I hate flying, and in terms of plane loading, I think the best strategy is to get loaded prior to boarding the damn thing.
A Better Way to Load a Plane
21–30 of 60 posts
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#22For simplicity, his model assumes a plane with 120 passengers seated in 40 rows, each with a central aisle having three seats to the left and three seats to the right of it.
So this only works with 50% occupancy? 120/(40*(3+3))
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#23This is pointless, because boarding time does not waste any time. When a plane lands, it has to stay in the airport for quite a bit of time in most cases - even if you made boarding more efficient, you would not save any time. Refueling, getting in the right take off slot take longer than boarding the plane.
And the question is - does this method feel better to the passengers getting on? I don't know, but I kinda doubt it.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#24The problem with these proposals is that the passengers' incentives aren't aligned with the airline's. I sit and read a magazine or surf the internet until everyone else has boarded, which minimizes time spent queueing, and that spent in the plane itself. (Of course, this isn't a sustainable strategy for everyone to adopt.)
It depends. If you have a big carry-on, it is in your best interests to get in the plane as quickly as possible, so you don't have to gate-check your bag. This is why first class and elites get to board before everyone else, even if they'd rather be surfing the intarwebs.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was addressed in the article. It states "The outcome is fairly robust in the sense that it's relatively insensitive to deviations from it, say, because of couples or families being seated together." During ticket purchase, families could be noted as such and all given the lowest group number amongst them.
Traveling Ryanair or other budget airlines, you get a "sequence number" which is the order in which you've checked in, theoretically this is also the order in which you board (seating is unassigned). But then you get there and they say "families traveling with children board first" and as this is an Irish airlines that's, umm, everyone but me. Which is understandable perhaps if people want to sit together, but hey, d…
The good news is that exit rows are desirable, and children and their keepers are prohibited (in the US, anyway) from sitting in them. So they can pre-board all they want, and not take away any of the good seats.
(Of course, people are idiots. The one time I flew Southwest, I was on standby and boarded last -- the only remaining seat was an exit row. I was amazed.)
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#26The problem with boarding planes is that people completely ignore when they're supposed to board and immediately line up as soon as boarding starts. I fly all the time and as soon as boarding starts for the last N rows more than half of the passengers line up, in a completely random fashion. It's as if people are unnerved by waiting while other people are boarding, even though everyone has a specific seat. People wou…
Luckily, people are easily trained by enforcing the rules. If airlines actually enforced zone rules, people would learn that it's easier to obey them than to chance the hangup they would cause by a failed attempt to cheat them.
I don't think the average person flies frequently enough to really get a feel for the rules. They hear "my flight is boarding" and feel like the flight will leave without them if they don't hang around the gate. Even I get a little worried when I arrive after boarding has begun (and I fly at least once a month).
The demographic that flies frequently enough to learn the rules probably already has elite status, and gets to board first anyway.
(I imagine there is a small number of people that fly frequently, know they need to beat the rush to get their carry-on stowed, but for some reason don't have elite status. Maybe enforcing the rules would train these people -- but there's really no incentive for them to not break the rules, so they will probably try anyway.)
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#27Imagine an airplane whose ceiling opened up to reveal a completely empty cabin. These planes could be parked underneath their gates at airports. At the gate itself would be the entire cabin (seats, overhead storage, etc.) as a complete unit which could be accessed by the passengers at any time before departure. At departure time, the floor of the gate opens, the cabin is lowered into the waiting plane and the ceiling…
I think if the boarding area contained a large vacuum chamber, and the plane cabin were heavily pressurized before docking, explosive decompression could be used to remove all passengers, or their remains, from the cabin in a fraction of a second. A similar technique could be used to load the plane.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#28Imagine an airplane whose ceiling opened up to reveal a completely empty cabin. These planes could be parked underneath their gates at airports. At the gate itself would be the entire cabin (seats, overhead storage, etc.) as a complete unit which could be accessed by the passengers at any time before departure. At departure time, the floor of the gate opens, the cabin is lowered into the waiting plane and the ceiling…
(Most) planes use the skin as a load bearing structure to reduce weight. Punching holes in it is therefore mostly avoided, and those holes that are required (windows, door) tend to be designed to minimize stress points.
Your proposal would require a massive increase in weight (or reduction in strength/rigidity) that would most likely offset any benefit from improved loading times.
Aviation is all about trade offs. Even when I was doing systems software any benefits from software upgrades were compared to weight/power/cooling/operating costs religiously.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#29In theory I guess it sounds good, but I don't see it working at all. This would create 18 seperate groups of passengers, and unless they're already in line in the right order, there's no way this would be faster. When they call your zone to board, it usually takes a few minutes for every person in taht zone just to get in line. Multiply that by 18 and there's no fucking way this saves any time.
I've been on an airline where they line up individuals in a specific order (there's number markers along the line at the gate to make it easy). I don't know what the algorithm was, but it seemed fairly efficient.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#30This is a perfect example of where a computer fails to interpret the intricacies of real life. For reasons such as groups sitting together, too many divisions, etc. Planes have rear and front doors. Why don't we start by just splitting people into front and back and filling in from the middle - assuming this really is an issue which needs to be solved.
Do people really care if they're split up for 10 minutes while boarding? In the case of families with kids, they're allowed to board early anyway.
And I've seen planes loaded from the front and back before.