A Better Way to Load a Plane
abcnews.go.com
A Better Way to Load a Plane
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Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#2I took a coupla air trips recently, and in all four cases, the boarding took less than 30 minutes. Reducing that to 5 minutes seems essentially impossible, since some families would take more than 5 minutes by themselves.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#3"it turns out that the best method (one of several more or less equivalent methods) calls for passengers in even-numbered window seats near the back of the plane to board first", followed by even middle, even front, and odd rows int same order.
I think I would be very annoyed if I arrived first and was the last to board, but the article says that its method is 6x faster than the current method.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#4In 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.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#5In 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 could see this working very well for Southwest, though, for instance, as they already have everyone pre-line up not only by lettered zones, but also in groups of five within those zones (eg "B 15-20") at most every Southwest gate they service.
Instead of milling around the gate in the 15 minutes before boarding, they get everyone where they're supposed to go, and then funnel them through the door single file, in order. As the article references, though, it breaks down into a clogged jam-up of humanity trying to stuff their carry-ons into the compartment the moment you get to the plane.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#6"Even random boarding would be faster."
That would be pretty fun.
I wonder about families boarding, though. It seems like the proposed solution would fall apart fairly often. Families often sit together and want to board at the same time.
(also, thank you so much for submitting the print version)
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#7The suggested method isn't going to work for families and couples with adjacent seats.
If the primary impediment to rapid boarding is cargo stowage, it seems like it would make sense to focus efforts on developing an alternative carry-on cargo stowage system.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#8The 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 would have to be trained into some form of orderly boarding before improving on the theory has a hope of helping.
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#9The 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.)
Re: A Better Way to Load a Plane
#10People like to stay in groups, splitting a group of friends or a family who are in the same aisle into seperate boarding parties is unlikely to work.
Trying to find another article on the subject which showed not allocating seats and allowing a free for all was almost as effective as this tactic.