Passengers seated in rows 1 through 8 may board the aircraft now.

I took a flight back to Pune last night. It was a small ATR aircraft parked out on the apron and we had to take a bus from the terminal to the plane. The airline announced they would board by seat numbers to avoid congestion inside the aircraft. Since the ATR has only one passenger door at the tail end, they requested passengers seated in row numbers 1 to 8 to board first.

I was seated in 17F, so I stood aside until the passengers in rows 1 - 8 had gone through. The gate agent scanned my boarding card and after the CISF agent glanced at my boarding card and baggage tag, I walked to the bus.

And here's the thing. All the passengers were on the same bus. More amusing was the fact that people in row numbers 1 through 8 had been pushed to the rear of the bus by passengers in rows 9 to 18 who came in after them.

You can see what happened next. When we got to the aircraft, passengers in rows 9 to 16 got off the bus first and boarded the aircraft. There was the usual melee with the requisite blocked aisle as passengers stowed their cabin baggage and those behind them tried to push past.

I guess training procedure for the gate agent did not cover LIFO and FIFO.