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This is pointless, because boarding time does not waste any time. When a plane lands, it has to stay in the airport for quite a bit of time in most cases - even

This is pointless, because boarding time does not waste any time. When a plane lands, it has to stay in the airport for quite a bit of time in most cases - even if you made boarding more efficient, you would not save any time. Refueling, getting in the right take off slot take longer than boarding the plane. And the question is - does this method feel better to the passengers getting on? I don't know, but I kinda doubt it.

aneesh 18y ago
I don't think the time taken for refueling, etc is the limiting factor. There are a couple sequences of events that need to happen (simultaneously) to get the plane ready to leave. Sequence 1: allow arriving passengers to deplane, then clean the plane, board new passengers Sequence 2: Refueling, other maintenance Sequence 3: load checked baggage The time taken to ready the plane is the maximum of the times for the 3 sequences above. It seems refueling takes less than 30 minutes (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20061018151916AAMkss8 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20061018151916AAMkss8), and I'd guess the checked luggage can be loaded within 30 minutes as well. I'm inclined to believe that deplaning, then cleaning, then boarding new passengers takes longer than 30 minutes, and boarding passengers IS indeed a bottleneck (unless there are special circumstances like deicing at the gate).
- markessien 18y ago
  Boarding passengers takes less than 20 minutes in most cases. Even with very fast airlines like easyjet, the plane sits longer the passengers board. Also, you know that airports queue planes, right? So a plane can't just hurry up to fill in passengers and take off. And in any case, why? Let's say you saved enough time to make an extra trip in a single day, then it would be worth it, but this is not going to save it. So you finish your pilots workday 20 minutes earlier, this is no saving. And if you are pushing your planes that hard anyways, there is no time for proper plane maintenance and checkups. I've done a lot of short trips within Europe by plane, and I've never observed boarding time to be an important factor.
  - aneesh 18y ago
    > "Also, you know that airports queue planes, right?" Yeah, but usually a queued plane is waiting on the tarmac, not at the gate, right? Fixing boarding delays may not always lead to earlier takeoffs, but it can definitely get planes pushed out of the gate faster (freeing that gate for other planes). Also, boarding time probably depends a lot on the type of plane (ie, even more so than fueling time does). I fly trans-Atlantic every now and then -- boarding a 747 full of people who don't fly regularly almost always takes more than 30 minutes. Maybe boarding time isn't a delay for small planes, but I'd bet it is for big planes.
    - markessien 18y ago
      If you fly transatlantic, then those planes require more than an hour on the ground before flight. And planes get queue times allocated as soon as possible and pre-planned, not just when they leave.
  - nostrademons 18y ago
    In 3 of the last 4 flights I've taken, boarding was the limiting factor. We left the gate within 5 minutes after the last person boarded, and were airborne shortly after without having to wait on the tarmac. On one of those flights, the plane didn't finish boarding until 10-15 minutes after it was scheduled to take off. Curiously, the one exception was a United red-eye back from SF to Boston. And I think they may've been using this boarding method - the gate attendants said that the boarding groups were window seats first, then middle, then aisle. There certainly was no rhyme or reason to seating within boarding groups, and there were about 12 boarding groups.
    - markessien 18y ago
      But when did you start boarding? When did the planes arrive? They usually make you start boarding about 20 minutes before they are allowed to take off, so people sit in the plane the minimum amount of time.
      - 18y ago
- whatusername 18y ago
  Sequence 3: Unload checked baggage, then load the new baggage. Still - agreed - the unload/clean/board sequence in probably the longest one
  - potatolicious 18y ago
    But it really doesn't matter. Most flights will finished boarding well before the departure time, and many will arrive late as they always do. The plane can't leave until the departure time, so unless there's a direct cost benefit, why bother?
    - jmtulloss 18y ago
      They load so early because they have to guarantee that everything can happen in time. If you can reduce the time it takes to board, you can board passengers closer to the actual departure time. This allows you to squeeze flights closer together, which saves a ton of money.
harpastum 18y ago
Obviously many people would enjoy faster boarding times, but the article barely mentions the huge problems that would come from splitting up families. When a family's 8-year-old has the window seat, they're expected to enter the plane alone and stow their bag in the overhead compartment? The only time this is mentioned is where it says "The outcome is fairly robust in that it's relatively insensitive to deviations because of couples or families being seated together." So now we don't just have 18 separate boarding zones, we have some significant percentage of people in 'boarding groups' with each other. Sounds like a mess. One of the most advantageous parts of the current system is that it works and it's (probably) not the bottleneck for departure time. Any other method would no doubt cause extra problems, at least for a while, with little to no benefit for the airline. [edited for clarity]
- nostrademons 18y ago
  I'd imagine that's why nearly all boarding calls have a separate group for "families with small children", usually called first.
rodrigo 18y ago
Just to clarify, once the plane is wo passengers, its a race against time, people clean the plane at the same time its being refueled, and as soon as it is clean you can board it, and as soon as its loaded you can leave. So any minute means money.

aneesh 18y ago

I don't think the time taken for refueling, etc is the limiting factor. There are a couple sequences of events that need to happen (simultaneously) to get the plane ready to leave. Sequence 1: allow arriving passengers to deplane, then clean the plane, board new passengers Sequence 2: Refueling, other maintenance Sequence 3: load checked baggage The time taken to ready the plane is the maximum of the times for the 3 sequences above. It seems refueling takes less than 30 minutes (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20061018151916AAMkss8 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20061018151916AAMkss8), and I'd guess the checked luggage can be loaded within 30 minutes as well. I'm inclined to believe that deplaning, then cleaning, then boarding new passengers takes longer than 30 minutes, and boarding passengers IS indeed a bottleneck (unless there are special circumstances like deicing at the gate).

markessien 18y ago
Boarding passengers takes less than 20 minutes in most cases. Even with very fast airlines like easyjet, the plane sits longer the passengers board. Also, you know that airports queue planes, right? So a plane can't just hurry up to fill in passengers and take off. And in any case, why? Let's say you saved enough time to make an extra trip in a single day, then it would be worth it, but this is not going to save it. So you finish your pilots workday 20 minutes earlier, this is no saving. And if you are pushing your planes that hard anyways, there is no time for proper plane maintenance and checkups. I've done a lot of short trips within Europe by plane, and I've never observed boarding time to be an important factor.
- aneesh 18y ago
  > "Also, you know that airports queue planes, right?" Yeah, but usually a queued plane is waiting on the tarmac, not at the gate, right? Fixing boarding delays may not always lead to earlier takeoffs, but it can definitely get planes pushed out of the gate faster (freeing that gate for other planes). Also, boarding time probably depends a lot on the type of plane (ie, even more so than fueling time does). I fly trans-Atlantic every now and then -- boarding a 747 full of people who don't fly regularly almost always takes more than 30 minutes. Maybe boarding time isn't a delay for small planes, but I'd bet it is for big planes.
  - markessien 18y ago
    If you fly transatlantic, then those planes require more than an hour on the ground before flight. And planes get queue times allocated as soon as possible and pre-planned, not just when they leave.
- nostrademons 18y ago
  In 3 of the last 4 flights I've taken, boarding was the limiting factor. We left the gate within 5 minutes after the last person boarded, and were airborne shortly after without having to wait on the tarmac. On one of those flights, the plane didn't finish boarding until 10-15 minutes after it was scheduled to take off. Curiously, the one exception was a United red-eye back from SF to Boston. And I think they may've been using this boarding method - the gate attendants said that the boarding groups were window seats first, then middle, then aisle. There certainly was no rhyme or reason to seating within boarding groups, and there were about 12 boarding groups.
  - markessien 18y ago
    But when did you start boarding? When did the planes arrive? They usually make you start boarding about 20 minutes before they are allowed to take off, so people sit in the plane the minimum amount of time.
    - 18y ago
whatusername 18y ago
Sequence 3: Unload checked baggage, then load the new baggage. Still - agreed - the unload/clean/board sequence in probably the longest one
- potatolicious 18y ago
  But it really doesn't matter. Most flights will finished boarding well before the departure time, and many will arrive late as they always do. The plane can't leave until the departure time, so unless there's a direct cost benefit, why bother?
  - jmtulloss 18y ago
    They load so early because they have to guarantee that everything can happen in time. If you can reduce the time it takes to board, you can board passengers closer to the actual departure time. This allows you to squeeze flights closer together, which saves a ton of money.

harpastum 18y ago

Obviously many people would enjoy faster boarding times, but the article barely mentions the huge problems that would come from splitting up families. When a family's 8-year-old has the window seat, they're expected to enter the plane alone and stow their bag in the overhead compartment? The only time this is mentioned is where it says "The outcome is fairly robust in that it's relatively insensitive to deviations because of couples or families being seated together." So now we don't just have 18 separate boarding zones, we have some significant percentage of people in 'boarding groups' with each other. Sounds like a mess. One of the most advantageous parts of the current system is that it works and it's (probably) not the bottleneck for departure time. Any other method would no doubt cause extra problems, at least for a while, with little to no benefit for the airline. [edited for clarity]

nostrademons 18y ago
I'd imagine that's why nearly all boarding calls have a separate group for "families with small children", usually called first.

rodrigo 18y ago

Just to clarify, once the plane is wo passengers, its a race against time, people clean the plane at the same time its being refueled, and as soon as it is clean you can board it, and as soon as its loaded you can leave. So any minute means money.