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Having flown internationally in Europe recently, I can attest that prompting people back to the seated waiting area (over the intercom) ahead of boarding had
by slindz 11y ago
Having flown internationally in Europe recently, I can attest that prompting people back to the seated waiting area (over the intercom) ahead of boarding had zero impact on the forty-sixty people super keen to get on board.
I suspect the airport would be interested in trying out the LIFO approach in this particular location.
- joosters 11y agoI don't understand some of the herd mentality at airports. For a long time, the budget airline Ryanair used to seat its planes first-come, first-served style. This meant everyone would stand and queue at the gate immediately, sometimes hours before the flight, just so they could get good seats. Fair enough, if that's what you want. But Ryanair switched to allocated seating over a year ago, and yet people still stand and queue long before the gate opens, even though there's little benefit. Can it be worth it just to get to your assigned seat slightly earlier?
- intelekshual 11y agoThe variable here is overhead bin space, not seats. People want to board first, regardless of their seating assignment, so that they're assured a space for their probably oversized carry-on luggage.
- joosters 11y agoAh yes, good point. Still seems excessive to me, in the past they have offered to check-in luggage at the gate (for free) if they are getting full.
- M2Ys4U 11y agoI wouldn't trust any budget airline to do anything for free. They're notorious for charging as much as they can for even the slightest convenience.
- rzzzt 11y agoTransfer buses can also serve as an excellent demonstration of how LIFO boarding would work. People who are eager to stand in front of the line to enter the bus may actually be the last to exit and board the plane.
- vacri 11y agoJetstar is a budget carrier here in Australia, and they used to have unallocated seating, flying often out of secondary airports. They switched to allocated seating because people would literally race each other across the tarmac to get the good seats... and sometimes even fight over them.
- LoSboccacc 11y agoCan't they just assign seat and board in strictly sorted order, queuing be damned?
- ubernostrum 11y agoAirlines in the US do this: your printed boarding pass will have a group number on it, and you board when your group's number is called. It still doesn't really help, and still creates a situation where people jockey for the earliest position within their group, or try to sneak in during an earlier group's boarding time. Southwest takes it a step further and puts both a group and a position number within the group and has passengers line up by number, so that the plane boards strictly in that order (i.e., passenger A1 boards, then passenger A2, then passenger A3, etc.). But the group and position numbers are determined by check-in time, which moves the rush to check-in (and the first few numbers can be purchased outright for a fee).
- airza 11y agoIn my observation the main problem here is that there is a limited amount of overhead bin space and no enforcement of the rules on carry-on luggage size, which makes getting on the plane perversely important. Hopefully this explains this otherwise strange behavior to you and some of the child comments. I will end the year with about 100,000 miles (not as many as some people here, but enough to see some shit as it were) and something about airplane flight seems to drain people of their humanity entirely.