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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

#451

Post by wutbrodo »

mc3 wrote: post #349
wutbrodo wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excluding children, for whom exceptions can be made, I'm not sure I understand why this is much of a problem. Does it really matter if you walk fifty feet without being next to your travel partner?

It might do, you are often not allowed to wait around as you walk from the plane to the terminal building and to passport control. You may be in different places in the queue. Now say one of you goes through to the first place you can wait, perhaps after passport control and before baggage collection. The other person doesn't turn up. You don't know why? Wait another 10 minute? Did they go through baggage area? Passp…

Well sure, I don't think anyone was suggesting that no waiting area is provided to meet back up til you hit the sidewalk. I thought it'd be clearly implied that there would be a spot to reunite after exiting the jetway

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

#452

Post by Grue3 »

asiachick wrote: post #402

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.

A train has less seats per door than a plane. Way less seats. It can also start moving before people have fully finished boarding (e.g. storing their luggage in overhead compartment).

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

#453

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

tedunangst wrote: post #322
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we are not talking about quicksort or mergesort, either way it helps prove my point. Typically faster is an interesting way of describing something. What is typical? 80% of the time?

Your point is that all algorithms respond the same way to inputs, and a counterexample helps prove it?

That wasn't my point - we are talking about a specific scenario here, not "all"

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

#454

Post by TallGuyShort »

verganileonardo wrote: post #245
TallGuyShort wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a documentary on Netflix, I think it's called "Speed" or something because it's about fast stuff, had an episode about doing Monte Carlo simulations of plane embark / disembark sequences that were optimal. They came up with optimal boarding processes but it required individual seat assignments which was a problem for kids (not to mention a ton of explaining). I forget if Southwest's semi-randomized approach w…

Hey. Do you have the name of the documentary? I couldn't find it here

I'm pretty sure the name was either "Speed" or "Fast" and that it was a 4-episode docuseries. This fits those characteristics but doesn't otherwise look familiar: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10287062/episodes?ref_=tt_ov_ep.... Also that says 2019, and I'm quite certain it was earlier than that. I can't find anything else either, though.

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

#455

Post by TallGuyShort »

Scoundreller wrote: post #277
TallGuyShort wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a documentary on Netflix, I think it's called "Speed" or something because it's about fast stuff, had an episode about doing Monte Carlo simulations of plane embark / disembark sequences that were optimal. They came up with optimal boarding processes but it required individual seat assignments which was a problem for kids (not to mention a ton of explaining). I forget if Southwest's semi-randomized approach w…

Really curious which documentary that was. Been trying to find it but no luck...

I'm pretty sure the name was either "Speed" or "Fast" and that it was a 4-episode docuseries. This fits those characteristics but doesn't otherwise look familiar: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10287062/episodes?ref_=tt_ov_ep.... Also that says 2019, and I'm quite certain it was earlier than that. I can't find anything else either, though.

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

#456

Post by senordevnyc »

sdoering wrote: post #373
jsjohnst wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not letting them board first (although personally I've always wondered why this is desirable) As someone who customarily boards early (due to fare class or airline status), I can tell you one solid reason, overhead bin space. If flight attendants would ensure folks put their bags on their row and the gate attendants ensured bags weren’t too large , this would be less an issue, but I routinely see folks fairly early…

I strongly despise people like that. If you add up lost time for all other passengers and compare that to won time for her and her family (less time waiting at the baggage claim) this ends up massively weighted against her behavior. non the less her behavior is actually rational and optimal from a standpoint of game theory. At least under current conditions (bag size not checked and enforced up front). This is in my…

So you strongly despise someone for being a rational actor within a broken system?

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

#457

Post by scott_s »

mattmaroon wrote: post #365
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…

I think when you’re getting on the plane, you’re forced to adhere to airline rules, si boarding groups can give them real control over the situation. When you leave, what is the airline going to do if you don’t listen? Kick you off the plane you just left? You really can’t feasibly make people do this on the way out even if it would work.

Yes, that is what I said in the close of my comment.

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

#458

Post by scott_s »

asiachick wrote: post #404
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 som…

I am patient - I distract myself by reasoning through how to improve the process.

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

#459

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

senordevnyc wrote: post #456
sdoering wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly despise people like that. If you add up lost time for all other passengers and compare that to won time for her and her family (less time waiting at the baggage claim) this ends up massively weighted against her behavior. non the less her behavior is actually rational and optimal from a standpoint of game theory. At least under current conditions (bag size not checked and enforced up front). This is in my…

So you strongly despise someone for being a rational actor within a broken system?

My guess is that his dislike stems from the fact that this lady only made things better for herself and her family, and not GP, or anyone else on the flight.

If everyone can't do it (bringing more luggage than will fit above you) then doing that seem like you're doing it because you're better than everyone else, which is offensive to most people for good reason. If her whole family had flown first class, that'd be a different story. (They'd probably still be annoyed at the family for basically cancelling out some of the perks of paying extra for flights, though.)

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

#460

Post by magduf »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #292
magduf wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can get my stuff out of the overhead bin in about 1 second. I have a better idea: people should have to go through qualification testing to see how fast they can grab their backpack out of the bin and start walking down the aisle. Fast people should get special dispensation, and slow people should be required to leave last. The problem is that too many people bumble around and take forever to do a very simple task.

Most people very rarely fly. Anyone can stumble doing a simple task for the first time in years while in a stressful situation.

That's fine: those people don't get priority status and have to wait until the qualified people leave until they can go.
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