I don't think you'd call this a Monte Carlo simulation. It's just an experiment.
Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half
31–40 of 114 posts
Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half
#32What a shock to read that despite this knowledge, the airline industry continues to do things the exact same way, wasting huge amounts of time and money and fuel in the process.
This really isn't a smart industry, in many respects.
Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half
#33Boarding by blocks starting at the front is ridiculous. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to think of a worse way to board a plane. And yet somehow every time I fly that's how it happens. Maybe it's just that my company chooses horrible airlines. The article mentions that assorted methods of boarding were tried, though it only goes into detail about "the Steffen method". I wonder what the difference between blocks-from-th…
I don't think that boarding back to front is the necessarily an obvious win here. One thing you will see on flights is that people in the back often place their overhead bags in a compartment near the front. As they do not plan to access this during the flight, it causes them no trouble and saves carrying the bag back and forth. The downside, of course, is that people in the front quickly run out of overhead space while there is still plenty of room in the back. Shuffling bags back and forth is obviously costly and depending upon the prevalence of this behavior may result in less efficient boarding (as compared to front to back).
Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half
#34Boarding by blocks starting at the front is ridiculous. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to think of a worse way to board a plane. And yet somehow every time I fly that's how it happens. Maybe it's just that my company chooses horrible airlines. The article mentions that assorted methods of boarding were tried, though it only goes into detail about "the Steffen method". I wonder what the difference between blocks-from-th…
I think part of the reason that people could justify the expense of first class is exactly this -- the ability to sit there with a smug look while the rest of the plane exasperatedly waits to be seated.
I once got bumped up to Business Class and the experience sorely tempted me to spend the extra money in the future. It had nothing to do with smugness and everything to do with a seat that isn't painfully small, enough legroom to avoid being horribly cramped, ability to recline more than five degrees, and food that didn't make me want to vomit in terror.
Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half
#35This looks good in theory, but if you have a party of 2 or more people, who are presumably seated together, then it is practically impossible to get them to board at different times as the algorithm would want to. I don't know for sure, but based on anecdotal observation I would guess that at least 50% of persons onboard travel with a co-passenger. I think that will throw the algorithm off quite significantly.
Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Though back-to-front means that the expensive passengers can arrive closer to the departure time, and don't have to suffer through everyone in economy shuffling by them and hitting them with their carry-on. It does cost them some flexibility, in that they can't board as soon as they arrive. But my experience is that sitting outside of a plane is generally far nicer than sitting in first class... at least on domestic…
You misunderstand a big part of a first class ticket. The curtain between first class and economy class doesn't make the seats more comfortable. It keeps "undesirables" out of the sight of snobs. If airlines want snobs to board later, they better install curtains segregating the lobby.
Don't most airlines have a separate lobby for business class and first class passengers?
I've never flown domestic, but that's the way its been for international flights.
Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half
#37Airlines have been doing their own research into this, apparently. American Airlines is switching to randomized boarding (one of Steffen's proposed solutions) and United is partially switching to window-middle-aisle. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190423340457645...
Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half
#38Classic example of "cracking a nut with a sledge hammer". You don't need Monte Carlo to understand that boarding first rows is less efficient, or to come up with a much more efficient procedure. (And this is coming from a Monte Carlo lover). What you do need is biz savvyness to understand that rows are ordered by passenger value (first and biz class first, followed by premium, platinum, frequent flyers, etc). These p…
> You don't need Monte Carlo to understand that boarding first rows is less efficient, or to come up with a much more efficient procedure.
Such as boarding from both the front cabin door and the rear cabin door?
Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
You misunderstand a big part of a first class ticket. The curtain between first class and economy class doesn't make the seats more comfortable. It keeps "undesirables" out of the sight of snobs. If airlines want snobs to board later, they better install curtains segregating the lobby.
Don't most airlines have a separate lobby for business class and first class passengers? I've never flown domestic, but that's the way its been for international flights.
There isn't really a difference between first class and business class on domestic flights. If you have the miles or your company pays for it, you can go sit in the sky club or whatever, but that's over by the entrance and there's usually no difference when you get to the gate.
Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half
#40Looking at the paper, it seems the passengers were the same and boarded five times in a row, with the last two methods proving the fastest. The major experimental flaw seems to be that the passengers themselves might learn to become more efficient after concentrating on a normally rare task, and repeating it several times in a row. Also, since some of them were paid extras, they might just be getting impatient by the…
I participated in an FAA cert airline evacuation test once. Only participants who'd never gone down the slide before were allowed, and only one take was allowed.
(yeah, we passed!)