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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

#401

Post by JCharante »

cogman10 wrote: post #145
frankus wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idle thought I had a while back: Let people who don't have anything in the overhead bins get off first.

People without stuff should sit next to the aisle. (and get on last)

On the contrary, a lot of people store stuff in the overhead bins that they will access during the flight, so sitting in the aisle is the best spot for them (if you're trying to minimize how many times the people in aisles have to put their tray table up and rotate their legs.

On flights more 2 hours (so 6/9/14 hour flights) I'll put on the provided slippers and store my shoes in the overhead bin so my feet have more room. I usually travel with a backpack and a satchel, but my sound cancelling headphones take up a lot of space in my satchel, so before landing I'll put them back in my backpack. I usually have to go to the bathroom anyways before landing, so it isn't an extra get-up-out-of-seat-and-into-aisle-operation.

Yesterday I saw someone get up to access the bin 4-5 times in a 14 hour span. They were conviniently short enough so that they didn't have to get out of their seat (just had to stand on it) to access the bin.

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

#402

Post by asiachick »

I'm sure this is has some obvious reasons but I find it interesting that Japan can fill 800-1200 seats of the shinkansen in I get there are many differences, lots entrances, slightly wider isles. Still, it's fun to think about what it would take to do the same on a plane.

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

#403

Post by benhurmarcel »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #137
benhurmarcel wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> getting on/off with my family is not optional for me. Ryanair has now accustomed Europeans to travel separately from their family, so it wouldn't surprise me to see that requirement change if it drops the price.

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.

They make an exception for children under 12.

https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/useful-info/travelling-with-ch...

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

#404

Post by asiachick »

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…

You don't need to get off the plane 1-3 minutes earlier. In fact I doubt it would even add up to that. The spread between the first passengers off and the last, non doddling passenger is rarely that long.

Families, friends, couples are not going to go for your rule that one of them should get off first and the other should wait for the entire rest of column to leave.

How about just trying to be more patient? Find something to distract you and those 1 - 3 minutes will be over in a moment.

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

#405

Post by starfallg »

twojacobtwo wrote: post #363
disbshdns wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not babies. They just don’t get it. The totality of the commitment is lost on them. What’s new is that they also just don’t care.

Or, as I have heard from multiple friends who have chosen not to or can't have children(due to ethical concerns or lack of money), they understand completely and expect that parents take responsibility for the commitments they made without pushing the problems onto everyone else.

>without pushing the problems onto everyone else.

Or as others call it - "common courtesy"

I don't have children but I can understand that parenting is stressful enough as it is. Why go about making it worse for them?

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

#406

Post by 2rsf »

reaperducer wrote: post #38
StillBored wrote: post #18

The conclusions are pretty obvious, I guess they just needed to simulate it? The fastest boarding I've ever experienced was something Cathay Pacific did a few years ago. In the boarding area they had three lines with a bunch of section signs and an a couple employees hassling/sorting people between the lines. The rear of the plane sections were at the front of the line. I'm guessing they were just counting how many p…

The fastest boarding I experienced was years ago somewhere in Asia (Singapore, maybe), where three lines boarded through three doors: Two on the terminal side, and one on the far side. I was in the far-side group, and we had to hike up a lot of stairs and then through a jetway, presumably over the aircraft (hard to know with no windows), and then down a bunch of stairs and then enter the aircraft, where we could see…

Most (low cost) airlines I flew used one, or two at most, of the door. It would work even better if you could use doors on both sides of the plane.

The problem is that usually, in most airports, this requires more than a single jet bridge per plane or walking on the tarmac

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

#407

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

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.

Well, no wonder you don't get it, you have a pretty typical height. 10 or 15 cm make a huge difference in terms of seat legroom, especially taking into account that it's a well-known fact that tall people have a larger leg to torso ratio, i.e., most of the difference between an average and a tall individual is in leg length.

I'm 197 cm (between 6'5" and 6'6") and not only it's totally impossible for me to stretch my legs under the front seat, but in some airlines there is just no position for me in standard economy seats that won't physically hurt. When I fly for leisure, I pay to get more legroom, or just don't go. But since when I fly for work some silly regulations prevent me from paying for extra legroom, the first day after a longish flight I typically walk around limping.

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

#408

Post by simonskoog »

disbshdns wrote: post #315
glennpratt wrote: post #302

Earlier 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?

They’re not babies. They just don’t get it. The totality of the commitment is lost on them. What’s new is that they also just don’t care.

I'm not so sure about that. Two thoughts: The main reason me and my SO don't have kids is a deep concern about there not being any sure way to absolutely guarantee that a new person brought to this world will live a happy and fulfilling life and that the ethical thing to do is to when able (SO finishing education) adopt a child in need to improve their lives.

This of course means that I'm currently pretty sure that most _parents_ don't get it and that the commitment is lost on _them_.

But I'm also sure that they aren't doing anything wrong by having kids, it's just that it aligns with a value we share to not, ever, be a problem for other people. This trickles down into as fine-grain things as walking efficiently in public so that others aren't bothered and running into you and spending countless hours helping people out with without any reciprocation. So when you do encounter a whirlwind-family in public where the parents do not care about affecting others negatively it's unfortunately easy to become judgmental.

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

#409

Post by reportgunner »

> The researchers ended up with another counter-intuitive result: it's actually 28 percent more efficient to let slower passengers board first.

So is it faster or more efficient ?

What if we have faster-only and slower-only planes ? Won't that be even FASTER ?

Also: > This test was conducted in a mock Boeing 757 fuselage, located on a Southern California soundstage, with 12 rows of six seats and a single aisle. Five methods were tested using 72 passengers of various ages.

Is this really science or just a math excercise ?

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

#410

Post by reportgunner »

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…

The problem here is that we don't have a common objective to fight for when exiting the plane.

Other people don't care if you exit faster or slower, they only care to exit as soon as possible.

There is no tangible reason to fight for having everyone exit at the shortest possible time so nobody simply does it, why should they ?

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