The author has extensive experience traveling by plane, visiting countries like Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. They have flown to cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City for business and leisure purposes. To estimate the length of a flight between airports, they use tools like Travelmath, which calculates flight distance and required flight time/duration for any location/airport in the world.
The Speed Distance Time Calculator can solve for unknown sdt and calculate speed, distance, or time using the formula d = st, where distance equals speed times time. Travelmath provides an online travel time calculator to help individuals and professionals figure out flight and driving times, while Flight Times Calculator offers a practical solution for individuals and professionals involved in travel planning or aviation.
The Trippy flight planner helps find the best airports to fly between cities and calculates true flight time, including extra time to get to the airport. Flight Math is a tool for pilots to quickly determine flight times, including adjustments for speed, tailwind, take-off, and landing times.
The author only travels by plane when attending family visiting events and has flown six times. They have traveled away and home with planes three times and have flown 6 times.
In conclusion, people travel by air numerous times in a year, with billions of passengers taking flights annually. Vocabulary exercises can help learn words to talk about air travel, such as preferring window or aisle seats, who you like traveling with, when you last went on a flight together, and what airlines you have flown with.
📹 The Better Boarding Method Airlines Won’t Use
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Do pilots fly every day?
Professional pilots typically fly between 70 and 100 hours per month, with additional hours spent on the ground performing flight-related tasks. They typically have 12 to 20 days off per month, with their schedule changing monthly. Junior pilots have a minimum of 12 days off, while the average pilot gets 15 days off. Senior pilots can enjoy up to 20 days off per month. Short-haul domestic flight pilots can be home every night, while longer route pilots can be away for up to two weeks at a time.
How many planes travel a day?
Around 100, 000 flights operate daily, including passenger, cargo, and military aircraft. Passenger flights account for over 90, 000 daily, transporting millions of passengers to destinations worldwide. Cargo flights make up the majority, transporting goods and products across continents and oceans. Military flights serve various purposes, including troop transport, surveillance, and humanitarian missions.
The number of flights may vary depending on the season, airline, and location, with factors such as airport size and location, airlines, time of year, and the current state of the travel industry impacting the number of flights per day.
How many times can a plane go around?
Go-arounds are a rare maneuver for commercial pilots, with short-haul pilots making them once or twice a year and long-haul pilots making them every 2-3 years. Ineffective initiation of go-arounds can lead to Loss of Control (LOC), which can result in abnormal contact with the runway or Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT). Failure to fly required tracks can lead to CFIT or Mid-Air Collision (MAC), while traffic separation can lead to MAC. Wake turbulence generated during go-arounds can create a hazard to another aircraft, potentially leading to LOC.
A baulked landing, or rejected landing, is a very late go-around initiated when the aircraft is below the prescribed Decision Height or Minimum Descent Altitude or even when the aircraft has touched down. This is a high-risk go-around due to the aircraft’s low energy state, low altitude, idle thrust, and decelerating airspeed. The risk of collisions with obstacles and terrain even when following the established missed approach procedure is greater.
How many times can one plane fly?
The 209th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona is the world’s largest aircraft boneyard. The group, which has 2, 600 acres of land, houses over $32 billion worth of outdated planes, including all of the U. S. government’s out-of-service aircrafts. The Boeing 747 can endure about 35, 000 pressurization cycles and flights before metal fatigue sets in, and is retired after 27 years of service.
Early wide-body planes, like the Lockheed Tri-Star, have shorter lifespans, lasting an average of 24 years. The arid climate of these states slows down rusting, making them ideal storage sites for various types of aircraft.
How many times can a pilot fly?
Airline pilots in the U. S. typically work an average of 75 flight hours per month, with the CFRs limiting Part 121 pilots to 100 hours per calendar month and 30 hours in seven consecutive days. They also spend an average of 150 hours on duty, including flight planning, weather checks, and non-flying duties, totaling an average monthly time of 225 hours. Flying Mag agrees with these estimates, including a commercial pilot average of 85 flight hours and 80 ground hours per month.
How many flights fly at a time?
At any given time, an average of 9, 728 planes carry 1, 270, 406 passengers in the sky. People have always been fascinated by airplanes and flying, and it’s fun to imagine how many people are flying at any given time, where they are going, and how many people travel to and from every day. Commercial flight statistics, airline passenger statistics, and the number of commercial airports in the US provide information on the number of flights, passengers, and planes in the air. The sky is a vast expanse of air, with millions of people traveling to and from every day.
How often does the average person travel by plane?
The average American can expect to take around 208 flights in their lifetime, but this number is not exact and does not account for factors like occupation, income, location, or disability. The data set does not include flights operated by international carriers, which could increase the number. Some people may fly more or less than others, and some may not fly at all. The average represents an opportunity for air carriers to develop products that encourage frequent travel for disabled people.
When air travel becomes more accessible, ticket bookings from the disability community will skyrocket. The business case for accessibility is causing airlines to question when they will remove barriers to flying and embrace air travel for all.
How often do you fly as a pilot?
A short-haul pilot typically works 5-6 days per week with multiple flights, while a long-haul pilot typically works 70-90 flight hours per month. Long-haul pilots, on the other hand, may have longer duty periods due to their longer journeys, requiring a longer rest period. Long-haul pilots typically work more flying hours monthly than short-haul pilots, with an average of 80-100 hours. Pilot rosters document work hours, with some airlines having fixed or flexible patterns. Different types of rosters exist for different airlines.
How many times does the average person travel?
Americans travel an average of 2. 9 times per year, with leisure being the most common reason. Millennials are the most frequent travelers, with an average of 3. 4 getaways per year. Over half of Americans travel one to two times per year, while almost a third get away three to four times. One in 10 Americans leaves town up to six times a year. Nearly two-thirds of Americans want to hit the beach, with 62% of survey respondents naming it a preferred destination. With over 6, 100 beaches along U. S. coasts, there are plenty of options for beach-goers.
How long can 1 pilot fly?
The maximum flight time permitted for flight crews with one pilot is eight hours, while crews with two pilots are permitted to fly for a maximum of ten hours, inclusive of any additional commercial flights.
How many plane trips a day?
From January 1st to September 1st, 2024, there were 24, 896, 820 flights, with an average daily commercial flight of 101, 619. The most heavily trafficked routes are enumerated, accompanied by the most recent industry webinars and aviation market analysis. The schedule includes data on the busiest global, international, and regional airports.
📹 11 Flight Secrets Airlines DON’T Want You to Know
There’s a lot that airlines probably don’t want you to know. Luckily, there are plenty of anonymous flight attendants who openly …
I have flown a lot in my 58 years and I will say the real problem began when airlines started charging extra for luggage. Suddenly everyone had carry-ons and this slowed boarding down dramatically. I remember the day when the only thing I took on the plane was my handbag, which I stowed under the seat in front of me after I was seated.
There is one Brazilian Airline (Azul Airlines) that uses the Steffen Perfect. They have projectors in the ceiling of boarding gates that projects on the ground the sets that should be entering in the correct order, meanwhile the other passengers can wait seated. It’s very effective and super fun way to board! hahaha
If you wanted the slowest possible method of boarding, front to back seems decent enough, but doing the Steffen method in reverse seems ideal. Front to back, don’t alternate, seated from the aisles out to the window. Maximises seat shuffling, minimises pullaways and parallels. Call it the Steffen Corrupted.
There is actually an interesting boarding method that the military uses when they do mass transportation of soldiers that is potentially more efficent then Steffan Perfect. When the US Military deploys entire batallions or brigades of troops from one continent to another, they do so by chartering entire 777 or other dreamliner class trans-oceanic flights. The method is back to front, every second isle, but with a twist. You load back to front, no choice of which seat, and you do not stowe your bag immediatly. You sit down in the seat with your bag in your lap and wait. Once the row has filled and the row in front has filled, all bags are passed to the isle seat, who shoves them all into the overhead bins one by one for the entire row. While you are sitting down with your bag in your lap, you have a couple moments to pull out whatever items you will immediatly need and prep your bag to be stowed. I do not know if the method has a specific name, but I experienced it on three separate occations going to or from deployments. This seating method basicly reduces all stopages from stowing bags and from seat shuffling to nearly zero. This however would basicaly never work for a civillian flight for many reasons. People traveling together and trust being the major issues. General travelers will likely not trust in handing their bag of personal belongings to a random stranger to have them stuff it into the overhead, and the random isle-seat passenger will probably not be willing to do the extra work of putting 5-7 bags into he overhead one after another.
When boarding a domestic flight in Australia, as you enter the aerobridge, there is a sign which directs rows 1-15 to continue along the aerobridge and board the aircraft through the front door, and rows 15+ to walk down the stairs out onto the apron and board using the rear stairs, filling the plane from both ends.
As a teen I was returning from visiting family in Palm Springs Ca and there was a load of Marines on leave from 29 Palms also departing. Not sure if they were ordered to do so of if it arose organically in their Marine minds but they organized window, middle, isle from back to front with bags they knew where they would fit and the other 8 or 10 of us mere mortals managed to fit in well enough not to much things up and I swear we loaded the plane in about 90 seconds. Well, I’m not sure exactly how fast but it was fast enough that the captain gave the announcement we were leaving early. “You all did such a great job boarding we were able to bump up our departure time by 10 minutes, so we’ll um, be underway I guess… ” You could hear the pleasurable bewilderment in his voice… Departing the plane was just as orderly and with that single flight I experienced nirvana. Never before, never again…
Can I volunteer an idea to help with human’s inability to follow instructions ? It’s the fact that when people don’t know you’re breaking a rule, it’s much easier to break it. An example is people boarding the plane although it’s not their group’s turn. In comparison, when plane staff calls people group by group to UNBOARD the plane (row 1 to 15, 15 to 30 and so on), people tend to follow that rule much more, otherwise it’s OBVIOUS they’re braking it and are trying to take advantage of the system and go past people they were not meant to. SO an idea would be to make rule breaking obvious from the start, for example by printing boarding passes of different colors, and calling them out by colors (« we now invite passengers with a RED ticket to board the plane »). This would draw attention to the ticket’s color which is obvious to everyone, and people couldn’t hope that the front desk staff will « not notice » that they’re from another group. In my mind, it works !
It’s weird because here in Europe, I have never experienced boarding groups—It’s always been the ‘planes here’ method. In fact, up until a few years ago, EasyJet didn’t even use allocated seats so you could sit wherever you want. The closest thing to boarding groups I have experienced here is when they open the front and back doors of the planes so you are told if you sit in the rear of the plane to use the back door. They don’t force you or organise you but most people do it on their own as it is legitimately more convenient.
I was on a flight a few months ago and they had a different method where the plane had a door at the front and one at the rear. So it went front to middle and back to middle simultaneously. Seemed like a smart idea, except for the fact that you inevitably got people near the back who entered from the front, or vice versa, and all of a sudden you had an even larger traffic jam than before, since now both lines were getting stopped by whatever random person didn’t enter from the correct door and was trying to move against the flow…
This is why when I am on a plane I pick the very last row and I blissfully wait my turn both boarding and exiting, because the real bliss is to not let the time it takes get you in a bad mood. If you approach life in this way, everyday is a vacation because you’re just happy to be on a plane at all, remembering all the souls who never have or never will have that privilege. It’s all about perspective.
Theoretically speaking, a lot of the delay could be removed by allowing the luggage to be put underneath the seat, underneath a trapdoor on the floor, or just anywhere that is more accessible and convenient than an opening that is only accessible on the aisle of the plane. However, this will come with new complications like the issues of seat shuffling amplified, drastic redesign of the seat itself, further redesign over the placement of the seats. Perfection truly is impossible
I have a tons of ideas to improve boarding : – have more doors – have less seats per row – have more stops so not everyone boards and leaves at the same time – have longer vehicles – have more flexible bag storing, with overhead storing that can be smaller, as well as large accessible bag storing shelves periodically (next to doors and in the middle) Oh, that sounds a lot like a train…
I’d heard before that random boarding was significantly faster than group boarding back to front. I think they’re trying to avoid fights for position in line… but they could just assign boarding group numbers randomly and then it would trick people into feeling like there was group organization when there was really none. Just avoiding jostling in random board mode. But of course, if they’re going to change it, they ought to use the alternate row speed max version.
concept: look behind you, if there are people waiting to go past you, quickly squeeze into one of the seats (stand up) with your luggage on the seat – they pass by – you then move back out when the aisle is clear, store your items, sit down. Same theory goes with deplaning – you don’t have items/have them already in your arms – zoom zoom zoom out of there. You have things to get down? Wait until it’s not a major inconvenience, stand up clearly looking like you are waiting but patient, and grab your things down when the line is moving slow, again move to the seat when people need to pass by. Amazing what knowing your surroundings and being conscientious can accomplish.
This could easily be solved by having assigned seating in the waiting area. Each seat would have various numbers or labels that would correspond with the waiting area. People would come in and sit in their seat in the order they will be on the airplane. Then one entire row all window A seats could get up at the same time and single file go onto the plane back to front. Now airports have a variety of airplanes, and so it would not be needed to shuffle chairs, one could have different labels (green, blue, red,) and if using airplane A everyone sits in seats according to that color label. A flight attendent could walk around and help people as needed ahead of time, if there were difficulties in getting ready. It might also be easier to do every other row. (We are now boarding A seats even numbers, we are boarding A seats odd numbers.) If the seats were laid out carpet colors or tape on the carpet could make it easier for everyone to “know” where they are on the airplane. This could even include indications for bathrooms and or emergency exits. As parties want to board together, they wait till the last person in the party boards.
I just experienced flying on Southwest for the first time yesterday and I love the way they handle boarding. There’s no first class nor assigned seating. You get a number based on when you checked in (or a better number if you paid for automatic check-in or have loyalty status), and you line up at the gate by number. The line is then let loose to get on the plane and everyone sits wherever they want. One peculiar side effect of this is if you’re not carrying a large bag, you have a shot at getting a better seat because the overhead bins fill up faster than the seats do. This creates an incentive to check your bag, which Southwest graciously lets you do for free. Granted this airline only operates 737s so there may be problems with this method for larger planes, or on flights that need to sell premium seats to be viable, but I’ve found it to be much more pleasant than the usual.
You did mention the flaw that would defeat any improvement in boarding methods, the human inability or just plain unwillingness to follow directions. When I went to basic training in the military some decades ago, we were 80 guys in one unit for many long weeks. To go from one place to another, we marched. To get into marching formation we formed a height line, tallest in the front to shortest in the back, then filed into marching formation. I can’t remember standing behind the same guy twice in a row, ever. Did our relative heights change from one hour to another? I doubt it. We just failed at even the most simple of cooperative tasks.
You could implement Steffen Perfect by putting numbered circles on the floor at the gate in rows/columns, arranged such that a column will get loaded at once. This is a really simple way to get everyone in the correct arrangement. You ask people to go stand on their circle. Then you direct a column to proceed into the plane, etc. If someone doesn’t want to participate because they are in a family group, they can sit out until the last column is loaded. This incentives participation.
The window – middle – aisle doesn’t take into account that aisle passengers likely don’t have overhead space and have to go up and down the aisles to put their overhead luggage, which slows down the boarding considerably. This also slow down the disembarking as people in the front have to trek back to get their luggage from overhead bins because they are no longer directly above them. Back to front does not have this same issue, and thus I believe your theory here is flawed from a practical standpoint.
Improving boarding and deboarding speeds doesn’t mean anything. The only reason to do that would be to get planes in and out faster. Faster plane turnaround time means more people at the airport at the same time. Which means you have to increase the size of terminals to increase the seating area. Otherwise you have lots of people standing in the walkways. Also means more bags to handle at once. And more people going through security. You can improve boarding and deboarding all you want. All its going to do is transfer the delays to another part of the airport. Unless you spend millions 9f dollars overhauling the entire facility.
Actually the REAL reason airlines don’t do that is because it will take way too much organization to perform it. A lot of people could be off at a bar waiting for their flight so they’ll board at the last second (I’ve done that because they didn’t give a seat until last minute), and some in the bathroom, or some dozed off or calling loved ones. To perform this kind of organized boarding would require everyone to be in their position in line to be ready to file in, which never happens. There’s always gonna be that one guy who cuts in line claiming they missed their section call that ruins it for everyone. Not to mention the amount of time it takes for someone to stow away their belongings is also not uniform, which despite the efficient waiting it becomes not optimal as there will be obvious offsets to your organized structure.
if every seat had an assigned overhead compartment, i wouldn’t care when i boarded. i would actually prefer to be last on. I am aware that planes dont have space for everyone to put something up there, but if they could design it that way or enforce carry-on limitations it would make flying much less stressful for me. competing for resources makes people crazy..
In Australia most airlines board from the front and back at the same time. So if your in rows 15 – 25 you will go to the back of the plane and board via some stairs. Means you don’t have a situation where someone in seat 19 is waiting for people at the front to put their bags away. Doesn’t completely remove the bag issue but it reduces it somewhat.
Unless it’s a short flight, I get an aisle seat, so, I just wait in a comfy seat at the boarding gate until almost everyone else has boarded and then casually stroll on. When getting off I move to a seat next to me that’s been vacated already (to ensure I’m not obstructing anyone sitting beside me) and just wait until the herd’s moved on and then get my carry on luggage and stroll off. What’s the big rush to stand in a slow moving queue?
The there’s me who flys Southwest Airlines 95% of the time….and Southwest uses the randomized seasting system. Southwest still uses boarding groups, but all it is, is a way to catergoize who gets on the plane first. If you want to be with your friends or family, you either check in together at the same time so you’ll get a spot in line next to each other, or you can drop back to the lower group and board together there. You can also spend a bit extra money to get early check in so a high chance of being in the A boarding group or even in priority boarding which is A1-A15. Essentially, Southwest plays around with and sells perks that determines who is first in line. But once you’re through that jetway, it’s a free for all for whichever seat you want.
Regarding that last point about exiting the plane: Wouldn’t exiting back to front be even slower? If people in the front are exiting first, you can already get your bags out in the meantime. If the people in the back exit first, you can’t do that, since you have to keep the aisle clear until they’re through
I’ve only ever been on flights which let people board randomly. I don’t think back to front or window middle isle is really used in Europe. I prefer random rather than grouping because it doesn’t separate people who travelling together. Most air passengers travel with friends or family and the time feels to pass much faster if you are not split up.
Every Airline in the USA:- “Now boarding…Diamond, Saphire, Ruby, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Military, Express, First Class, Priority, Handicap, Elderly, Family with children, Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3, Zone 4…aaaannnddd now we overbooked, let’s spend the next 30 minutes trying to get 5-10 people to go on a flight tomorrow. We’ll start the bid at $200.”
4:22 the problem with this demonstration is thinking we are robots. Of course ailes shifting will happen no matter what. The human factor tells us that you always have someone not happy with the seat they have been given and will ask someone else to switch taking even longer negotiating not to mention people apparts from their relative that want to go back or front or people who have mistakenly read their seat number…
Actually I remembered this article when I started working as a ‘transport worker’ ( Basically ramp agent but lesser ) at the airport. We don’t have air bridges but rather have people walk from the gate to the plane and vice versa ( If it rains or if it’s too far away, the bus is used ) – so it’s interesting to notice that in fact we use both plane doors making everything rather quick. Our ground stuardesses and stuards also direct people to their door which maximises the efficiency of boarding – The planes comes and goes within 30 minutes usually. And no, it’s not just small planes like the A319 or the Dash-8 ( Which is tiny and has 1 door anyway… ) but the same would usually go for the rare but huge Condor 757. Either way, just wanted to share this little tidbit since you didn’t mention it in your article!
My favourite seat on an airplane is right at the back in the aisle. I love being the last person on the plane. I don’t Jane to wait to long for the plane to take off and everyone is already sat. I never have a bag for the over head locker so my bag fits under the chair. If my legs ache I can get up easily and walk the door look out the window for a while and chat to cabin crew plus I’m near the toilets. I’m the last to get off so I just sit and wait reading my book while everyone grabs their bags from the over head lockers. Everyone is now rushing to get their suitcases get through customs etc. when I get to customs there is no cue I arrive at the baggage carousel and the cases come out. I’m not stressed, just that few minutes of being behind the crowds to me makes so much difference
one of the reasons we use the current methods is that people with either more expensive tickets or higher “point class” want to get their luggage on the plate. Typically 1/3 of the plane is forced to check luggage. Therefore, the airline wants to give you an incentive to be able to get your bag on the flight by giving you a better boarding position.
How about, when you check in, you are given a number. Everyone you’re planning to travel with gets the same number. Then you are instructed to take a seat and not get up until your number is called. When your number is called, your number is instructed to fill the leftmost unoccupied seats in the rearmost rows where at least one seat is available. If this is confusing, consider a plane with 6 rows of 3 seats each. Row 1 is the frontmost row and row 6 is the rearmost. Group #1 is a group of 2 and so will occupy the 2 leftmost seats of row 6. Group #2 is a group of 1 and so will occupy row 6’s remaining seat. Group #3 is a group of 5 and so will occupy row 5 and then the two leftmost seats in row 4.
Last week I was flying out of Seattle on a a330. over a quarter of the flight was families with kids younger than 2. Boarding them alone took 20 minutes with them taking their times in both isles loading their crap in the over head. Flight was a tad delayed because of it. And that’s not including the crying, screaming throughout the flight lol
If they want to save time on boarding and make it super efficient, have two entrances. One in the front and one in the back. Then the people middle to back enter from the back and the people middile and front enter from the front. Done and done. Plane is on time. Takes off faster. More money for the airlines since they can board so quick for the next flight.
*After group A which is the disabled and people with young children. I love how SouthWest airline DO HAVE RANDOM seating, though 💛❤💙. But, as much as we wanna get going, no matter how fast we board, Pilots have to do a pretty lengthy checklist before taking off. Every flight…Especially if the pilots change. With each new Pilot switch, a pilot does a visual inspection of the plane.
While I do see your point of “seconds wasted for every human” when trying to board in the back to front method, I feel like those seconds will be lost anyway when considering the time taken for check in baggage to be loaded. I experienced this when I was one of the last passengers aboard the plane which used back to front boarding, and I was still seeing baggage being loaded into the plane after I had settled in my seat. Even if airports were to adopt the “Steffen Modified” method, there has to be some sort of improvement to the loading of check in baggage to actually make it faster. Not to mention the “earthing” of the plane, refueling, system checks, outside checks, etc. which could slow down the plane leaving the gate even more.
You assumed that all passengers have assigned seats, but Southwest doesn’t – however, they do line everyone up in a unique order, except for some special classes – handicapped, families with babies, etc. So of all the airlines, they might be the most open to your proposal since it would involve the least change on their part. They’d just need an algorithm to assign seats as people checked in – the hard part would be keeping couples and families together. But people would complain no matter what the system is.
I flew from Schiphol (Amsterdam) to Arlanda (Stockholm) and in Schiphol they did nothing people just walked in. And this was way faster than in Stockholm where they filled the plane front to back. But not everyone heard this.(due the lack of signs as I’m hoh idk what is going on) So they kept sending people back to the end of the queue. They needed way more people to put people in order. It was also really slow and people where annoyed because they where in line earlier but got send back
In my opinion, boarding could go much faster if airlines would be stricter in imposing compliance with the cabine luggage restrictions, in particular its dimensions. A lot of queueing is caused by people not being able to fit their luggage into their (meaning right above their seat) overhead cabinet, and/or by people not finding any available overhead cabinet space because theirs is taken up by someone else’s oversized cabine luggage. Strictly imposing compliance with maximum allowed dimensions, as wel as better informing people how to best store their luggage (some people really aught to learn how to play Tetris), could do a lot to help solve this problem. Last, but not least, passengers could learn (with some “help” from the airline) how to be more efficient while boarding the plane. Many people reach their seat, and only then start to unload their cabine luggage to get all the gadgets and gimmicks they need for the comfort of their flight. Instead, passengers should learn to either have everything ready while boarding the plane, or to only take it from their luggage once the plane has reached cruising altitude.
Another consideration with regard to boarding method is weight and balance. If everyone in the back boards first without anyone in the front of the cabin to counterbalance their weight, the aircraft’s nose could tip up in the air and possibly create a tail strike. It sounds ridiculous, but it can and does happen. The loading of baggage and cargo must be coordinated with boarding to ensure the aircraft stays firmly planted.
Actually getting out is much more efficient if people just think a little. Get up, get your bag, sit down. Most people got used to that, they try to get their bag and get back to their seat ready to get out. When everyone will start going out, they don’t have to block anyone and can get out right away. There’s usually enough time between stopping and opening the door that most people can get their bags in advance and get back to their seat.
I used to fly quite often for work. I would not board until it was almost full. My thought was you aren’t going anywhere until I get on last. It was less hassle than waiting in a stalled line. Upon returning to the states I also chose to declare one pack too many of cigarettes. Going through the declare line was always the fastest way out of that mess.
No, the fastest way would be to have everyone give their overhead stowage to the crew prior to boarding to be quickly and efficiently stored above the appropriate assigned seat. Then when the passengers board back to front there are zero people stowing bags. Any items used during the flight must be able to fit under your seat, overhead storage are for items you want to take with you without sending them through the normal baggage handling but you don’t need to access during the actual flight.
WizzAir and RyanAir have a method where the airplane is open from the front and back – and on your ticket it says if you should board from the front or back. I don’t understand why you didn’t even address this in your article, given that low cost airline companies are huge and make even more profit than full service airlines.
The other problem with efficient boarding is that the airline cannot blame delays on slow boarding. How many times have you heard this: “We will leave as soon as everyone is seated.” followed by, “Well we lost our take-off window and now we have to sit at the gate for a while or taxi around slowly.” Because it’s impossible to take into account how long it takes to board. Yeah, no-one should believe that. It would be great one day if the passengers could call the flight crew’s bluff and everyone immediately sits down unexpectedly quick, so that they have to find a new excuse.
I’d be willing to partake in the 4 group, every other row method though you have to line up within your group from highest seat value to lowest seat value (ideally). The other method is to load the plane from front exit and rear exit. You can load mid to front and mid to back, while letting your expensive class board group board forward of the economy class’ entrance. The (3rd) option is not 100+ boarding groups by like 8. Southwest’s system seems happy, energetic and marketable faster than current practices of front to back / back to front. Sure it isn’t staggeringly fast but this company’s energy is huge difference compared to other airlines.
I love how CGP’s calculations all involve everyone doing things correctly. The sectional back-to-front method is set up to minimise the consequences of catastrophic idiocy, i.e. someone walking all the way to the back of the plane then realising their seat is at the front and having to demolish all the other passengers in order to charge back through the aisle to reach their seat. At least he realised that all the improved methods would split up family groups, which would never be accepted. I almost expected Grey to overlook the concept of family/friends altogether. XD I also disagree with the assertion that passenger disembark from front to back. Disembarking is a free-for-all and people at the front who are slow get stuck in their seat row until a gap opens up in the stream moving down the aisle from behind them.
I just realized that in your “modified steffen” animation, you are still assuming that rows will be lined up back to front. But if you really broke up the board groups into 4 that way, you should still see the random shuffling “benefit” where some people will just immediately find their row at the front… I don’t know if that’s factored into your calculation and just the animation is off, but I thought it would be worth mentioning