Boarding announcements

If you have occasion to travel by commercial airline and if you have done so for some time you will notice the difference in boarding announcements over the years. I mean those announcements telling you when it’s time to come to the gate, present your boarding pass and walk to the airplane.

Way back when they would call for people who needed more time to get to the plane and those traveling with young children to board first. Then along the way there came the different types of seats ie business class and then travellers who had earned special status for traveling a lot of miles. They boarded first.

Now they have so many categories it’s actual funny.

I think the people who pay the most go first now so the schpiel is something like this:

Calling all passengers whose work paid for them to be in business class-come right up
Calling all passengers who travelled so much in the aforementioned category that they’ve earned a seat in business class with their rewards, come right up
Calling all passengers who have our gold level card please come forward
All passengers with our silver level card please come up
All passengers who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths please step forward
All passengers who are anticipating an inheritance of over $100,000 and expect to travel a lot with us afterward come on up.
All passengers whose stock portfolio is on the rise please board now

Then there’s the call for those who need more time to walk to the plane and those with small childreni.

The service attendant then looks around the lounge and says all remaining passengers please board now. And I’m the only one left.