American Airlines believes that starting boarding five minutes earlier will relieve congestion around the gate and on the aerobridge and make the process more efficient than it is today. Starting May 1, the airline will add five minutes to the overall boarding time for all its flights.

On Friday, American Airlines announced it is adding an additional five minutes to the time allocated for boarding on all its flights. According to USA Today , the US airline is tweaking its boarding process to make boarding the aircraft more efficient and also to reduce the likelihood of passengers having to gate-check their carry-on bags.

Once the change is implemented, boarding will commence 35 minutes before departure on flights operated by Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft and 40 minutes before departure on flights operated by Boeing 737 , Airbus A321 and all widebody aircraft in American's fleet.

"In addition, American’s gate agents and flight attendants will have more time to complete their pre-departure work and deliver personalized service to our customers. Flight attendants and gate agents will have more time to monitor and confirm when overhead bins are full, helping to reduce the number of involuntary gate-checked bags when bin space is still available."

The airline is not just adding an extra five minutes to extend the available time, as it said it will use that time to allow for pauses between boarding groups that will relieve congestion on the jet bridge. American Airlines (American) added that the additional five minutes will give customers more time to stow their bags and get settled, although without more bin space or stricter carry-on rules it is hard to see how adding five minutes will fix that problem .

Technology to put people in their place

In November, American announced it had successfully trialed technology to ensure all customers benefit from boarding in their assigned group. Human nature being what it is, that hardly ever happens at any airport in the world, so the provision of technology to support airline staff and add more visibility to the process is welcomed.

If a customer tries to board before their allocated group is called, the new software will not accept the boarding pass and instead will make an audible sound . That will make it very clear who the offender is and also make it easier for gate agents to take action and have that passenger rejoin the line when their group is called.

The system was trialed for a month at Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) and Tucson International Airport (TUS) to iron out any bugs and gain some insights. American is now rolling out the boarding technology to more than 100 spoke airports across its network.

These are the American Airlines boarding groups

While the boarding process will start five minutes earlier, the aircraft doors will still be closed 15 minutes before the scheduled departure time.