Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Letting slower passengers board airplane first is faster, study finds

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 512 posts

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

#131

Post by adwww »

chrisco255 wrote: post #123

It would be nice if they could also allow people to board and depart from the front and back doors of the plane. I've done this from the tarmac on a Frontier flight once in the South Terminal in Austin, and since you walk out on the tarmac old-school style, they have two ramps for onloading and offloading. Makes things much quicker. I don't know if the jet bridges could be extended to allow for front and back door ac…

Lots of European airports (including LHR) do this - air bridge to the front door and steps to the back door.

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

#132

Post by mamon »

undefined1 wrote: post #4

CGP Grey has a great video examining different boarding methods and why some are slower or faster than others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHbLRjF0vo Also noting that the way we deplane (front to back) is the slowest method, heh.

One thing airlines should pay closer attention to is amount/size of carry-on luggage to better match overhead bins capacities. I've seen people bringing clearly oversized roller bag, AND big laptop bag, AND big purse, and then spending a lot of time trying to place all of that in bins, or under preceeding seat, blocking the aisle while doing so.

That's also the main reason why I try to board as fast as possible - to ensure that there's still space for my luggage.

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

#133

Post by benhurmarcel »

ftio wrote: post #93
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…

This sounds like it might be faster, and I might like it for solo business trips, but getting on/off with my family is not optional for me. Assuming most multi-passenger groups feel similarly, and assuming solo business passengers represent only ~40% of the population, the impact of such a system (which would require substantially more passenger discipline/planning) would be pretty limited.

> 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.

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

#134

Post by throwaway287391 »

cryptonector wrote: post #42

Airlines don't just sell the tickets. They sell convenience and comfort. And they have to mediate a limited resource shared by passengers: overhead bin space. So they want premium customers to get dibs on overhead bin space, which means letting them board first. The slowest part of boarding sometimes is the tail (economy and late-arrivals) looking for bin space, or worse, having to bring their carry-on back to the do…

It's really odd to me that airlines decided to charge for checked bags rather than overhead bin storage. Even before it was common to charge for checked bags, almost everyone I've ever met preferred carry-ons whenever possible. And when they "enforce" carry-on bag size limits, the worst thing they'll do is gate-check your bag for free, which is still much better than checking a bag and having to wait there half an hour for it to show up on the carousel anxiously wondering whether you were the lucky one whose baggage they lost today. (Hell, it's arguably the best case scenario, though does still cost you a few minutes waiting.) It's like they go out of their way to give me every possible incentive to be that obnoxious person that always brings his obviously oversized on every flight.

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

#135

Post by adwww »

russdill wrote: post #2

There's a lot of focus on improving boarding times. But I haven't seen any attempts to improve deplaning. It's always via the slowest possible method.

Boarding can't normally happen while the plane is being refuelled, which means passengers boarding the plane is the last thing that happens before the plane is ready to take off.

That means the faster they can board passengers, the sooner the plane can get in the air.

For deplaning it's not so urgent for the airlines to speed it up, as once the plane has been disenbarked there is still 40+ minutes of refuelling, cleaning, unloading and reloading baggage, etc.

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

#136

Post by Macha »

virtuous_signal wrote: post #21
undefined1 wrote: post #4

CGP Grey has a great video examining different boarding methods and why some are slower or faster than others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHbLRjF0vo Also noting that the way we deplane (front to back) is the slowest method, heh.

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…

Boarding first on budget Airlines like Ryanair guarantees you a space in the overhead for your carry on, as opposed to it taking all your legroom or being forcibly checked in at the gate ("free of charge" as if it's a service).

In some airports it also reduces total queueing time, though in others it just moves you from queuing at the boarding desk to queueing at a bus stop/stairwell/skybridge.

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

#137

Post by bcrosby95 »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #133
ftio wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like it might be faster, and I might like it for solo business trips, but getting on/off with my family is not optional for me. Assuming most multi-passenger groups feel similarly, and assuming solo business passengers represent only ~40% of the population, the impact of such a system (which would require substantially more passenger discipline/planning) would be pretty limited.

> 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.

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

#138

Post by freedomben »

pochamago wrote: post #120

I've always thought we should board back to front. Do first class travelers really want to be stuck in a non moving plane longer than others anyway?

I've always thought this too, but according to the article, we are wrong.

> Steffen fully expected that boarding from the back to the front would be the most efficient strategy and was surprised when his results showed that strategy was actually the least efficient.

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

#139

Post by benhurmarcel »

whiddershins wrote: post #130

You know what I think is weird about all this discussion? Boarding and deplaning really don’t take that long, most of the time. Think 15 or 20 minutes max. It’s one of those things where it feels incredibly long and arduous. It feels interminable. But that has something (IMO) more to do with the psychological experience of flying. The actual time cost is fairly small, especially compared to so many other wastes of yo…

The reason this time is given so much attention isn't for the impression of the passengers, it's to minimize turnaround time to keep the aircraft making money.

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

#140

Post by londons_explore »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #133
ftio wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like it might be faster, and I might like it for solo business trips, but getting on/off with my family is not optional for me. Assuming most multi-passenger groups feel similarly, and assuming solo business passengers represent only ~40% of the population, the impact of such a system (which would require substantially more passenger discipline/planning) would be pretty limited.

> 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.

Ryanair has pretty much given up enforcing seat allocations. Sure, your boarding pass might say one seat number, but it's pretty much a "sit in any free seat" policy. 90% of the time when i get on the plane someone else is in my seat, so I'm forced to sit in a random seat, giving someone else the exact same issue.

The staff know that getting everyone back into the correct seats will take a massive effort, so don't bother.

Post reply on HN