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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

#351

Post by cgriswald »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #318
reaperducer wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if all algorithms are affected the same way by the same external factors, which simply doesn't happen. It's like when a Toyota and a Freightliner crash into the same wall. They both crashed at the same speed, why is one damaged more than the other?

You can come up with endless scenarios to justify it, but the fact is you can't design something that will deal with all of them. So you design for the typical scenario. Maybe there is an algorithm that boards a plane faster when there are 2 handicapped people, 3 drunks, and 1 person being late. But how typical is that? And is it realistic to design the whole algorithm around that? I would argue it isn't.

Real flights have those things in some numbers and a model probably ought to attempt to account for them, since, as you noted in a separate post I can’t seem to find now, they’ll affect the model negatively. The goal isn’t to find the best number of late people and wheelchairs. It’s to be able to board real flights as quickly as possible and every real flight I’ve ever seen, except the flight I took shortly after 9/11, has had some number of strollers, wheelchairs, or what have you.

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

#352

Post by ajmurmann »

jedberg wrote: post #110

Southwest has sort of figured this out. First of all, they use random boarding, which is almost the fastest, and the fastest of the viable options (good luck getting people to board alternate rows). They also interleave slow and fast passengers. They let handicapped people board, then the first 1/3 of passengers, then families with kids, and then the rest of the passengers. By the last 1/3 of the passengers, it's mos…

"good luck getting people to board alternate rows" Do you know right now if boarding group D is people from the back of the plane, people with window seats or odd rows?

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

#353

Post by mantap »

wutbrodo wrote: post #323
efraim wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Even from a purely utilitarian perspective where efficiency is the only concern, if you force groups to separate then you are just going to clog up the jet bridge with people waiting for their loved ones to exit the plane. If there's no jet bridge and the passengers are getting on a bus to be taken to the terminal it would cause even more chaos.

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

#354

Post by mbreese »

sjg007 wrote: post #282
crooked-v wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That leaves people in window seats bottlenecked behind families.

Don't seat non-family members there.

And because of all the edge cases and special rules that have been established, we can see why this isn’t a practical approach.

The number of people who are traveling with families is not a trivial number of passengers.

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

#355

Post by mbreese »

laumars wrote: post #203
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.

I feel your pain. The last flight with my 2 year old daughter, she had to be physically held in her seat because she was too old to be allowed on our laps yet also too small for the seat belt to restrain her. The moment we let go of her she intentionally slid under the belt and out of the chair!

When my kids were that small we would travel with one of their car seats for the plane. The car seat is restrained by the plane’s seat belt and then your child is nestled snuggly in their own car seat.

The benefits are that your kid is then in an environment they are familiar with and they can’t just wiggle out. The downside is that you now have to lug around a car seat in the terminal. Ours got stuck in an X-ray machine once. That was fun.

I assume that’s still possible, it’s been a while since we had to travel like that.

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

#356

Post by ehvatum »

thesh4d0w wrote: post #342
peteretep wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I guess a flight nanny is probably easier.

Or you know..... just be a parent.

Some folks with money really are better off hiring a professional parent, if the asshole cycle is ever to be interrupted.

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

#357

Post by Marsymars »

jacquesm wrote: post #70
ehnto wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I booked 4 flights with Cathay not sure what to expect, but it was a pretty good experience all round. Boarding was a non issue, fast and on time. Everything else was perfectly functional, if economical. The staff were excellent. I didn't appreciate the mid flight catalogue advertising for beauty products though. Talk about a captive audience. That only happened on the leg between Japan and HK, I hope it's not common…

AirBaltic did this until very recently in the most annoying fashion. I wrote them a nastygram about it and I suspect many other people did so too because the last two flights I was on were pleasantly quiet. Whichever junior marketeer came up with that campaign should be forced to listen to their own work product for a day or two in succession. I'm sure that would get them to change careers.

I've had advertisements on Air Canada flights on their seat-back TVs/plane PA system.

I follow up by complaining to the advertisers and explaining what a bad impression it is.

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

#358

Post by turk73 »

asdff wrote: post #213
oarabbus_ wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the legroom is considerably lacking in economy class. But aside from that (a small price to pay for a trip that would otherwise take days to months, no?) what makes you call being on a flight being like "damn cattle"? >But on the other hand, when you treat (and pack) your customers like a bunch of damn cattle, don't be surprised when they act like a bunch of damn cattle.

I don't get the gripe with leg room, unless you are oddly shaped. I'm 6' and I don't care about leg room or leaning back, because in every flight you can just push your bag under your seat and stretch your legs fully under the seat ahead of you. I find a 5 hour flight more comfortable than 3 hour sporting event on an aluminum bleacher.

My knees both get extremely sore when I have to sit for long periods of time. Bleechers at sporting events? I simply don't go. Flying? It's hell because they cut the legroom so short. I'm 5'11" btw, I have long femurs. Once the pain sets in, I have to straighten my legs out and hopefully get up and move around.

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

#359

Post by twojacobtwo »

glennpratt wrote: post #302
jacobolus wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> getting on/off with my family is not optional for me If you’re getting off with your family you should just wait for everyone else to exit first anyway unless you have a connecting flight with no time margin or something. Families are super slow to deboard planes. If your kids are young, you should probably be allowed to board first before other travelers. A column by column rule wouldn’t apply to you either way.

> If you’re getting off with your family you should just wait for everyone else Uhh, no. First of all, we aren't slow, second kids have tiny bladders and third when did childless folks become such fragile babies?

There is a question that I think needs to be asked more often: Why do those who do have/chose to have children always expect everyone else to bear their externalized burdens? You just pointed out that an optimal solution will not work because of your situation and you just assume that the rest of us should have to accept that your choice to have children automatically grants you the right to impinge on the rest of us. That's quite entitled.

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

#360

Post by c3534l »

kyllo wrote: post #230

This reminds me of the book The Goal by Eli Goldratt. It's fictional, but there's a story about a boy scout troop that goes on a hike, and there's an overweight kid named Herbie who hikes the slowest. The troop leader teaches everyone that the entire group as a whole will reach the top faster (and stay together) if they keep Herbie in the front. When you have a bottleneck step in your process, the whole end-to-end pr…

Already with our inefficient boarding process there's often a 15-30 minute wait to get permission to fly. Boarding isn't the bottleneck.
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