Wonder how United will handle those of us who pay for aisle seat AND priority boarding (group 2). Looking forward to hearing about your experiences.
Nevermind whether one buys economy + or preferred seats, you don't pay for aisle seats on United, and if you've paid for priority boarding or Premier Access well you get priority boarding or Premier Access and boarding group 2. That's been the case.
Initially I thought this type of boarding would cause issues for families where folks may be seated together in a row (window, middle, aisle). Well, on second thought, it's not necessarily a problem. The person holding a window seat doesn't have to board with their group; they can board later with the middle seats or aisle seats. I don't really see this as a problem.
For those concerned with families boarding, United has stated that multiple customers on the same economy reservation, like families or partners traveling together, will be assigned the same and highest boarding group number and board together, except basic economy.
A few more reasonable articles
https://thepointsguy.com/news/united-airlines-new-boarding-process-window-middle-aisle/
https://www.fastcompany.com/90969137/uniteds-big-plan-to-change-airplane-boarding-is-actually-just-its-old-plan
And I bet this link updates to the new boarding groups come 26 October https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/airport/boarding-process.html
What boggles my mind is the level of fantastical headlines trumpeting this revolutionary new boarding system in the mainstream media along with the amount of hand wringing and angst leveled at it.