Airbus proposes new drop-in airplane “cabin modules” to speed up boarding | Hacker News Reader

Airbus proposes new drop-in airplane “cabin modules” to speed up boarding

arstechnica.co.uk

50 pointsucaetano47 comments

As a frequent business traveler, I've long thought that slow boarding could be fixed by two things: 1) Standardized luggage 2) Not letting passengers handle their own bags

If you watch while boarding to see what slows the process down, it almost always seems to be related to people trying to cram oversized bags in the overhead bin, or being unable to effectively manage their own bags in the aisles. If you remove that from the equation entirely, the passenger responsibility becomes solely to get into their seat quickly.

Yes, and this also eliminates the need to have "priority boarding", which is really just a way of ensuring that the frequent traveller customers don't end up without overhead space for their bags.

I think the elder, people with disabilities, and families with small children would be the biggest losers here as they really need the right to priority boarding to avoid weird looks from the eventual self centered pricks that happen to be in the cabin.

Every airline I've flown always calls for "people who may need extra time boarding" or similar at about the same time as first class, before everyone else gets to board.

I speak from my experience flying in Europe, every airline that I've flew with boards first slower customers, business and the rest of the customers. I figured the US would be the same, wrong assumption.

US is similar - slow passengers (elderly, kids, etc), first class, business/priority, then the rest.

What flights are you on that priority boarding fills all the bins?

I think brk was just saying that everyone in priority will have room for their bags. Without priority boarding, they would have to fight with everyone else.

This I think would be a very nice improvement. It would be interesting to see what regulations prevent such a model. After all we are just Self Loading Freight; why rely on the passengers for any part of the logistics chain while shipping people between airports.

Instead of waiting in a open concourse with availability to starbucks, overpriced food, room to spread out, neck massage stations, proper restrooms you are exchanging it for waiting on the tarmac situations in a confined seat.

Carry-on luggage is already standardized, it is usually just not enforced.

With ground crews not being paid properly, I would not trust them with what I currently have in my carry-on luggage: laptops, camera, important paperwork (WHO vaccination certification, TANs etc). So your option 2, if implemented by an airline, would make flying with them unacceptable for me.

Since one cannot change people - and I'd like to add to your list of problems with them a) checking every single row number because, just maybe, row 42 might come right after row 23, not 19 rows ahead b) stowing away luggage in the overhead compartments the wrong way, thereby maximizing required space and c) before sitting down on 3C, taking your time to stow away your luggage, then realize that something important is in there and retrieve it again etc.. all while, of course, standing in aisle, blocking passengers who try to get to row 4 to 47 - how about looking for technical solutions?

a) personal guidance system that one gets just before boarding: A small, cheap handheld device that is configured when the boarding pass is swiped that shows a simple arrow to guide you to your seat? It could even double as the key to unlock the entertainment system (and if not removable from there will not accidentally be taken off the plane after the flight).

b) high tech voodoo called "paint" - actually mark how much space one has per seat in the overhead compartments, maybe even with the seat number.

c) All airlines could adopt the concept of boarding groups, a lot of time could be saved as well. Last 5 rows first, then leave 5 empty, next 5 rows, repeat until at head of plane. Then fill the empty rows following the same schema. If currently boarding rows are displayed prominently at the gate, staff does not even have to deal with passengers who did not get the announcements and passengers don't have to deal with unintelligible gibberish that qualifies as announcement (esp in 2nd or 3rd languages).

Carry-on luggage definitely is not standardized; each airline has its own rules [1]. And if you're on a commuter plane like a Bombardier CRJ, you'll be lucky if you can fit anything into the overhead bin.

[1] http://travel-made-simple.com/carry-on-size-chart/

True, but there's always some dumbass with a "carry-on" that they've expanded (so it no longer qualifies). Or, they don't know which direction to place the bag. Or, they jam their suitcase, plus their briefcase and jacket in the overhead, taking space that should "belong" to somebody else.

I'm far from a frequent flyer, but the number of passengers incapable of not screwing up the boarding process is amazing.

> each airline has its own rules

exactly - "has rules". Very few actually enforce them. And while I don't know whether the aircraft industry agreed on some standard, my pretty huge, hard-case backpack always perfectly fits in. And most airlines have actually the same rules how large items may be to qualify as carry-on: Worldwide you see the same measuring cages at check-in counters or the gate and trolleys are advertised as "carry on compatible" - both would not be possible without a maybe unwritten but pretty well established standard.

Edit: And you of course are right about very small commuter planes - but they are, IMHO not really relevant in the discussion because they are used less and less due to economic disadvantages of making something airborne for just 50 people.

Another thing that can improve things significantly: more than 1 entrance into the plane. What if people entered through the back, too?

Certain airlines (e.g. Norwegian) do this. It's usually a more unpleasant experience because you can't use a jetway and have to use the stairs and be exposed to the outside elements.

Jumbo jets also often have multiple jetways (e.g. for the upper deck or the business vs. economy sections.

I always thought it was weird since the advent of checked baggage fees starting from the first bag that the airlines were effectively charging you to speed up their boarding process.

Either airlines are terrible at cost optimization (unlikely), or the cost to them of having the plane sit idle while people screw around with their luggage is much lower than I would have imagined.

this in my opinion is the real issue, when i fly international people tend to check bags/the planes have ample overhead bin space i always find that the boarding process goes surprisingly fast. On domestics inevitably someone boards the plan sitting in row 6 but all the overheead space is full until you get to row 10 and they stand there confused for a few minutes

I avoid checking my luggage precisely because I don't want anyone else handling it, nor do I want it ever leaving my sight.

I do think that baggage causes a significant delay, but primarily because people don't board in exactly the order of their seats, and the aisle only supports one person (and their bag) at a time. So, with people boarding from the front of the plane, you have people in row 12 waiting with their bag behind a person in row 10 stowing their bag; after the person in row 10 stows their bag and sits down, the person in row 12 can move forward and start stowing their bag. And after they finish and sit down, the person behind them can go back to row 14 and start stowing their bag.

And the same situation happens in reverse when debarking the plane.

If everyone boarded and debarked in exactly the order of their seats, then everyone could load their bags in parallel, and boarding and debarking would speed up significantly.

As someone who flew weekly for years, I'd immediately refuse to use any airline that required checking bags. Airlines have completely lost my luggage before, ripped it open and taped it back together, and sometimes only delivered the luggage days after I landed.

There's no way they could be trusted with checked luggage beyond things you don't mind losing or arriving late, like extra clothes or something. If you need to bring product samples or equipment there's really no option but to bring it yourself or ship it ahead of time.

What I've seen a bit recently is that people with standard wheeled carry-ons were asked to put them right next to the plane when boarding and the crew put them in a separate compartment. When leaving the plane, you would pick it up at the exit. It's a compromise between checking it and having it close to your seat at all times, and seemed to work quite well.

I don't get it. People would still need to board into this pod thing and then they'd have to move the pod onto the plane and check to make sure it's secure and such. That seems like it would take even longer.

I suppose one could argue they can limit downtime for the rest of the aiplane by just popping in a new module and going, but there are lots of things going on that mean the aircraft needs some downtime on the ground: refueling, loading cargo, simple maintenance, preflight checks...

Not really clear what problem is being solved and seems to create lots of new problems (airports will also freak out... They hated the A380 and changes required to accommodate that bloated thing). Seems like the sort of thing companies patent because they have lots of lawyers sitting around looking for something to do rather that this actually being a meaningful innovation.

It's probably just a "shower thought" they are patenting just in case. Big corps do that a lot, maybe just to keep their lawyers busy.

Besides what you mentioned one also needs to factor in how many times small contingencies happen that are resolved in that wasted time, while the passengers are boarding.

Now: Plane arrives, docks, people get out, cabin cleaned, new people get in, plane starts.

Then: Plan arrives, docks, container is lifted, new container is put in, plane starts. Reduces turn around time for plane. Depends on size of plane.

(New) Container is boarded while plane is still in the air.

(Old) Container is unboarded while plane starts. Container is cleaned while plane is in the air.

I've had a similar idea for a while. In my version, the passenger module includes the seats and floor but not the walls, which remain part of the plane. If you could do it this way (I'm sure it would be a great engineering challenge to make it work) then you could load and unload the modules virtually instantaneously because people could just go out the sides. Each row would basically be independent.

Good idea. One practical challenge: you have to make sure nobody (including small children who don't listen to directions like "don't stick your arms out") gets hurt when getting moved next to the walls.

Also, if you don't have the walls attached to the module, then you'll have a challenge including the ceiling, and the overhead luggage racks.

This patent is not going far enough, and as mentioned, the tech isn't designed yet.

What you want is to open the nose of the plane, dock to the terminal, and slide out all the seats right into a controlled access room in the terminal waiting area, expanding the row to row distance by an extra foot. Flush those passengers out.

New passengers enter the enclosed room, and can all get to their comfortably spaced rows and seats from the outside at the same time, no center isle queuing needed. Once seated, slide all the seats back into the plane, undock, close the nose, and depart.

Between Boeing's existing nose design and the roller coaster industry, this is all existing tech.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cargolux_B747-400F...

That's a better idea than the patent, although still debatably practical.

The whole point of plane design is to keep weight down while maximising strength.

The patent does the opposite for both. You're going to have dangerous weak points all around the fuselage, especially around the doors and the pod locks.

A front loader could work better, but you'd still have to add some weight to handle the overheads and other support structure.

The bigger problem is that either idea would mean massively expensive retooling for airports around the world, and it would - at best - limit flights to specific upgraded destinations.

This seems more like a blue sky (...) patent filed because - why not? Not so much a practical design.

And maybe take that one step further: put everyone in a container/capsule and load the capsule out of the plane directly onto a rail vehicle which zaps down to main train station.

This can possibly lower costs, but it doesnt really do anything to improve airport throughput. That's runway limited. Can anyone estimate how much of the ticket price could be saved if this all worked perfectly?

Seems to me that devices for moving people quickly around airports and take them directly to their gate would be much higher value for much less cost and complexity. Sensible or not, safety restrictions make fast moving walkways unworkable. I'd like to know why personal rapid transit is so darn difficult to make cost effective. They seem ideal for airports.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit

Reminds me of this concept for boarding trains in China where the train wouldn't even need to stop at the stations:

http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/12/this-propos...

I seem to remember seeing this idea before (even before the 2013 date of this article and not being designed by the Chinese). Regardless of that, it's a really good idea: As well as making boarding somewhat more efficient, it really helps with energy consumption as there's no waste from slowing down and accelerating, because the train just loops round a course at constant speed.

the problem with boarding is that very few people actually optimize their behavior to board quickly. they just take their sweet ass time because they feel they're entitled to it. like, why would anyone bother to take off their coat and put it in a bag, or transfer the crap they need during the flight from their overhead bag to their handbag before the boarding process? that's just way too obvious. better do it in the aisle and hold everyone up for 30 seconds.

it would probably be cheaper and more effective just to hire marine drill instructors to scream at people as they're boarding.

I've actually thought of this but for a different reason, my plan was to have the pod "ejectable" (if that's a word). In the event of a bomb in the belly of the plane the pod or pods could be ejected with parachutes and maybe some sort of auto-guidance land and picked up later.

Wouldn't help with a bomb in the pod, which would be the obvious place to put one.

Well, if the main plane was still air-worthy, the crew at the front probably wouldn't think that.

I don't know about one huge pod, but it shouldn't be much of a stretch to do something similar using "unit load devices" (containers) similar to those used on freighter aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_load_device

One could imagine each of these containing about half a dozen rows of seats. Board them from each end, and you have almost eliminated the bottlenecks of people standing in aisles loading overhead bins. They are then loaded out to the aircraft.

This would greatly simplify terminal architecture as well since you don't need complicated articulated jetways or parking aprons for a lot of planes close to the building.

This would also do a lot to solve the problem of filthy, unhygenic cabins- the cleaning crew would have a lot more time to go through the "pod" than the're currently able to spend in the plane between flights.

Swapping the entire cabin in and out seems excessive - why not use seats like those on an amusement park ride. Sit down and strap-in at the gate and then be moved in batches into the aircraft... :-)

Yesterday's discussion on that subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10627873

>dehumanizing, dropped, squeezed

It's great how with the right words you can make something sound very evil and awful. I don't believe there would be any dropping of airplane components or people.

They could make great strides with less cost by ordering the boarding order. It seems some pattern of boarding window seats first, starting from the back and moving up, would be most efficient. Of course that breaks all the rules on frequent flier statuses, overhead space and such.

Once heard an anecdote about a marching band chartering an aircraft. Flight attendants were floored at the speed everyone was settled.

Most airlines do some form of this. They're up to 6 zones, outside in and back to front, not counting premiums.

I always thought they should make planes out of vertical tubes, drop people out the bottom, drop new ones into the top, and go. Then again I hate flying.

Like Thunderbird 2 but with passenger modules?

Edit: that will teach me about not reading the article first. It already had a picture of Thunderbird 2. Doh.

Two problems that I have with that - 1st there is no inventive step. Second - how viable will be the airframe?

My apologies, the previous submission had a wrong link, I deleted it and re-submitted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com