Now Boarding: Efficiency Is Not the Airlines Primary Concern

Airlines have won their reputation for poor customer service the hard way: they've earned it.

Perhaps nothing contributes to flyers' stress more than anticipation of the boarding process. Inefficiency and frustation abound.

Now, research by an astrophysicist named Jason Steffen has confirmed that boarding by rows is the least efficient approach to getting a lot of people into a small space as quickly as possible. It is unlikely, needless to say, that Steffen's research will lead to any significant changes. But the reasons may surprise you. Airlines themselves have tried various means but keep coming back to the tried and true method with which all weary travellers are familiar.

The airlines impetus for maintaining the status quo are that it appears to be the fairest to the passengers so minimizes conflict with fellow passengers and with airline staff. It also leads to better distribution of luggage. And in an era of extra fees for everything but bathroom usage, it can lead wealthier passengers to pay for the privilege of expedited boarding. The skies may no longer be so friendly, but they are not irrational. JL

Gulliver reports in The Economist:

A scientist has proven what veteran business travellers long suspected: boarding planes by row is a terrible idea. Jason Steffen, who works at the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, conducted an experiment in which he asked 72 "passengers"—luggage and all—to board a Boeing 757 using several different methods.
I like to imagine that Dr Steffen, fed up with interminable boarding times for his flights to—let's say Geneva, where CERN is—finally decided to take matters into his own hands. In any case, when Dr Steffen timed several different methods of boarding his plane, boarding by rows did the worst. Want to hazard a guess which method did best? Discover's Joseph Castro has the answer:

Among the boarding techniques tested was the zone/block style, where passengers fill the plane back to front, one large group at a time; WilMA, or Window, Middle, then Aisle (how the “l” got where it did is a mystery); and Steffen’s own procedure (imaginatively called “the Steffen method”), which incorporates both the other two techniques.... The Steffen method was the quickest because it maximized the number of people who could use the aisle concurrently without crashing into each other.

It turns out that even just letting everyone on at once would be quicker than boarding by rows, according to Dr Steffen's calculations. But like Discover's Mr Castro, I suspect that efficiency isn't necessarily the airlines' top priority during the boarding process. The row-by-row process may be slow, but it's easy to understand and minimizes pushing and shoving relative to the "everybody crowd around the door" method. Dr Steffen's method, unfortunately, seems a bit too complicated to implement properly. (You can click through to Mr Castro's post for a chart explaining the Steffen method.)

Is Dr Steffen's work going to make the boarding process any faster or less frustrating? I doubt it. If you don't want to wait in line, your best option is earning elite frequent flyer status, or, if you have the money, paying for a premium ticket or expedited boarding. Science may one day help you get on the plane quicker. But in the meantime, money in the airlines' pockets is almost always a safe bet.