Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fliers

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What’s the quickest way to get passengers onto a plane? Millions of dollars hang on the question, since airlines lose money each time a flight is delayed by people futzing with carry-ons. Now an astrophysicist has devised and tested a method that’s better, he says, than any currently used by airlines.
The key is staggered seating, and moving from one side of the plane to the other, in order to prevent people-jams.
The physicist, Jason H. Steffen, and a co-author, Jon Hotchkiss, tested the method against competing approaches on a mock airplane on a soundstage in Studio City, CA; the plane had 12-rows, six seats per row, and one aisle.
Passengers with children boarded first—children being an unavoidable inefficiency. The other passengers lined up like so: “12F, 10F, 8F, 6F, 4F, 2F.” (F signified a window seat.) Then seats on the opposite side of the plane got filled, back to front, in the same alternating pattern. “12A, 10A, 8A …”. Then a return to the F row: “11F, 9F …” And so on—back and forth.
This method got 72 test subjects seated in three minutes, forty seconds. Boarding all of the window-seat passengers, followed by the middle seats, then aisle seats (United’s approach, according to this Journal article), came in second, at 4:21. Randomized boarding (used by American) took 4:48. Old-school back-to-front seating took a full 6:16.

To see the “Steffen method” in action, see the video snippet, below.
http://youtu.be/o9-XjEI8VmA

 
But that is assuming all your "subjects" are present and KNOW what seat they are in. When is the last time you saw a plane full of people do anything they were supposed to. Nice idea but it will never work with the idiots that travel.
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

Didn't UAL try rear-first boarding a while back? It seemed to make sense, fill up the back first then work your way forward. No blocking of aisles because a passenger was trying to jam his 75 pound carry on into the overhead compartment. I'm not sure of what became of that. I don't think passengers liked it.
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

flyingsaluki1 said:
Didn't UAL try rear-first boarding a while back? It seemed to make sense, fill up the back first then work your way forward. No blocking of aisles because a passenger was trying to jam his 75 pound carry on into the overhead compartment. I'm not sure of what became of that. I don't think passengers liked it.
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Read a similar article this morning that said that loading from the back to the front/windows to aisles/zone or group boarding were all inefficent.

Trying to find the article that listed all the types they tested. If I recall correctly, the "cattle call" method that Southwest uses is actually fairly efficent. :)
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

Just tell people there are a handful of free drink coupons scattered on random seats, but they have to be turned-in before the cabin door closes or else they're worthless. It's usually the same cattle that can't count to 25 or understand the concept of squeezing their bulk out of the aisle who are also enticed by free baubles and salt licks.

That's the carrot. The stick is the gate agent who brings up the rear of the line with a stopwatch and an electric prod.

Y'see, the trick is to have 'em load along a curved chute; make's 'em less antsy and think they're going somewhere if they can't see the end of the line.
A curved working alley takes advantage of an animal’s natural behavior to turn away from potential danger or unpleasant sites or sounds. Curved working facilities prevent the animal from seeing the squeeze chute or truck until they are almost upon it.

CattlePeople like to follow each other. Each animal should be able to see the one ahead of it. Blocking gates in a chute need to be see-through gates, so cattlepeople can see the animal ahead. If the animal views a dead-end, it will balk. Make single-file chutes at least 20 feet long.

Uniform lighting can help avoid shadows. CattlePeople in the dark will move toward the light. If you are loading at night, use a frosted light in the truckjetway or shine your flashlight into the truckaircraft. Avoid glare in their faces. Livestock tend to balk if they are forced to look into the sun. Position loading and squeeze chutes north and south for summer handling.
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Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

Pilotdude3407 said:
But that is assuming all your "subjects" are present and KNOW what seat they are in. When is the last time you saw a plane full of people do anything they were supposed to. Nice idea but it will never work with the idiots that travel.
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You would expect the person carrying the boarding pass is competent enough to put two and two together.
Read your seat assignment on your boarding pass and find your seat when you get onboard, how is that hard but I know what you're saying.

Airlines are the ones to blame themselves, start charging people to check in their bags and what else do you expect them to do.

The rear seating is absolute crap as well, so pretty much anyone who gets onboard first can have as much overhead space as they like and everyone who boards last gets shafted. I hated checking in my carry on but at least I was non reving :p
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

No suprise there really. From the outside in has always been the best way to fill anything.
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

I'm a huge fan of SWA simultaneous boarding via fore and aft doors in BUR.

Boom. Problem solved. Door is already on the plane.
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

I'd be curious to hear how much of the "extra" money from charging for checked bags SWA makes back by getting the swine on to the plane most ricky-tick (Since presumably at least some of the porcine masses no longer feel the need to pack their life in to their "carry-on"). Crazy like a fox is old LUV.
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

Not to be a negative Nancy, but filling the window seats first may work great in the lab, but wouldn't work well in real life. Parties traveling together will usually want to sit together and thus board together. That would throw a nice wrench in the system.
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

Douglas said:
I'm a huge fan of SWA simultaneous boarding via fore and aft doors in BUR.

Boom. Problem solved. Door is already on the plane.
Click to expand...

First time I've seen that in a long time was on Aer Lingus recently. On and off the boat in 3 minutes flat.
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

Douglas said:
I'm a huge fan of SWA simultaneous boarding via fore and aft doors in BUR.

Boom. Problem solved. Door is already on the plane.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the SWA boarding process at stations that are not Burbank occasionally resembles a free-for-all. It works great at Burbank, but I've witnessed some downright dumb things (that resulted in departure delays, no less!) at SJC.

The BIG bag goes on top. The LITTLE bag goes under your seat...
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

The completely random option didn't fare too badly in the tests either, slower than the Steffen method (but as a previous poster pointed out, that relies on people actually being able to think for themselves), but still faster than the methods currently used. Who'd have thought that Easyjet and Ryanair could actually get something right!
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

None of this matters when the wheelchair service Delta (or whoever) contracts out to takes 10 minutes to get to the airplane. It is better than it used to be though. Furthermore if the turns could get that much quicker we'd still be late because they would staff and plan for that new time. Spend more money hiring helpful gate agents who are trained to run the computers correctly instead of the flurry of stupidity and keystrokes that lessens when the rude red coat comes by.
 
Re: Physicist Claims to Have Found Quickest Way to Board Fli

Quite a few sexual innuendos here; surprised no one has capitalized on them.
 
Yeah, there are a lot of problems in real world boarding that don't show up in this experiment. All the people boarding in his tests were present at boarding time. Have just 5% not show up until ETD -10 and they'll inevitably be some that should've been in the first boarding zone, botching it up for everyone. Or the idiots that get in line when the agent announces zone 1 and their ticket clearly shows zone 5. There are a million examples.

The point being, many of the efficiencies gaining you a handful of seconds with people well-practiced in a lab style environment will be lost in the real world due to the random difficulties that happen from the huddled masses.
 
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