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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

#91

Post by cgriswald »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #64
reaperducer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love CGP Grey's animations, and you can clearly tell this one involved a lot of work. The problem with his analyses is that they're frequently wrong because he look at problems in a very academic way and severely oversimplifies them. For example, his video about cars going through intersections makes perfect sense in a simulated world on a computer. But it falls down instantly in real life because it presumes that…

> Similarly, his plane boarding simulation falls down as soon as someone shows up late, or in a wheelchair, or with a bum leg, drunk, a baby, luggage that the wheel has fallen off of, etc... All of these things occur in non-ideal boarding scenarios as well. I don't see how they affect his solution more so than what we currently have.

It’s sort of like comparing two algorithms and using the one that has the simplest best case time complexity without considering the average case or that your particular real-world use might actually be a worst case.

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

#92

Post by mehrdadn »

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…

> personally I've always wondered why this is desirable

Maybe peace of mind? One you're on the plane you know you're good to go. When you're in the terminal you have to keep diverting your attention to announcements, changes, distractions, etc.

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

#93

Post by ftio »

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.

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

#94

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#95

Post by dave5104 »

ehnto wrote: post #62
reaperducer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

although personally I've always wondered why this is desirable When I was fat, I paid extra for first class tickets so that I wouldn't be the slob jerk who overflowed into my neighbor's coach class seat. Because of that, I had a lot of coach-mindset first-class seats. Boarding first in first class gives you an opportunity to get some work done, to relax a bit before the plane takes off, and almost always you get to h…

How much longer do you get typically? I never have to wait that long to board as economy so I am curious if my economy boarding is atypical. I could totally see how an hour sitting in first class might be nicer than poking about a terminal. Is it ever that long?

I've typically had 20-25 extra minutes before they finally close the door. It's enough to get a head start on a podcast or watch a short TV episode.

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

#96

Post by kelnos »

paparush wrote: post #41

Boarding for the major US carriers is so broken. My solution - NO OVERHEAD BAGS - period.

I'd only be ok with that if checked baggage came out immediately, with zero wait, and if there was zero incidence of lost baggage.

I know things are better these days, but I've been burned too many times to ever check baggage again.

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

#97

Post by scott_s »

efraim wrote: post #85
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…

Also, people like to sit next to people they know such as family. A column approach sounds more effective, but it would split up people traveling together.

Very good point. And unlike boarding, trying to handle exceptions first or last doesn't really work because people are physically blocked from leaving their row. I've figured we'd never do this for cultural reasons, it's just something I ruminate over while traveling alone, staring at the empty aisle of a half-full plane.

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

#98

Post by jaywalk »

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 was on a flight a year or two ago where, upon landing, a woman turned her phone on and received a call informing her that her brother had passed away. She was understandably quite distraught as we taxied to the gate, and the lead flight attendant even made an announcement asking everyone to please remain seated so that she could exit the plane first.

Nobody listened.

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

#99

Post by tsimionescu »

plussed_reader wrote: post #83
reaperducer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fastest boarding I experienced was years ago somewhere in Asia (Singapore, maybe), where three lines boarded through three doors: Two on the terminal side, and one on the far side. I was in the far-side group, and we had to hike up a lot of stairs and then through a jetway, presumably over the aircraft (hard to know with no windows), and then down a bunch of stairs and then enter the aircraft, where we could see…

Reminds me of loading onto a Ryanair flight in Edinburgh; the labyrinth walk to the door that put you onto the tarmac a short walk from the stairs. Loaded back to front, and since there are no assigned seats on Ryanair it's just like getting on the (air)bus.

Whenever I've flown Ryanair, the seats were assigned and printed on the boarding pass (but you had to pay if you wanted to chose your seat). When was this time that they weren't?

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

#100

Post by NoodleIncident »

reaperducer wrote: post #47
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.

I love CGP Grey's animations, and you can clearly tell this one involved a lot of work. The problem with his analyses is that they're frequently wrong because he look at problems in a very academic way and severely oversimplifies them. For example, his video about cars going through intersections makes perfect sense in a simulated world on a computer. But it falls down instantly in real life because it presumes that…

I was under the impression that his conclusions come from the same sort of papers we're discussing in the OP, and that the animation is just a demonstration of the effect. Some real-life issues should be addressed in future studies, for sure; for airplanes, it's probably important to model "families" that sit, board, and deplane together. But just listing the variables not accounted for in the study or video isn't scientific criticism, you have to do your own work to actually demonstrate that it makes a difference.
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