Problem Solved: The Best Way to Board a Plane

Jan. 20, 2009 -- Frustrated by slow airplane boarding procedures? Blame the airline, not the person trying to squeeze an over-sized bag into the overhead storage bin.

While one person might hold up everyone else, overall boarding time could be dramatically cut, saving airlines hundreds of millions of dollars, suggests new research.

"You want as many people as possible ready to sit down all over the plane, instead of just one or two people ready to sit with everyone else waiting," said Jason Steffen, an astrophysicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside of Chicago who conducted the research.

"If you assume that it takes 20 minutes to fill the plane, this would get it down to five minutes or so in ideal conditions," said Steffen.

At first glance, the current method most airlines use to board passengers seems like a smart one. Passengers in the rear of the plane are seated first. Passengers at the front of the plane board last.

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In practice, it doesn't always go as smoothly as planned. Chance are that in each boarding group, at least one person takes too long to stow their baggage or settle in, creating a bottleneck for those behind.

In fact, when Steffen tested the last-to-first board model against randomly ordered seating, there was hardly a difference in the total time it took to board the plane. Some airlines, such as Southwest, have changed to unassigned seating for just that reason.

One advantage of random seating is that people can respond to a bottleneck by sitting down instead of waiting in line. Having the option to sit anywhere could make people more apt to sit down at the same time, and simultaneous seating is key to faster boarding.

Using computer simulations based roughly on a Boeing 737, Steffen found if passengers were assigned boarding groups that included staggered seats in every other row and from side to side, more people could stash luggage and sit down at the same time. All together, Steffen's estimates that, under ideal conditions, a 20-minute board time could be reduced to about five minutes.