Whatever the reason, American Airlines wants you to stop. The airline is testing new technology to alert passengers and gate agents when someone tries to board before their seating group is called. According to the airline, the system will produce an “audible signal” when a passenger attempts to board the aircraft before his or her seating group is announced. At that point, an alerted gate agent would return the passenger to the appropriate group.

“The new technology is designed to ensure customers easily receive the benefits of priority boarding and helps improve the boarding experience by giving our team greater visibility into boarding progress,” American Airlines said. Fortune in a statement.

The new technology is being tested at Albuquerque International Sunport in New Mexico, Tucson International Airport in Arizona and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia.

‘Gate lice’ have long been a pet peeve of flight attendants who view premature swarming at the gate as disruptive and rude.

“Just stay as far away from the boarding area as possible until your group is at least close to being called,” says Rich Henderson, a 10-year flight attendant and co-founder of the Two guys in a plane blogging, narrated Business insider. “If our frequent flyers and top people are not even close to the plane and your crew is not even close to the plane, you really have no business at the gate.”

The itchy origin of portal lice

Let’s face it, who among us hasn’t tried to sneak into the Group 5 boarding line, even though there’s a modest “9” stamped on our boarding pass? After all, the port lice problem stemmed from a practical problem, according to Ben Mutzabaugh, editor-in-chief of aviation content for travel blog The Points dude. In the late 2000s, following airlines’ push to increase checked baggage fees, more passengers are likely to bring carry-on luggage that they hope to stow away as they look forward to skipping the dreaded baggage claim. With more carry-on luggage, there is an increasing demand for overhead storage. No one wants to be the first passenger who has to check a bag.

“Once that started to become the new normal, and people understood that as a reality, it created a lot of anxiety among players to try to get on a plane early,” he said. Fortune.

All that pent-up fear among airlines could escalate into an aviation nightmare. The Federal Aviation Administration has referred 43 unruly passengers to the FBI this year alone, with the regulatory agency reporting 310 of the most serious cases — involving an assault on a flight attendant or passenger — to the FBI since 2021.

The risk of encountering belligerent or at least grumpy travelers is one reason why turning on a machine to surreptitiously summon or humiliate passengers is a sensible strategy, Mutzabaugh said, because it spares gate agents the miserable task of trying to find passengers to confront.

“You can be mad at the machine, but that’s probably better than being mad at the gate agent,” he said.

Anecdotally, Mutzabaugh has heard that compared to other airlines, American is generally more organized in terms of boarding than competitors, although some airports are notoriously chaotic. Rules and systems to calm the chaos emerge every few years, he said, and the perfect entry method remains elusive. But with American Airlines saying it’s happy with the early results of the new system, there’s no reason why other airlines shouldn’t follow American’s lead, Mutzabaugh argued.

“A little bit of order goes a long way these days,” he said.