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This sounds like it might be faster, and I might like it for solo business trips, but getting on/off with my family is not optional for me. Assuming most multi
by ftio 7y ago
This sounds like it might be faster, and I might like it for solo business trips, but getting on/off with my family is not optional for me.
Assuming most multi-passenger groups feel similarly, and assuming solo business passengers represent only ~40% of the population, the impact of such a system (which would require substantially more passenger discipline/planning) would be pretty limited.
- fiblye 7y agoYeah, with this idea, people would just clog up right outside the airplane door waiting for their family. Anyone trying to get through would get some angry looks for daring to push through.
- laumars 7y agoAssuming you can even split the family up. Plenty of people travel with younger kids (5 and under) and there's no way in hell that can be done safely without having the parents with them.
- birdyrooster 7y agoMaybe exceptions can be made for children?
- xvector 7y agoThe fastest solution is having families with children exit last. If someone wants to exit together they can do so after everyone else is gone.
- crooked-v 7y agoThat leaves people in window seats bottlenecked behind families.
- sjg007 7y agoDon't seat non-family members there.
- mbreese 7y agoAnd because of all the edge cases and special rules that have been established, we can see why this isn’t a practical approach. The number of people who are traveling with families is not a trivial number of passengers.
- xvector 7y agoSo far we have 2 rules: - Seat families towards the hull of the plane - Have them exit last I don't see a plethora of edge cases here that make this not practical. In fact, this seems very practical to me.
- laumars 7y agoI have no issue with that personally but it's not always practical. eg: - people with Window seats next to families - occasions when younger kids have been sat for so long that they're now fidgety and causing a disturbance. With the best will in the world, sometimes physically restraining kids is just going to cause more issues then letting them disembark the plane - if the family have large items in the overhead storage that needs removing so someone else can get their luggage. By the time you've juggled all that luggage around, the family might as well just join the queue of travellers waiting to exit It was also mentioned that individuals should not be sat next to families but that doesn't always work when you're trying to fill capacity and/or let travellers pick their own seats (as many flight operators do). Sadly what is academically optimum isn't always what's practical in the real world. If that were true, there would be a lot of efficiencies the human race could made from road travel to financial savings.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 7y agoI'll add, as father of 1 year old who had been traveling a lot, sometimes you need to run for a connecting flight because the previous one is very late. I usually board first with the family (required, I don't have enough hands to hold the baby and put luggages above, and my wife is not tall enough), but whenever possible I leave the plane last. It's relaxing, no one is chasing me, I can grab the bags slowly while preventing my baby from killing some one
- lonelappde 7y agoAngry looks don't slow the line.
- ergothus 7y agoWhen people feel fairness is violated (correct or not) they will often gum up the works in protest. As an example, watch what happens when car lanes merge early, or some drives up the shoulder. Others will position to stop that. (Note I'm not saying anything about what people on either side of this conflict SHOULD be doing, just talking about how people react to perceived unfairness.)
- benhurmarcel 7y ago> getting on/off with my family is not optional for me. Ryanair has now accustomed Europeans to travel separately from their family, so it wouldn't surprise me to see that requirement change if it drops the price.
- bcrosby95 7y agoSo Ryanair will take care of my 5 year old while I fly? Sounds peaceful. Last flight she spent 2 hours trying to lay down in the middle of the aisle.
- chapium 7y agoThat is the best place to fully recline, she's no dummy.
- peteretep 7y agoRyanair sadly don't do unaccompanied minors, but for an airline that does (and 5 seems to be the lower bound), and if flying with a partner, I've always wondered if the following would work: Parent A flies without child on Day 1; Child is given to airline by Parent B on Day 2 and retrieved on the other end by Parent A. Parent B flies without child on Day 3.
- abcpassword 7y agoWhy would you abandon your child? What’s wrong with you?
- sjg007 7y agoAnd this is why your kid won't speak to you after age 18.
- peteretep 7y agoMy parents used to stick me in Economy when they flew Business on long-haul from about 7 onward, and I still speak to _at least_ one of them.
- TallGuyShort 7y agoThere's a documentary on Netflix, I think it's called "Speed" or something because it's about fast stuff, had an episode about doing Monte Carlo simulations of plane embark / disembark sequences that were optimal. They came up with optimal boarding processes but it required individual seat assignments which was a problem for kids (not to mention a ton of explaining). I forget if Southwest's semi-randomized approach was the next best, or boarding groups - I think it was randomized.
- xmprt 7y agoI think you (and others in this thread) will enjoy CGP Grey's video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHbLRjF0vo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHbLRjF0vo
- mehrdadn 7y agoI've watched that video many times. I love the video (it's excellent and hilarious), but I should mention there's one aspect of it that rubs me the wrong way. The part he says back-to-front sucks and then shows a guy on the 3rd-to-last row trying to fit in his carry-on (around like 1:04) is a somewhat disingenuous representation of what people assume the optimal solution would be. You'd think they would put a last-row window-seater first, then second-to-last row, etc., not just randomly start at row 3 aisle -- nobody ever suggests that's optimal. That's a misrepresentative strawman of the algorithm people imagine, and it's hardly surprising that it sucks.
- vikramkr 7y agoWhat's the problem with that part exactly? He's showing the method which most airlines use, which is boarding by boarding class, The algorithm that they use is not ordering person by person, there's going to be randomness with who gets into line first, which is what allows for the lack of optimality. The whole point is that the current approach doesn't allow ordering person by person.
- verganileonardo 7y agoHey. Do you have the name of the documentary? I couldn't find it here
- stale2002 7y ago> but getting on/off with my family is not optional for me. For sure. But there is a solution to this. The solution is that you and your family should stay seated, and wait a bit, for people behind you to leave. And then once there is a big enough empty space, THEN you and your family should start getting ready to leave.
- lonelappde 7y agoThe main factor in reboarding slowness is not how tightly people pack into line, it's when one person gets into the aisle and stops and blocks everyone
- xvector 7y agoTake the Mad Max approach! Push them into the aisle! Give me speed or give me death!
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y agoGive me speed, or give them death! FTFY /s
- jacobolus 7y ago> getting on/off with my family is not optional for me If you’re getting off with your family you should just wait for everyone else to exit first anyway unless you have a connecting flight with no time margin or something. Families are super slow to deboard planes. If your kids are young, you should probably be allowed to board first before other travelers. A column by column rule wouldn’t apply to you either way.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y agoBut how does a "column by column rule" not apply to everyone. If I'm in a window seat and there is a parent and child in the aisle/middle seats, I have to wait until everyone gets off? Column by column would never work. Most people like leaving together with their friends and loved ones who are sitting next to them, regardless if they are families with children.
- bonzini 7y agoIn a column-by-column situation if you're in a window seat you would have to wait for the two columns before to deboard anyway. The problem would be if you are in a middle seat and the person next to you is waiting for his family in the line right before yours, but that's kind of a special case anyway.
- glennpratt 7y ago> If you’re getting off with your family you should just wait for everyone else Uhh, no. First of all, we aren't slow, second kids have tiny bladders and third when did childless folks become such fragile babies?
- disbshdns 7y agoThey’re not babies. They just don’t get it. The totality of the commitment is lost on them. What’s new is that they also just don’t care.
- 7y ago