With the news that Qantas is revamping its priority boarding to give premium customers greater priority, it’s perhaps a useful time to think more widely about how to make this option a real perk for premium cabin passengers and highly valuable frequent flyers.

This is particularly the case as airlines continue to segment their cabins with extra-legroom economy, premium economy and basic economy options that all come with their own set of benefits.

It’s a fact of life that many passengers still like to board early, even regular travellers who one might imagine would have little to no desire to sit on a plane for any amount of time more than they need to.

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Whether that’s to secure space in the overhead bin closest to them, to enjoy a pre-departure beverage, to ensure their jackets are hung up neatly, to get a bit of work done before pushback or simply to relax before takeoff, priority boarding is a benefit of either buying a more expensive ticket or for loyalty to an airline — and people buying the more expensive tickets and more loyal customers like (and frankly deserve) to get what they pay for.

The fundamental problem set is that there are usually only two queues, that there are now too many passengers in the “priority” queue — and that not all of those passengers are equally valuable to the airline.

When you have a passenger in business class standing next to a high-tier frequent flyer who spends many tens of thousands of dollars with an airline every year, that’s one thing.

But when it’s business class, plus premium economy, plus extra-legroom economy, plus anyone more than just an entry-level of the frequent flyer program, all lumped in together in the “priority” zone, that’s a problem.

It’s often particularly problematic at outstation airports, whose contracted staff are not employed directly by the airline, are often poorly managed, and aren’t incentivized in any way to deliver a positive passenger experience for premium passengers.

But how to fix this problem? Lots of airlines have tried, whether that’s the US carriers with the relatively inelegant multiple tensabarrier corrals of boarding gates, the Japanese carriers with the boarding gates featuring staffers walking around holding laminated sheets confirming which group is boarding, or other options entirely.

For a start, airlines need to figure out how much space they have to play with. This may well vary based on the airport: at their home hub, they are likely to have more control over the overall experience, more staff who can assist, and a closer relationship with the airport.

The Emirates premium experience at Dubai, for example, is excellent but of course unique to the bi-level boarding process.

Airlines need to figure out how many different groups they need.

At a minimum, I think this is probably at least one for each class of service, with associated frequent flyer levels: platinum members board with first class, gold with business, silver with premium economy, and bronze with extra-legroom economy, for example.

I keep coming back to the necessity of policing — or at the very least signposting — the end of the queue as well.

Too often it’s too easy for passengers without priority boarding to simply join a queue to which they’re not entitled, shrug when they get to the end and end up being boarded anyway because it’s too much of a hassle to send them to the back of the line.

I’m struck that, with automatic boarding gates, this should not be an insurmountable problem — if the gates are located in the right place.

Rather than having them at the end of the boarding queue, they should be in the beginning, allowing passengers to verify their eligibility for the queue and then entering into a segregated second queue.

This is, in essence, how easyJet works its Speedy Boarding process, and it is very effective.

Combined with this option could be the A/B queuing model: passengers for boarding group 1 line up in row A, and group 2 in row B. Group 3 enters row A after group 1 has completed boarding, and so on down the list.

A fundamental rethink likely requires a more thoughtful design of airports: something like, for example, what Singapore Changi does with gate-based security, except with boarding zones.

But there is much that airlines can think about in the meantime — and thinking is indeed needed.

Air New Zealand will allow people to have their coffee cups and eat them too in an innovative concept for reducing landfill.

The airline has begun trialing edible coffee cups in the air and on the ground as it looks for new ways to boost sustainability.

The airline currently serves more than eight million cups of coffee each year and introduced compostable coffee cups as a more environmentally-friendly alternative to old-style receptacles.

Read: Concern airlines could use loyalty data to discriminate on price

The plant-based compostable cups now on board all aircraft and in lounges are made from paper and corn, allowing them to be broken down in a commercial composter.

The airline estimates that switching to plant-based cups will prevent around 15 million cups from going to landfills annually.

But Air New Zealand senior manager customer experience Niki Chave said the ultimate goal would be to remove the cups totally from landfills.

And what better way than to get passengers to munch on them as a sort of dual-use biscuit?

“We’ve been working in partnership with innovative New Zealand company ‘twiice’ to explore the future of edible coffee cups, which are vanilla flavored and leakproof,’’ Chave said.

“The cups have been a big hit with the customers who have used these and we’ve also been using the cups as dessert bowls.”

Chave said the airline will continue to trial twiice’s edible coffee cups and work with the company and other partners to explore scaling options that could make it a viable long-term product for the airline.

Twiice is a family company and makes the cup from wheat flour, sugar, egg and vanilla essence. The cups are handmade and the company recommends people eat the cup directly after finishing their hot drink.

Company co-founder Jamie Cashmore said the edible cups could play a big role in demonstrating to the world that new and innovative ways of packaging are achievable.

“It’s terrific that Air New Zealand has partnered with us to showcase to its customers and the world that a little bit of Kiwi ingenuity and innovation could have a really positive impact on the environment while at the same time delivering a really cool and tasty customer experience,”  he said.

AirNZ is also moving to reduce landfill by encouraging customers to bring their own reusable cups to use on board aircraft and in lounges.

Residents of Milton Massachusetts could have been forgiven for thinking that online retailer Amazon had gone crazy with jumbo deliveries when a big inflatable slide fell from the skies on Sunday.

Yet it wasn’t a giant Amazon drone that had dropped its bundle on a local front garden but a Delta Air Lines flight traveling from Paris to Boston.

The emergency evacuation slide fell off the Boeing 767 accompanied by a loud noise as the aircraft was on approach to Boston Logan International Airport and about four nautical miles from the runway threshold.

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The aircraft went on to land normally but not before it gave a resident tending his garden a rude shock.

Fortunately, no-one was injured.

Milton resident and surprised recipient of the slide Wenhan Huang told CNN he realized the slide was from an aircraft when he saw the words “Boeing” printed on it and quickly rang the police.

“It’s kind of crazy,” Huang told CNN affiliate WCVB. “Who could know there’s something coming from the air and drops into my yard, right? It’s pretty heavy. You can’t even carry it.”

The airline is investigating how and why the slide fell off but it has also re-ignited a political debate about the number of flights over Milton and nearby communities.

US Representative Stephen Lynch said he had asked for a briefing on the incident  from the Federal Aviation Administration and airport operator Mass Port.

“The escape slide did not inflate but instead came down in a compact bundle weighing about 100 pounds,’’ Lynch said.

“We are fortunate that no injuries or damage occurred.”

Lynch said he expected a report by the end of the week and added that the incident illustrated the vulnerability of towns beneath busy flight paths.

“We cannot expect the community of Milton and surrounding towns to live in fear of debris falling from the sky,’’ he said, adding he recently met FAA administrator Steve Dickson to discuss the number of flights “plaguing Milton and nearby communities with relentless airplane noise and pollution”.

Codeshare agreements signed this week by three LATAM Airlines Group affiliates with new partner Delta Air Lines aim to improve connectivity between the Americas.

The agreements were signed December 2 with LATAM affiliates in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador and are due to start in the first quarter of 2020, subject to regulatory approval.

They come in the wake of Delta’s $US1.9 billion deal to take a 20 percent stake in the South American group as part of the US carrier’s global strategy of expanding internationally through joint ventures and minority stakes in other carriers.

The deal leverages the carriers’ complementary route networks and strengthens existing interline agreements with the addition of perks such as reciprocal lounge access and mutual frequent flyer benefits.

The three codeshare agreements inked December 2 will offer LATAM customers the option of connecting to as many as 74 onward destinations in the United States and Canada.

READ: Concern airlines could use loyalty data to discriminate on pricing.

It will open as many as 51 onward destinations in South America for Delta passengers.

“These codeshares mark an important milestone in LATAM’s journey towards offering the best connectivity and customer experience in the Americas,”’ LATAM Group chief executive Enrique Ceto said in the codeshare announcement.

“Our passengers will soon be able to access up to 74 destinations in the United States and Canada, which is just one example of complementary nature of our networks and one of the many future benefits that the strategic agreement with Delta will bring.”

The partners anticipate that from the first quarter of next year LATAM Airlines Peru’s “LA” code will be added to Delta flights from New York/JFK, Miami, Los Angeles and Orlando to up to 74 onward destinations in the United States and Canada.

Delta’s  “DL” code will be added to LATAM Airlines Peru flights between Lima and up to 34 onward destinations in Peru and South America.

Delta’s code will be added to LATAM Airlines Colombia flights from Bogota and Cartagena to up to 13 onward destinations in Colombia.

LATAM Airlines Ecuador’s code, also “LA”,  will be added to Delta flights between New York/JFK and up to 55 onward destinations in the US and Canada.

Similarly, Delta’s code will be added to LATAM Airlines Ecuador flights between Quito and up to four onward destinations in Ecuador.

LATAM also plans to establish codeshare agreements between Delta and its affiliates in Chile and Brazil in 2020.