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Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

arstechnica.com

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Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

#321

Post by peteretep »

ceejayoz wrote: post #314
peteretep wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ryanair sadly don't do unaccompanied minors, but for an airline that does (and 5 seems to be the lower bound), and if flying with a partner, I've always wondered if the following would work: Parent A flies without child on Day 1; Child is given to airline by Parent B on Day 2 and retrieved on the other end by Parent A. Parent B flies without child on Day 3.

If you've got a week or two for vacation, spending six days getting there and back just so you can not fly with your own kid seems... suboptimal.

Right, I guess a flight nanny is probably easier.

Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

#322

Post by tedunangst »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #317
tedunangst wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this is not true. Quicksort is typically faster than mergesort, but worst case it can be very much slower. The worst case does not affect both algorithms the same way.

But we are not talking about quicksort or mergesort, either way it helps prove my point. Typically faster is an interesting way of describing something. What is typical? 80% of the time?

Your point is that all algorithms respond the same way to inputs, and a counterexample helps prove it?

Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

#323

Post by wutbrodo »

efraim wrote: post #85
scott_s wrote: post #81

I'm also convinced that we exit the plane in the worst way possible. We basically do it row-by-row: as the people in front of them leave, people in a row get up, get their bags, start walking down the line, and this cascades up the plane. The problem is that there is very little parallelism: while people in the next row to leave are getting their bags, no one is exiting the plane. This is similar to a stall in a proc…

Also, people like to sit next to people they know such as family. A column approach sounds more effective, but it would split up people traveling together.

Excluding children, for whom exceptions can be made, I'm not sure I understand why this is much of a problem. Does it really matter if you walk fifty feet without being next to your travel partner?

Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

#324

Post by matthewowen »

peteretep wrote: post #196
bcrosby95 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Ryanair will take care of my 5 year old while I fly? Sounds peaceful. Last flight she spent 2 hours trying to lay down in the middle of the aisle.

Ryanair sadly don't do unaccompanied minors, but for an airline that does (and 5 seems to be the lower bound), and if flying with a partner, I've always wondered if the following would work: Parent A flies without child on Day 1; Child is given to airline by Parent B on Day 2 and retrieved on the other end by Parent A. Parent B flies without child on Day 3.

If there are multiple flights in a day, you might be able to fit it all in one!

Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

#325

Post by vikramkr »

mehrdadn wrote: post #236
xmprt wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you (and others in this thread) will enjoy CGP Grey's video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHbLRjF0vo

I've watched that video many times. I love the video (it's excellent and hilarious), but I should mention there's one aspect of it that rubs me the wrong way. The part he says back-to-front sucks and then shows a guy on the 3rd-to-last row trying to fit in his carry-on (around like 1:04) is a somewhat disingenuous representation of what people assume the optimal solution would be. You'd think they would put a last-ro…

What's the problem with that part exactly? He's showing the method which most airlines use, which is boarding by boarding class, The algorithm that they use is not ordering person by person, there's going to be randomness with who gets into line first, which is what allows for the lack of optimality. The whole point is that the current approach doesn't allow ordering person by person.

Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

#326

Post by wutbrodo »

jaywalk wrote: post #98
scott_s wrote: post #81

I'm also convinced that we exit the plane in the worst way possible. We basically do it row-by-row: as the people in front of them leave, people in a row get up, get their bags, start walking down the line, and this cascades up the plane. The problem is that there is very little parallelism: while people in the next row to leave are getting their bags, no one is exiting the plane. This is similar to a stall in a proc…

I was on a flight a year or two ago where, upon landing, a woman turned her phone on and received a call informing her that her brother had passed away. She was understandably quite distraught as we taxied to the gate, and the lead flight attendant even made an announcement asking everyone to please remain seated so that she could exit the plane first. Nobody listened.

This is one of those stories that's seemingly low-stakes compared to everything going on in the world, but that I find unusually affecting. It's a perfect illustration in microcosm of how fundamentally despicable most people are.

Out of curiosity, what airports was the flight between?

Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

#327

Post by im3w1l »

jaywalk wrote: post #98
scott_s wrote: post #81

I'm also convinced that we exit the plane in the worst way possible. We basically do it row-by-row: as the people in front of them leave, people in a row get up, get their bags, start walking down the line, and this cascades up the plane. The problem is that there is very little parallelism: while people in the next row to leave are getting their bags, no one is exiting the plane. This is similar to a stall in a proc…

I was on a flight a year or two ago where, upon landing, a woman turned her phone on and received a call informing her that her brother had passed away. She was understandably quite distraught as we taxied to the gate, and the lead flight attendant even made an announcement asking everyone to please remain seated so that she could exit the plane first. Nobody listened.

It's not necessarily that they didn't care. When there is a natural action and people have a habit of taking it, then they may just forget the instruction and do what they have always done. Yes in 30s.

Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

#328

Post by wutbrodo »

r00fus wrote: post #129
nordsieck wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a significant problem for the airline. But for a passenger, staring at people wrangling their bags, blocking those already up with a clear aisle from them to the exit, it's frustrating. Sure, but to airlines, that's a revenue opportunity, not a problem.

If deplaning could be 5% faster without any impact to other factors, it'd be done immediately by all airlines. Just consider the knock-on effects in terms of flight on-time % for subsequent legs on a multi-leg flight.

I dunno, boarding could be much faster if they did window, middle, aisle instead of the random order they do now, and I don't see any airlines picking up that proverbial $20 bill

Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

#329

Post by [deleted] »

kortilla wrote: post #274
rootusrootus wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is mindblowing. Even on an A380 that was only boarding through a single door I've never experienced an hour on the ground in the plane before pushing back. That would be super annoying.

It sounds like you just normally board well into the boarding process. The standard for many domestic flights is to start 40 mins prior to departure. International is 1hr+.

[deleted]

Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

#330

Post by sjg007 »

peteretep wrote: post #320
sjg007 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why your kid won't speak to you after age 18.

My parents used to stick me in Economy when they flew Business on long-haul from about 7 onward, and I still speak to _at least_ one of them.

I guess the inheritance could be a good reason.
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