Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, I guess a flight nanny is probably easier.
Or you know..... just be a parent.
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Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds
371–380 of 512 posts
Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, because first class is smaller, you spend less time standing in the jetway and airplane aisle. Part of the annoyance of boarding isn't just the total time it takes from when they open the gate door until when it's done. It's the amount of standing up, holding your luggage, shuffling forward a bit, and wondering when the person in front of you will move. Use driving as an analogy. Suppose you get out of a doctor…
Yes that does sound nice and I agree that the first option would feel better. However if someone offered me the choice between being able to do the first, and say, a new Macbook Pro 16", I would take the computer every time. I think even if I were a billionaire I would rather keep my few thousand dollars and suffer the indiginities of economy, but of course I'm not, nor can I know how my values would change if I were…
If you fly a lot on long hauls, you'll quickly succumb to economy class syndrome if you spend all your time there. Once or twice a year, it is now problem, but not being able to sleep very well for 11 hours straight gets old quickly, and there is only so much content to go there in their entertainment system (if you are a frequent flyer, you've seen all of it)...not to mention your butt and legs just start getting sore after awhile.
Even though I'm not really a frequent flyer, I generally buy business class when they are on sale. E.g. Beijing to Bali on Hong Kong Express for $900 roundtrip (vs. $500 for economy), or Beijing to LA on ANA for $2000 last minute one way (vs. $1500 for economy, and since I was moving, it was tax deductible at the time). You can find some good deals, especially in Asia, and the experience can be worth it.
Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great video. This is one of those phenomena, like how to fix traffic jams, that everyone has an opinion on because of firsthand experience, but few people know about the actual research on. Despite there being known fast methods, I think 2 things stand in the way of implementing them: 1) Business and 1st class make a lot of money for airlines. Not letting them board first (although personally I've always wondered why…
> Not letting them board first (although personally I've always wondered why this is desirable) As someone who customarily boards early (due to fare class or airline status), I can tell you one solid reason, overhead bin space. If flight attendants would ensure folks put their bags on their row and the gate attendants ensured bags weren’t too large , this would be less an issue, but I routinely see folks fairly early…
I strongly despise people like that. If you add up lost time for all other passengers and compare that to won time for her and her family (less time waiting at the baggage claim) this ends up massively weighted against her behavior. non the less her behavior is actually rational and optimal from a standpoint of game theory. At least under current conditions (bag size not checked and enforced up front). This is in my books a classic example of 'tragedy of the commons'.
As long as egoistic behavior is the optimal strategy we will not see a significant change in behavior.
It can only be changed by changing the surrounding rules and conditions.
Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds
#374I'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 think boarding was covered in Freakanomics. Column boarding is technically fastest, but too impractical to coordinate. Just letting everyone randomly line up and enter the plane turns out to be the most efficient practical method, but no airlines do that. Edit: looks like my memory is poor... https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/11/theres-...
Most Australian airlines just let people randomly board, apart from letting priority passengers (disabled, business class, gold and platinum frequent flyers) board first.
It does perplex me when I travel to other countries and experience complicated systems with boarding groups etc. that never seem any better than the random method!
Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds
#375Earlier 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.
I found that for me it depends a lot on the tilt of the seats: when I flew Southwest, the seat was ramrod-straight, and I am not able to relax. On Asian carriers, seats are more comfortable, and I was even able to fall asleep. It didn't really depend on the seat pitch, so much as the seat angle.
Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 mac…
Yes, you can also put the kid in a carseat when they are under 2 if you don't want to keep them on your lap.
Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
Orrrr, hear me out, we just deal with people being a bit slow as just a part of life and remember that it's amazing we're able to fly at all.
This sounds like some sort of patient wisdom until you realize that there's no actual upside to your seeming preference of doing things less efficiently. Appreciating the ability to fly across the world isn't exclusive of being able to improve the experience when there are easy ways to do so with few, if any, downsides. By your logic, why not add an additional mandatory thirty minute waiting period to deplane? After…
> your seeming preference of doing things less efficiently
It's not a preference, it's a realization that this is a human problem and you're never going to get full compliance from a large group of people who all move at different speeds, have varying amounts of luggage, varyings levels of selfishness, and various other factors that affect deplaning speed.
This whole comment thread seems to be full of single tech bros that are mad they can't get off the plane faster, and are trying to design "solutions" and "algorithms" to make it faster, all while assuming every other passenger is also a single person who can deplane as fast as them.
> By your logic, why not add an additional mandatory thirty minute waiting period to deplane? After all, it's amazing that we can fly.
Because that's contrived and fucking stupid, whereas humans being slow and selfish in a cramped environment is a natural cause of delay.
Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> Why do those who do have/chose to have children always expect everyone else to bear their externalized burdens?
Well, the simple answer on a societal level is "your peaceful retirement depends on people having more kids".
Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds
#379I'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.
Someone upthread had the very sensible suggestion that if you need to leave with other people in your row, you should wait until everyone else has left the plane.
Re: Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
Southwest would have been my guess for the worst. Generally I see them using a 3seat-aisle-3seat configuration. The plane always fills up window and aisle seats from front to back, then only once people have explored the whole plane do they resort to a middle seat between two strangers. Everyone is basically incentivized to act as greedily as possible so it takes longer than it needs to.
>act as greedily as possible so it takes longer than it needs to These two things aren't connected (greed and time blocking alsie). the greedy answer is to get comfortable and settled in your bubble, fast. I am a SW FF, most of the other people on my planes are, and we get it...we move and seat quickly to allow others in. I'm guessing far better average plane etiquette than most other US airline's FFs (though all FFs…
Wouldn't it be optimal, assuming you don't want to sit next to someone, to pick a window/aisle toward the back of the aircraft?