’t every airline do this

Why don’t they fill from the back of the plane first - might it tip up?

At least it is much more orderly when de-planing (yes it’s a word) - with row by row and seat by seat leaving in an orderly manner.

Congrats United.

I still have no idea where the L in WILMA comes from.

And honestly, that bothers me more than it should.

As an aside - WIMA is also a lesser known girls name - yes a rare feminine name of Germanic origin - anyway I’ll leave it now.