I fly southwest every week, round trip somewhere, occasionally more than one trip per week. I have been doing this for about 8 years. Thus, my sample size is goodly (as is my carbon footprint). They have no assigned seats, just an assigned order for boarding. This is a huge improvement over their prior practice of first come, first serve (aka the cattle call).
By my observation, southwest enforces their procedure about 98% of the time. They do let some more eager (or spatially clueless) customers skip a few spots up the line from time to time but rarely will they let someone slide by more than a few spots and never more than 30 places. Mostly they leave it up to the other travelers to enforce the pecking order. That generally works.
Their system seems designed to play fair with everyone, discourage chaos, and squeeze some extra cash out of those who really want to get on first ( the first 15 pay a premium for that pleasure , a drink coupon with a limited shelf-life and some extra miles on their rewards program). This takes care of the well funded eager beavers. They put families who want /need special boarding privileges after the first 60 which discourages the obnoxiously entitled from playing that game. They also put their VIPs who managed to not get a VIP boarding spot (which is typically between 15th and 30th, i.e. the first non premium paying customers) just in front of the family boarding. That seems like a fair deal since it is the VIP (often me, making late plans or changes) who has screwed up more often than not (with the exception being when your flight is canceled and you have to rebook). Beyond that, it is dictated by the order you check in. Those who check in last get on last. This encourages early check in which is probably good for the airline in terms of planning.
I think a big part of the issue is this new model we have in general where providers screw up services deliberately, then make you pay for them to unscrew them up. For example, web pages with annoying pop-ups and ads that you can pay a fee for them to make it less annoying. Same here, they limit baggage space, which screws up boarding, and then you can pay a fee to jump the line or put a bag on. Even Southwest does this - I pay that fee for the early check-in. But then, in exchange, we are not paying thousands of dollars per flight like the good old days of Pan Am.
While Southwestâs boarding practice isnât popular with a lot of people, I think itâs still considered the fastest technique thatâs actually in use. This article has a description of four of the techniques currently used, and an experiment that showed Southwestâs is best of those four (it also found the Steffen technique was best of all). Is there better or newer research somewhere, perhaps?
The carriers I fly on (United mostlyâtheir hub is local) have 5 zones for the aircraft. Zone 1 is for First class, Hyper Ultra Platinum Elite Turbo Remix customers, and people in wheelchairs. Zone 2 is for people with a bunch of miles or a little extra cash to spend, itâs usually one of the largest groups. Zone 3 is for people with window seats. Zone 4 for middle seats. Zone 5 is for aisle seats. Basically they try to minimize the amount that people have to get up to let someone in their seat.
In practice, this means First Class fills first followed by the rows just behind First Class (Business class on some planes, but otherwise just further forward), with a random smattering of the Zone 2 people in the rest of the plane. Then the Window/Middle/Aisle rows get on. Sometimes there is no Zone 5 (smaller planes with 2x2 or less seating).
If you donât have anything going in an overhead bin, it makes a lot of sense to wait until the end before boarding, since itâs less time stuffed inside of the cramped plane watching people fumble with their bags. If you do have something going in the bin, then you want to get on earlier (window seats!) to avoid having to stuff your bag in some completely different part of the plane or do the walk of shame back to the door to gate check it.
If your plane isnât totally full, then it doesnât matter as much either. But that rarely ever happens anymore. In the last 12 legs that Iâve flown (all in the past month) only one plane wasnât totally full, and it had a grand total of 2 open seats (both middle seats in the very last row).
No assigned seats - interesting! Do people put their backpacks on the seat next to them and avoid eye contact, like on buses and trains?
Youâve got to give them this - they managed to make early boarding privileges an actual privilege, rather than the burden it is with most airlines. I always try to board late, and might consider paying a small fee to be able to board last - spending the minimum of time in my cramped airplane seat, and not having the people who boarded after me elbow me in the head trying to get their suitcase into the overhead bin.
tldr ⌠presumably weâre talking about the usual approach of pumping all the air out of the plane, cramming the passengers tightly into the boarding tunnel before suddenly opening the plane door? Early testing has reducing boarding times to around 2.6 seconds with only 2% of the passengers (by volume) remaining in the tunnelâŚ
To be honest, I never understood the desire to pay extra to be the first sardine in the package. I pack light enough to stow my bag under the seat in front of me anyway. Iâm quite content to spend the least amount of time in a plane as I possibly can.
What airline you flying with? I fly Ryanair 2-4 times yearly and they have a box for checking the size of carryon. Doesnât fit in the box - must go in the hold.
Why not design the planes with removable passenger compartment pods? You take your seat at your leisure in the terminal, then the modules slide into the plane through the nose, somewhat like this:
Conceivably each module could even have its own parachutes and be ejectable in case of emergency.
Those airlines arenât charging you ÂŁ50 or whatever to stow a carry-on. Or to pee.
(Iâm pretty sure when I flew one or the other there was a fee for anything going in the overhead compartmentâŚnot seeing that directly charged now. Maybe that was just for discount tickets?)
