As one of the Mods has commented, it is very odd how much of a reaction this thread has caused.
As crew my humble question to you passengers is this;
For various reasons and many have been mentioned here, it is entirely possible for someone to board the wrong a/c. It doesn't happen that often but it certainly does happen. The door of the a/c is the last point at which the error will have no impact on delaying the flight.
If we do let someone aboard who should not be there then a whole raft of procedures are brought into play to re secure the aircraft. Which can quite easily take 30 minutes from beginning to end.
So, what do you want guys, you can keep that boarding card out for 2 minutes longer and give it to us for the briefest of moments or incur missing slots, late arrivals, diaries turned upside down, business lost etc?
Security is the only reason that my airline checks those boarding cards although we can then identify our business/first class pax a little sooner and therefore start the service that they have paid considerably more for, earlier.
I do wonder if those of you who are really negative toward the crew on this thread are the same pax that blame us when it is foggy! We can't win sometimes and we know it.
Here is a headline for you: "Million to one chance error leads to airliner down and hundreds dead"
Ridiculous? Now the procedure is here it has to stay just in case that one needle in the haystack slips through and takes one of us away from our kids forever.
6