In the 2 years I lived in Ireland, and many many weekend trips to various cities around Europe, I think I only flew RyanAir once. Aer Lingus was the cheaper option every other time.
I hate boarding early onto that crampfest. I would love a way to sell my boarding position to one of those eager to get packed in.
Getting a set of passengers to board in such a matter would be like herding cats, people can be seriously ornery, especially after being molested by the TSA
people try this but generally the flights are so full that there are only a very few empty seats when everyoneâs finally seated.
Yes, there is a bit of that. It works up to a point and then the people standing in the aisle find a seat anyway. They typically let you know how full the flight is and start encouraging those destined for middle seats to go ahead and make some new friends.
If you want to board last, there is nothing stopping you, except⌠you will most likely get a center seat between the 2 least desirable seatmates on the plane. So, there is a price to pay.
Early boarding matters a lot if youâre on Southwest, because with no assigned seats, boarding early means you can get a good seat instead of a non-reclining middle seat in back by the lavatory, which is what happens if youâre last in line.
On other airlines, itâs useful to be able to board early and unhurried if you need extra time, either because youâre handicapped or have kids with you or whatever, but it makes a lot less difference.
The other airlines Iâve taken with no seat assignments were the old People Express (which did feel like grumpy New Yorkers waiting for the train in Penn Station, except they were in EWR or LAX, unlike cheerful Perky Southwest), Royal Air Morocco in the 80s (non-smokingâs on the right, and theyâre not smoking wimpy American tobacco - you REALLY wanted to be in non-smoking), and the Hawaiian puddle-jumper airlines, mostly 10-seater Cessnas, where your seating order is by weight to keep the plane balanced.
Actually he assumed a spherical, frictionless, blackbody cow.
what about give everyone or every travelling group, a buzzer linked to each seat instead of a boarding pass? an algorithm could dynamically adjust order based on seat spacing, and current backlog.
maybe even have an estimated wait time displayed to help keep everyone from freaking out over slowness of the lineâŚ
attendents collect them all at the end.
I think that itâs mostly a human-interaction problem. Measuring the approximate dimensions of a bag is easy. Dealing with a passenger whose avoidance of a $50 checked-bag fee, or a wait down at baggage claim, or both, depends on denying that measurement is Not Easy.
Unless you have the TSAâs abusive rentacop swagger, or are running an airline where the helotized customers know what they were in for, you just canât fight some battles, much less expect to win them.
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Bingo. When I travel with my father and my kids, we cannot have checked luggage because he will leave us at the airport to go straight to the hotel. (Heâs a good guy, just has a few quirks.)
On the bright side, my children learned to pack well.
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They all hit the ground same time regardless of mass?
Good points. And if you are going to model the behavior then model it. I am sure there are statistics on when families travel together or if a passenger is alone, on people running late, on failure to follow instructions and such. Go ahead and put it on the model and then you have a model where you can test the process and its sensitivity to these other variables that could screw it up.
I feel like I have said this before. And so did Wired.
I do like the genetic algorithm method he used to develop the boarding process and then test in the simulation. It seems like it wouldnât be difficult to add the other factors.
Mr. Steffen has neglected the fact that most passengers would like to board with their family and friends who are usually seated next to them, and thus boarded separately in such logistic.
Iâve been on Northwest flights that tried something similar in the late 90s. Each boarding pass is printed with a boarding ID, they are alphabets and are not called by any order youâd expect. It is calculated by the computer real time it seems.
As we all know, most people donât listen to the broadcast. It was chaos. They spend more time telling people that it is not their turn yet. People are so annoyed and just walk up whenever they want. Ended up much slower than traditional back-to-front boarding. It just wouldnât work in practice.
I do imagine it working in military units.
You can see Dr. Steffenâs results in a full length experiment on the tv show, This vs That. Go to: thisvsthatshow.com. Itâs episode #1 in the series!!!
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You get the same at the other end too - people get up as soon as the plane stops taxiing and crowd the aisle waiting for the door to open. As long as the seat isnât too uncomfortable, Iâm happy to keep reading for a bit and be one of the last off the plane. Itâs generally the most comfortable place youâll be for the next few minutes, and when you get to the luggage carousels your luggage has often already arrived. Thereâs always the chance that youâll have a longer queue at the border control, but that depends on the airport.
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