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Airlines Won't Dare Use the Fastest Way to Board Planes (wired.com)
An anonymous reader writes: You've arrived at the airport early. You have already selected the perfect seat. You've employed all possible tricks for making the check-in and security processes zoom by. But there's still some blood-pressure-raising chaos you can't avoid: boarding. From impatient fellow travelers who are determined to beat you onto the plane to passengers who insist on jamming their too-big carry-ons into overhead bins, making your way to your seat can be straight-up hellish -- and Wired's Alex Davies offers up a cheery explanation of why the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon. It's not that airlines aren't trying. In fact, United is in the middle of a months-long test at LAX that involves splitting its five groups of passengers into two lines, instead of five, to see whether that will make boarding less painful. But there are some basic measures that airlines could be taking to speed things up -- offering free baggage check, for instance, or cutting down on early boarding perks -- if they weren't so worried about their bottom lines. "The question for the airlines, then, is not how to get everyone onto a plane as quickly as possible," Davies writes. "It's how to get everyone onto a plane as quickly as possible while still charging them extra for bags, doting on the regular customers, and maintaining the system that, like all class structures, serves whoever built it."
"Back to front, windows to aisle, and actually enforce carry on size."
And don't let idiots stop halfway to their seat, to stuff their carry-ons into someone else's space.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Honestly, except for needing to stuff an oversize bag in the overhead no one should want to be crammed into the stuffy airborne-infection-enabling metal tube any sooner than absolutely necessary to take off on time. Yet so many seem to treat it like trying to grab a seat on the subway.
Back to front, windows to aisle, and actually enforce carry on size.
Kind of hard to sell upgrades then, though.
Exactly, boarding from front to back, as they do it now, is actually the worst way to do it. It causes blockages. The back should board first and the front should exit first. That's the most logical approach. Of course they don't want their precious first class people waiting longer though so they board first despite that being the slowest, most inconvenient way to board.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If they'd enforce carry on size, there would be no reason to put it somewhere else.
Not true, they do not size the overhead baggage compartments to the number of seats entirely correctly.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
https://mythresults.com/airplane-boarding
Lots of airline do load back to front and it's not a very good method. Mythbusters even did an episode on boarding a plane. They determined the best way to board is how Southwest does it. No assigned seats and random boarding. Back to front is often times not much better than many other methods because because it makes boarding a serial process. In other words, only one person can put their luggage in the overhead space and sit at a time. Anytime you do this, it really slows down the boarding. With Southwest's method, for example, there's a much greater chance that several people can be doing that at once. If you must have assigned seating, then a good method is to load in zones where each zone has people spread throughout the plane, at least a couple rows apart. Then, you have a better chance of more than one person being able to load their luggage and sit at once.
Pro-tip: Use a soft bag, and put a smaller hard case inside it for the items that need to be protected.
Also, I was in the military, and here is the proper way to load and unload a plane (or bus):
1. Put a gunnery sergeant at the front of the vessel to control the process.
2. Load back-to-front BY COLUMN. So window seats load first, back-to-front, then middle seats, then aisle seats.
3. Unload the same way: Everyone in an aisle seat on the starboard side stands up, grabs their gear and files off. Then the port side aisle. Then the starboard middle seats, etc. An entire column of passengers is getting their gear simultaneously, adding massive parallelism to the process.
4. Anyone who bottlenecks the system get assigned to latrine cleaning duty.
This is what we've been reduced to, that is, groveling over seeming "small favors" like ok, bring your CPAP, or your CGM, cane, walker, etc. Musicians can bring instruments (sometimes).
We're GROVELING for space that we should have anyway, just so airlines can please Wall Street, NOT THEIR PAYING PASSENGERS.
There are no longer clothes closets for coats. The food was never much good. The seat pitch is made for anorexics. And people, believing they're getting a "deal" (notice there are no such things as bereavement fares and the like) will swallow any humiliation no matter how undignified or simply crazy.
You have to have your naked image taken, remove very reasonable items from luggage, ensure your Papers Are In Order, then queue in to lines that are grievously long. We're like cows to slaughter.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I used to think this was standard as well. Then, two years ago, I had the misfortune of trying to bring my two-year-old to Hawaii. United Airlines does not let parents with small children board first! I recommend not flying with them.
Ha, you peasants think you're smart, but I've already angled my air vent so that he who dealt it smelt it.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I have always wondered why the airlines and plane manufacturers didn't get together to create a standard checked bag form factor. A plastic hardshell case such is currently popular, with both embedded RFID and barcodes. Normal conveniences such as 4 wheels, extending handle, etc. Designed in such a way that loading and unloading can be nearly fully automated, similar to what you see used on cargo jets. If you use one of their cases, your bags are guaranteed to be at the carousel 15 minutes after the passenger door is opened upon landing. If you so desperately need to use your calvin klein designer luggage you wait.
The RFID tags also allow them to weigh the bags and charge the passenger accordingly. If my case only weighs 20 lbs and Aunt Bee's bag weighs in at 49.9 lbs, she pays more. Personally I would actually pay the extra $10-$25 tax for a checked bag if I knew I could get it back quickly at baggage claim,