
The way we board airplanes - sethbannon
http://www.vox.com/2014/4/25/5647696/the-way-we-board-airplanes-makes-absolutely-no-sense
======
scott_s
You can't control how the airline orchestrates boarding, but you can control
how you board. It's much less stressful to stay seated in the lounge while
everyone waits in line, then jump up at the end.

I understand the impulse to _get on the plane_ , but it's irrational if you
aren't using the overhead bins. (As a rule, I do not. I always check my bag
plane-side.) Getting on the plane earlier won't get you to your destination
faster. So, don't stress about it, sit down and relax.

Although, my attitude could end up screwing up these optimized methods. But I
don't think it hurts in the back-of-the-plane-first method.

~~~
MichaelGG
I like to get on early if I'm not already super comfortable. A: Get comfy, get
drinks, and get to sleep or into a book. B: Turn off all the TVs in vision
since half the people don't actually watch and won't figure out how to turn
them on.

Also I've found that a lot of people have an affinity for taking the better
seats (last row of front cabin on a lot of United's fleet has space under the
seat in addition to in front). While you _can_ let them know and ask them to
move, it makes you feel a bit like a jerk, especially if they switched seats
to sit next to a companion. Or if they got "confused" and took the other side
to avoid the sun and then say "oh I'm sorry, do you mind taking mine or shall
I move my stuff over to the other side of the cabin"?

This doesn't seem to happen in proper First cabins.

~~~
judk
Whenever I fly, the TVs auto on to show ads, sadetyt video, and more ads. The
only solution I found is to physically destroy the offending devices.

~~~
eckzow
Or press "brightness -" until they turn off...

~~~
bhaile
I tried. They disable the control functionality for the first set of ads. I
press brightness until screen is off as soon as I sit down. Screen comes on
for the ads and the safety video. Screen goes back to off for the rest of the
flight. Happened this week on a United on a 737.

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kd0amg
We once did a transposed Steffen on a high school marching band trip. Crew
said they'd never seen a plane fill that quickly. Unfortunately, this is
harder to coordinate when the passengers aren't all members of an organization
that practices standing in lines.

~~~
cortesoft
I think this is really the biggest obstacle to any of these 'superior'
methods; getting everyone to do it. For one thing, not everyone is ready to
board when you first start boarding. People will show up at different times,
after their own group was supposed to board. People won't line up in the right
order, no matter how hard you try to enforce it.

~~~
dllthomas
A very interesting question is how each of these methods degrades as more
people get further out of place.

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caster_cp
One factor that has to be taken into account is the "social" one, i.e. how can
we enforce that the ultra-fast amazingly optimal sitting scheme will be used.

Let's conduct a thought experiment. My grandma (that has difficulty hearing)
is boarding a plane. Try explaining to her, in a sensible and efficient manner
that only the people at the windows should get in first.

Ok, maybe my grandma is an extreme example. But think of a first time flyer.
Lots of people would be confused.

Also, as already stated, people that travel together sit side by side. Are you
going to split the young couple of newly weds during boarding? Is that really
sensible? Or the mother and her five kids?

The main takeaway that I get is that you should let people get in without any
pre-ordering. Unless you can devise a socially acceptable way to enforce
outside-in boarding, that is. I'm not.

You see, the bottom line for me is that simulations are really valuable, but
not taking into account the human factors involving the business, how the
people actually consume your product, you can have great ideas that work on
excel and flunk marvelously on the market.

~~~
MAGZine
"Now boarding people requiring special assistance or those with priority
seating"

"now boarding seats A and F."

"now boarding seats B and E"...

Seems simple enough. Priority seating would just be a box that you check off,
only available to people travelling in groups. Seat these people as far back
and as close to a wall as possible.

~~~
goshx
Sounds simple, but I have yet to be on a flight where nobody misses the
guidelines. There are always quite a few people "lost" and most of the time
intentionally.

~~~
brownbat
Even if we just start with the assumption that n% of people will
misunderstand, it still strikes me as unlikely that the best algorithm will be
the current one.

I think we have the next round of tests though. See how many people you need
to randomly swap before Steffen is worse than back-to-front.

------
MarkTee
I always have to laugh when, at the end of a flight, the majority of
passengers jump up and elbow their way into the aisle, even though in many
cases they'll be standing there for at least 5 minutes.

While sitting in the aisle seat, I've had passengers that were sitting beside
me fall into my lap as they try to jostle their way by, just to get a place in
the (stationary) line.

What's even funnier is when you see these people waiting around the baggage
claim 10 minutes later.

Crowd psychology is a funny thing.

~~~
citric_acid
I elbow my way into the aisle because, like anyone over 6 feet, I don't fit
comfortably into an airline seat and would dearly like to stand up. I would
also like people to figure out how to get their bags out of the overhead and
find their children before the aisle in front of them is clear, but I'll
settle for being able to stretch.

~~~
MarkTee
As a fellow 6'\+ person, one of the main reasons I stay seated is so that I
don't have to stoop below the overhead bins and/or subject my face to the
flurry of arms. :p

~~~
lostlogin
I thought I'd found the solution to the height + plane drama. I took a load of
sleeping pills. Every time I woke up I took more. It got me from NZ to Europe
feeling great, until the last 30 mins of the 30ish hour saga. I'd fallen
asleep with crossed legs and my upper leg had cut return circulation off (I
assume) and had gone red, swollen and painful. Somehow I limped off the plane.
I think the strategy is great but DVT stockings are needed to prevent
something like death occurring.

------
Joeri
The simplest way to avoid standing in line is to be fashionably late. You sit
and read a book until everyone else has boarded, and only then do you go
through.

I'm always surprised how everyone rushes to stand in line the moment boarding
starts. Rationally speaking they should wait until the last reasonable moment
to board, because the seat in the terminal is more comfortable than the one in
the airplane.

~~~
mikestew
Though, as others have pointed out, carry-ons can put a damper on the idea, I
tend to do this. Even before carry-ons became a consideration, I've been
mystified by people that want to get on the plane first. Umm, more time in the
aluminum tube in an uncomfortable seat? No thanks, I'll wait. I understand
that it may not work for everyone, but I typically check everything but a
laptop bag, and get on as late as I can. Grab a latte after getting off the
plane, and stand by the luggage output for 15 minutes while sipping my
delicious (okay, it's the airport: barely palatable) coffee beverage.

Even today when you get booked flights with no carry-on room, the gate agent
comes on the PA: "if you check your carry-on, we'll let you board first!" If I
check my bag and don't have a carry-on anymore, and I have an assigned seat,
how about I board dead last instead? Because I personally don't view being
first on the plane as a reward.

~~~
DanBC
You've never been bumped off a flight?

~~~
mikestew
Never that I can recall. Common problem for others?

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mynegation
This had been known for a while. Yet there are different considerations
besides fastest boarding time. First, people traveling together tend to sit
next to each other, so ordering by "columns" instead of rows breaks them apart
in the queue which may be either uncomfortable or downright infuriating if you
travel with young kids.

I can imagine that letting passengers take their seats at random results in
pretty fragmented available seating so if you travel as a large group and want
to seat together, this might be a problem too.

~~~
furyofantares
I think you could still do columns -- just allow people to go out of order if
they are going with someone that's going in order.

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carlosdp
Every airplane I've ever been on has boarded front to back (which I've always
found non-sensical), but the article says most board back to front. Am I going
crazy, or are Delta, US Airways, and American Airlines not in that "most US
airlines"?

~~~
Plasmoid
It's a recent trend to board front-to-back. This way, the first class
cabin/priority sections get first dibs on the overhead bins while the people
in the cheap sets get play Tetris meets Sword of Damocles.

~~~
drblast
Nothing to add but the Tetris meets Sword of Damocles made me laugh out loud.
Thanks for that.

------
samhoggnz
From my experience, the boarding problem is pretty specific to the US, where
everyone seems to have carry on bags perfectly sized to fit the overhead
compartments, of which there are not enough to satisfy everyone's need to not
check in any baggage (and thus avoid check in charges)

In my opinion the solution would probably be to discourage as much bulk in
carry on, rather than herding cats at the gate.

~~~
kylec
Completely agree. It makes no sense to me that you have to pay to check your
luggage, while carry-ons are free. It definitely should be the other way
around.

~~~
threedaymonk
Each checked item costs the airline: moving them around requires labour and
equipment, and there are further expenses dealing with the inevitable
proportion of lost, stolen, delayed or damaged bags. It probably shouldn't be
surprising that they seek to pass that on.

------
aaronbrethorst
Sounds nice in theory, but it totally breaks down with airlines' policies of
charging for checked luggage. Getting onboard first guarantees you a coveted
overhead bin spot, aisle clogging be damned.

~~~
anonymoushn
Do any airlines charge to check luggage once the overhead bins are full? I'm
generally too lazy to board in the proper order, and I always get my would-
have-been-a-carry-on checked for free.

~~~
hackuser
I take pleasure in the way this works out:

1\. The airline tries to nickel-and-dime customers by charging for checked
bags.

2\. Their customers respond by carrying on bags.

3\. The airline lacks capacity for the carry-ons

4\. The customers end up with a freebie: Free checked bags at the gate
(instead of waiting in line in the lobby).

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vim-guru
I'm sure it could be improved further by a re-design of aircrafts. We could
board a capsule beforehand or make the entire aircraft with falcon-walls. But
the Steffen method sounds pretty good to :)

~~~
umeshunni
I'm not sure a redesign of aircraft is necessary - simply allowing both back
to front and front to back entry should make boarding times much faster. It
will require that airports are redesigned to support this though.

------
xyzzy123
I wonder if you could build a passenger pod which attaches to the airframe.
The pods get swapped when the plane comes in to the terminal. The new pod
would already be fully boarded, and deplaning people on the arriving pod would
not hold everything up.

I guess whether this would be worth it or not depends on whether the
advantages of "0 boarding time" from the airline's point of view offset the
cost of the infrastructure and extra weight required to support such a system.

From a security point of view, you could keep the pod completely decoupled
from the other parts of the aircraft (e.g. no cabin access, not "coupled into"
control systems).

~~~
judk
That sounds incredibly crash-prone. I prefer to fly in one-piece airplanes.

------
kumarski
Boarding time isn't a bottleneck ergo it's not a problem.

The real time suck when a plane is grounded is emptying the latrine, loading
the water, refueling, doing engine checks.

The lack of major airlines and the high entry costs in the space mean that
it's unlikely you'll lose travelers over user experience.

RyanAir is a prime example of this....just imho though.

~~~
zw123456
Exactly, there is no incentive or profit for the airlines to speed the
boarding process. In fact, it takes a fixed amount of time to turn around a
plane so if you can make it seem like it is the passengers fault and not
their, all the better. It might even be that it is to the benefit of the
airlines for it to take longer.

------
dm2
The article ends by saying that most airlines don't do the optimal methods of
boarding in order to encourage people to upgrade to priority/early boarding,
and that it makes them more money that way.

Wouldn't it make the airlines even more money to optimize boarding, which
would enhance customer experience, which would increase the likelihood of them
flying with you on future flights?

I'm sure some accountant somewhere has numbers that say otherwise but it's
difficult to accurately measure how that small of a chance could increase
brand loyalty (a major factor in Southwest's success). In my opinion, other
airlines should reconsider the decision to leave boarding unoptimized.

Is that the wrong way to think about business decisions or should you always
trust the predicted numbers no matter what?

~~~
JacksonGariety
Probably not, I have a feeling 9/10 people just buy the cheapest tickets
regardless of the airline. The other 10% go with Virgin or something with fun
branding.

Customer satisfaction is already in the negatives, they're being wise and
playing their strong points: upgrades.

------
goshx
This should take into consideration the time to organize the people before
they enter the plane. I may have missed it, but I didn't see the research
cover that. I bet the "most efficient" method pointed is one of the less
efficient methods to organize people outside.

~~~
polarix
Imagine trying to implement the Steffen proposal. Everyone has to be in
exactly the right position in line for their seat. You'd essentially need to
number the seats in the preflight lounge and loosely enforce seat numbers at
that point.

~~~
plorg
I imagine this could also get very confusing when a number of passengers show
up at the last minute.

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guard-of-terra
In Europe this doesn't happen (in my limited experience). People board in
random order in which they lined up towards the gate or get off the airport
bus.

I think this is because americans can't ever let anybody loiter so they just
have to push people into some order, even inferior one.

~~~
t__r
I'm a frequent flyer, mostly within Europe, and this is true. The exception is
boarding a bigger plane like the 747. But iirc the ordering is then more
coarse grained (based on aisles instead of seats).

And I guess I'm not the only European who immediately thinks of low fares,
blue and yellow plastic, non-reclining seats and lottery ticket sales, when
reading about that damned random method.

~~~
anonymousDan
At least they've finally switched to preassigned seating a la Easy jet though.
Alleluia, it's so much more relaxing!

------
yeukhon
The article doesn't capture the fact that half of the time the boarding delay
is caused by people looking for available space in the overhead bins. Even in
the best workflow he demonstrated, there will still be people going back and
forth to find a bin.

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turbulents
I'm not seeing any Group 1 passengers arriving late and having to board with
Group 3 or 4 and that happens on pretty much every flight I've been on.

Maybe we're simulating a delayed flight then?

But if the flight's already delayed, who even cares anymore.

------
rakoo
That Steffen method looks much more theoretical than the other ones. The
problem is you will have to line everyone perfectly at the boarding gate, and
I believe this is pretty much impossible (everyone wants to get in first,
they're barely ok with letting other people go in front of them because even
if it's faster on the whole, it's slower for that person, which is all that
matters). The outside-in should be implementable, but people who travel
together want to stay together, so it's going against them.

Back-to-front still seems like the easiest method for an un-ordered, mildly-
cooperative group of agents.

------
dllthomas
_" those who pay extra are sitting on planes longer than necessary"_

Only if the passengers boarding is the thing that takes the longest (as
opposed to refueling, inspections, loading luggage, getting clearance). This
may very well be the case some or even all the time, but I don't know that it
is.

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Cbasedlifeform
What's interesting to me (as a very frequent traveller) is that I have
routinely seen completely full 747-size planes board in 10-15 minutes in
Japan. This has much to do with the culture I suspect, plus smaller size
humans, and less tendancy to take bigger bags. Still, it's impressive.

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sltkr
> These methods are all unquestionably faster than the standard method, so
> would speed up the turnaround times, theoretically saving airlines money.

That's assuming boarding is the bottleneck in the turnaround process. Is it?

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ibrad
Although the boarding time is improved, there is overhead in the sorting
algorithms. Try to run a bubble sort on a family and see how that goes.

The time gained in the speed of sitting is lost in the sorting.

~~~
aragot
The boarding time for an A380 is 45min to 1hr before departure. When you count
how much money is being spent, they probably wouldn't mind printing sequence
numbers on the boarding pass.

The article doesn't state how much time would be saved for a big plane,
though.

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kirk21
Easyjet is also quite efficient. You have 2 enterances (front and back). You
are designated to a specific enterance (based on your seat number). This
already reduces the problem.

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mongol
I once had a colleague with the following idea:print the seat numbers and
assign them as people queue to board the plane. In practise this would fill
the plane from back to front

~~~
esquivalience
Unfortunately the front seats are usually mist desirable. That system would
incentivise people to the back of the queue - nobody would stand up first!

Might be possible to undo this effect by filling up front-to-back - but that
creates other practical problems.

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mikhailfranco
It's all about the baggage policy, not the boarding policy.

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a8da6b0c91d
They just need to get rid of the overhead luggage compartments. Unchecked
luggage is the entire boarding problem. It is also what holds up the security
lines.

Make checking luggage much faster/easier and at the destination get it out for
pick up much faster than is done now. Dramatically shrink or remove the
overhead bins. Boarding and security line problems solved.

~~~
cortesoft
They would also have to stop charging for checked bags.

No matter how efficient they get at checking bags, though, not having to do it
will always be faster.

I don't really see how much faster they can get in terms of unloading the
bags... you will still have to wait for all the bags to come out on the
conveyer belt, and whoever gets the last bag will have to wait quite a bit.

------
ShaneCurran
There was a Mythbusters episode a while back testing different boarding
methods. If I recall correctly, having a "free-for-all" seating arrangement
was the fastest, although it received the lowest customer satisfaction score
from customers. The most satisfactory method of boarding was "WILMA[1] with
blocks" which involves having business board first, followed by a combination
of back-to-front and WILMA boarding while each zone was boarded with the WILMA
method, starting from the back.

[1] Stands for "windows-middles-aisles". See
[http://take.ms/znON7](http://take.ms/znON7) for a definition.

~~~
egonschiele
This information is already in the article.

