5 ms·

> with their lack of assigned seating. I'm pretty sure unassigned seating has been proven to be the fastest way to load an aircraft in practice. > what makes

by PMan74 11y ago

> with their lack of assigned seating. I'm pretty sure unassigned seating has been proven to be the fastest way to load an aircraft in practice. > what makes this less possible than it was back then? I'm not sure, I'd guess there are controls in place now that were not in place then e.g. passenger manifest reconciliation for security, ID checks, etc. Ryanair (European Southwest essentially) target 25 minutes. If there were a way to do if faster I think they'd have found it.

jedrek 11y ago
More like: if they haven't found it, it's not for a lack of trying.
tomarr 11y ago
> I'm pretty sure unassigned seating has been proven to be the fastest way to load an aircraft in practice. I would disagree with this. My experience is of low-cost operators in Europe (Ryanair, Easyjet, Wizz etc.), and I believe their experiences have been the opposite. Whilst most of the carriers used to operate on an unassigned seating basis, with fees for reserved seating, now seating is 'randomly' assigned at online check-in (although if possible groups are sat together). You can still pay for reserved seating but the benefit is obviously a lot less now. My anecdotal evidence is that this has massively quickened the boarding process. Before, there would be delays waiting for people to sort out their seating and luggage arrangements (families especially), now it is much less of an issue and turnaround times are quicker. It's also possible that the massive increase in people taking only hand-luggage in recent years has been a factor, but I'm not sure.
- dhimes 11y ago
  I guess maybe the practical limits of traveler behavior trump the theoretical ideal? The mathematical solution to boarding passengers was examined a while back: http://phys.org/news/2008-02-board-plane.html http://phys.org/news/2008-02-board-plane.html
- imglorp 11y ago
  > although if possible groups are sat together At times they have taken this to a new low: upselling the benefit of sitting together. The seat assignment algorithm is probably optimizing profit, not retaining groups. http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2014/07/30/airlines-and-parents-play-chicken-in-unfriendly-skies/ http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2014/07/30/airlines-and-parent...
  - jdmichal 11y ago
    It gets far, far worse than that. I had an American Airlines flight which showed every seat except the "premium" paid ones as full. Since I highly value sitting next to my wife, I went ahead and coughed up the $20 necessary to buy two seats together. The plane flew at about 20% capacity. That diagram showing all the seats except premium ones filled? Complete and utter bullshit. I got a refund in my email a couple days later; I can only assume due to my complaining to the flight attendant about the situation. And I haven't flown American since.
- ghshephard 11y ago
  The various controlled studies I've seen, including the mythbusters report, all show unassigned seating to be fastest.
  - e12e 11y ago
    It's not clear from the link posted earlier[1] if mythbusters did a run of 10-100 seatings and calculated the average/median for each method - but it looks like they just did each once. If so I don't think a difference of +/-1 minute is significant. A difference of 100 in customer satisfaction probably is. This is also culture dependent. Nobody boards planes like a group of Japanese. Be that salarymen or high-schoolers on a school trip. The rest of the world might board in more reasonable time if they got help to stand in line by their seat numbers (better yet, print seatnumber and an integer on the ticket - have people line up at the gate prior to boarding in accordance to the integer). Would work except for the Scandinavians that'd consider themselves exempt... ;-) [1] http://mythbustersresults.com/airplane-boarding http://mythbustersresults.com/airplane-boarding
    - mindslight 11y ago
      IMHO the reason Southwest free-for-all boarding works is that people choose their seat and then stick with it. On assigned seating flights, I've noticed plenty of people deliberately sitting in the wrong seat. They know their assigned seat is waiting for them so they might as well try to score a better one. In addition, there are the more reasonable people who find their seat then ask people to switch to be closer to friends etc. This all takes time. Having to play the seat game is stressful (o hai nonchalant couple straddling the middle seat...), but certainly not as stressful as getting fondled by the blue shirted molesters or wondering if you'll get into an argument with a flight attendant who wants to gate check your electronics-laden carryon.
    - JadeNB 11y ago
      > have people line up at the gate prior to boarding in accordance to the integer Whenever I've had to queue way in advance of boarding in order just not to be at the end of my line, I've wished for this sort of solution—but, every time, it seems to me that you'd just run into the trouble where the lower-numbered folks wouldn't all show up on time, and then you'd have to (1) find a way to insert them into the line, which seems like it would have to slow them down, or (2) put them at the back of the line, in which case the whole point of the numbering scheme would be lost and we'd be right back to lines forming long before they need to do so.
fudgie 11y ago
Mythbusters had a go at testing plane boarding time and customer statisfaction: http://mythbustersresults.com/airplane-boarding http://mythbustersresults.com/airplane-boarding
- protomyth 11y ago
  Yeah, they are entertaining, but their methods are pretty flawed. The episode with the snow plow http://mythbustersresults.com/episode56 http://mythbustersresults.com/episode56 was beyond flawed and actually gave a dangerous result.
ssmoot 11y ago
The "unassigned seating" thing is a little amusing since IME SouthWest actually has like 7 levels of "special" (at least it feels like that) before general seating is allowed. I probably wouldn't change it (the special priorities) given the choice, but it is mildly annoying when it feels like you're waiting in line for an extra 10 or 15 minutes because you're not pregnant, a veteran, a VIP, etc.
- djrogers 11y ago
  Southwest has 1 (one) pre boarding phase - the vast majority of passengers in that phase are physically handicapped and need extra time to board. I fly southwest frequently (a-list) and have never seen it any other way - you get a blue sleeve, you pre-board. If not, you get in line with your group. If they occasionally let a veteran or pregnant woman in that line who cares?
  - ssmoot 11y ago
    Maybe it depends on airport. I've definitely never seen a "blue sleeve". And I've definitely heard veteran pre-board called out at Love Field. Either way, like I said, I probably wouldn't change it. It has no real impact on where I sit. It's just the whole making a slow, inconvenient, annoying process just that much slower, more annoying.
  - jcfiala 11y ago
    I do know that families with small children often board between the A and B groups. Which is nice, because families often want or need to sit together, but it still makes having an A ticket special.
  - jcfiala 11y ago
    I do know that families with small children often board between the A and B groups. Which is nice, because families often want or need to sit together, but it still makes having an A ticket special.
Nicholas_C 11y ago
>Ryanair (European Southwest essentially) I would say they're the European equivalent of Spirit Airlines, or rather Spirit Airlines is the American equivalent of Ryanair. Southwest is head and shoulders above both those carriers as far as customer experience goes (Two free carry ons (1 overhead item and one personal item), two FREE checked bags, free peanuts/almonds).
- MadManE 11y ago
  >free peanuts/almonds Is this really a selling point? A bag of $0.50 nuts to accompany a $500.00 ticket?
  - Nicholas_C 11y ago
    No, it's not a deal breaker, but it's something small that makes the customer feel valued/appreciated and not like a walking dollar sign whose presence is an annoyance to the flight crew. And in an industry characterized by extremely low margins a $0.50 bag of peanuts per person is definitely significant money out of their pocket.
  - aaronbrethorst 11y ago
    You should go look into how Ryanair works. They sell cheap tickets, and then nickel and dime you on everything else.
  - JadeNB 11y ago
    I think that people haven't yet really got out of the mindset where you couldn't bring your own food on planes. Now that you can, their providing food (or not) is much less of an issue, but it's still hard, for me, at least, to resist the frisson of thinking "free food!" (even if, as you say, I have already more than paid for it).
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    On Ryanair it would be. The cheapest fare advertised on their homepage is £7.99, London Stansted to Strasbourg (15 August, debit card payment, carry-on luggage only). A bag of nuts, according to the menu in their FAQ section, is €2.

by PMan74 11y ago

jedrek 11y ago

More like: if they haven't found it, it's not for a lack of trying.

tomarr 11y ago

> I'm pretty sure unassigned seating has been proven to be the fastest way to load an aircraft in practice. I would disagree with this. My experience is of low-cost operators in Europe (Ryanair, Easyjet, Wizz etc.), and I believe their experiences have been the opposite. Whilst most of the carriers used to operate on an unassigned seating basis, with fees for reserved seating, now seating is 'randomly' assigned at online check-in (although if possible groups are sat together). You can still pay for reserved seating but the benefit is obviously a lot less now. My anecdotal evidence is that this has massively quickened the boarding process. Before, there would be delays waiting for people to sort out their seating and luggage arrangements (families especially), now it is much less of an issue and turnaround times are quicker. It's also possible that the massive increase in people taking only hand-luggage in recent years has been a factor, but I'm not sure.

dhimes 11y ago
I guess maybe the practical limits of traveler behavior trump the theoretical ideal? The mathematical solution to boarding passengers was examined a while back: http://phys.org/news/2008-02-board-plane.html http://phys.org/news/2008-02-board-plane.html
imglorp 11y ago
> although if possible groups are sat together At times they have taken this to a new low: upselling the benefit of sitting together. The seat assignment algorithm is probably optimizing profit, not retaining groups. http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2014/07/30/airlines-and-parents-play-chicken-in-unfriendly-skies/ http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2014/07/30/airlines-and-parent...
- jdmichal 11y ago
  It gets far, far worse than that. I had an American Airlines flight which showed every seat except the "premium" paid ones as full. Since I highly value sitting next to my wife, I went ahead and coughed up the $20 necessary to buy two seats together. The plane flew at about 20% capacity. That diagram showing all the seats except premium ones filled? Complete and utter bullshit. I got a refund in my email a couple days later; I can only assume due to my complaining to the flight attendant about the situation. And I haven't flown American since.
ghshephard 11y ago
The various controlled studies I've seen, including the mythbusters report, all show unassigned seating to be fastest.
- e12e 11y ago
  It's not clear from the link posted earlier[1] if mythbusters did a run of 10-100 seatings and calculated the average/median for each method - but it looks like they just did each once. If so I don't think a difference of +/-1 minute is significant. A difference of 100 in customer satisfaction probably is. This is also culture dependent. Nobody boards planes like a group of Japanese. Be that salarymen or high-schoolers on a school trip. The rest of the world might board in more reasonable time if they got help to stand in line by their seat numbers (better yet, print seatnumber and an integer on the ticket - have people line up at the gate prior to boarding in accordance to the integer). Would work except for the Scandinavians that'd consider themselves exempt... ;-) [1] http://mythbustersresults.com/airplane-boarding http://mythbustersresults.com/airplane-boarding
  - mindslight 11y ago
    IMHO the reason Southwest free-for-all boarding works is that people choose their seat and then stick with it. On assigned seating flights, I've noticed plenty of people deliberately sitting in the wrong seat. They know their assigned seat is waiting for them so they might as well try to score a better one. In addition, there are the more reasonable people who find their seat then ask people to switch to be closer to friends etc. This all takes time. Having to play the seat game is stressful (o hai nonchalant couple straddling the middle seat...), but certainly not as stressful as getting fondled by the blue shirted molesters or wondering if you'll get into an argument with a flight attendant who wants to gate check your electronics-laden carryon.
  - JadeNB 11y ago
    > have people line up at the gate prior to boarding in accordance to the integer Whenever I've had to queue way in advance of boarding in order just not to be at the end of my line, I've wished for this sort of solution—but, every time, it seems to me that you'd just run into the trouble where the lower-numbered folks wouldn't all show up on time, and then you'd have to (1) find a way to insert them into the line, which seems like it would have to slow them down, or (2) put them at the back of the line, in which case the whole point of the numbering scheme would be lost and we'd be right back to lines forming long before they need to do so.

fudgie 11y ago

Mythbusters had a go at testing plane boarding time and customer statisfaction: http://mythbustersresults.com/airplane-boarding http://mythbustersresults.com/airplane-boarding

protomyth 11y ago
Yeah, they are entertaining, but their methods are pretty flawed. The episode with the snow plow http://mythbustersresults.com/episode56 http://mythbustersresults.com/episode56 was beyond flawed and actually gave a dangerous result.

ssmoot 11y ago

The "unassigned seating" thing is a little amusing since IME SouthWest actually has like 7 levels of "special" (at least it feels like that) before general seating is allowed. I probably wouldn't change it (the special priorities) given the choice, but it is mildly annoying when it feels like you're waiting in line for an extra 10 or 15 minutes because you're not pregnant, a veteran, a VIP, etc.

djrogers 11y ago
Southwest has 1 (one) pre boarding phase - the vast majority of passengers in that phase are physically handicapped and need extra time to board. I fly southwest frequently (a-list) and have never seen it any other way - you get a blue sleeve, you pre-board. If not, you get in line with your group. If they occasionally let a veteran or pregnant woman in that line who cares?
- ssmoot 11y ago
  Maybe it depends on airport. I've definitely never seen a "blue sleeve". And I've definitely heard veteran pre-board called out at Love Field. Either way, like I said, I probably wouldn't change it. It has no real impact on where I sit. It's just the whole making a slow, inconvenient, annoying process just that much slower, more annoying.
- jcfiala 11y ago
  I do know that families with small children often board between the A and B groups. Which is nice, because families often want or need to sit together, but it still makes having an A ticket special.
- jcfiala 11y ago
  I do know that families with small children often board between the A and B groups. Which is nice, because families often want or need to sit together, but it still makes having an A ticket special.

Nicholas_C 11y ago

>Ryanair (European Southwest essentially) I would say they're the European equivalent of Spirit Airlines, or rather Spirit Airlines is the American equivalent of Ryanair. Southwest is head and shoulders above both those carriers as far as customer experience goes (Two free carry ons (1 overhead item and one personal item), two FREE checked bags, free peanuts/almonds).

MadManE 11y ago
>free peanuts/almonds Is this really a selling point? A bag of $0.50 nuts to accompany a $500.00 ticket?
- Nicholas_C 11y ago
  No, it's not a deal breaker, but it's something small that makes the customer feel valued/appreciated and not like a walking dollar sign whose presence is an annoyance to the flight crew. And in an industry characterized by extremely low margins a $0.50 bag of peanuts per person is definitely significant money out of their pocket.
- aaronbrethorst 11y ago
  You should go look into how Ryanair works. They sell cheap tickets, and then nickel and dime you on everything else.
- JadeNB 11y ago
  I think that people haven't yet really got out of the mindset where you couldn't bring your own food on planes. Now that you can, their providing food (or not) is much less of an issue, but it's still hard, for me, at least, to resist the frisson of thinking "free food!" (even if, as you say, I have already more than paid for it).
- Symbiote 11y ago
  On Ryanair it would be. The cheapest fare advertised on their homepage is £7.99, London Stansted to Strasbourg (15 August, debit card payment, carry-on luggage only). A bag of nuts, according to the menu in their FAQ section, is €2.