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Getting people to board in a certain order isn't particularly difficult. Southwest does it already, even if they only use it to... make sitting in a grounded plane a perk of checking in early? I'm actually not sure why they do it.

Thing is, you need people to board in a super precise order. Just two people swapped around in the line means someone can't get to their seat, delaying the whole boarding process.

That still would be much faster though than the current approach employed by most airlines which makes it more likely to create congestion in the aisle and minimizes how many people can load luggage and take their seat in parallel.

To get overhead luggage space before it fills up, or does SW not allow for that?

Southwest offers free checked bags so there is somewhat less demand for overhead bin space.

Lots of airlines will gate check your bag for free if the overheads are full, but the overheads are still in high demand because they give you one less errand leaving the destination airport.

I thought Southwest uses “open” seating, where passengers aren’t assigned a seat, but instead just take any unoccupied seat? If so, a perk of being earlier in the boarding order would be that you have a better chance of getting a seat you want, if you have any particular preferences.

> you have a better chance of getting a seat you want, if you have any particular preferences.

also have a better chance of not having to risk getting separated from your carry-on baggage because the plane's already full

Yes, they do, it's great. Being right at the very front of the line is a paid perk for singles, free for families with kids; being in the first main group after that is just a matter of checking in the night before.

Usually I find I can get a seat I don't hate unless I am running so late that I am in the latter half of the 'B' group or anywhere in the 'C' group.

This is why every southwest flight has 20 boomers in wheelchairs at the front of the line for preboard.

One time I was traveling with a blind girl who had a guide dog and the boomer patrol had occupied all the bulkhead space. They seemed to think she should sit with a German Shepherd in her lap. Needless to say I aggressively advocated and reminded the flight crew that FAA regulations entitle persons with guide dogs to a bulkhead seat. Let me tell you, we got some stink eyes from the displaced boomers who didn't want to have to walk an extra six feet to the potty.

> FAA regulations entitle persons with guide dogs to a bulkhead seat.

Google didn't find those regulations for me.

They don’t appear to be indexed well anymore. However here[1] is a fairly recent article mentioning the existence of the space rule. If I fly with a guide dog user again I’ll be sure to find the actual rule.

[1] https://upgradedpoints.com/travel/airlines/ultimate-guide-to...

> Filling the plane can easily take 20 minutes - which in a half hour turnaround is often the critical path

can you really reduce it that much, given that the plane needs to be refueled, cargo unloaded and reloaded, etc? like it may be the case that while it's inconvenient for passengers, the airline doesn't really care because it takes them a half hour to turn the plane around on the tarmac side anyway, so there's no benefit from reducing the passenger loading time.

passengers are frequently the critical path.

fuel and luggage crews can be quick. I've seen a luggage crew unload and reload a plane inside 8 minutes, including loading 2 airfreight containers.

There have been similar simulations for boarding airplanes. I wish I had never heard about them because now I get annoyed almost every time I fly.

As with de-boarding most time is wasted/spent by people standing in the aisle and waiting for someone who is putting their luggage in. The optimal solution has as many passengers loading their luggage in the overhead compartment in parallel as possible. The ideal way to do this would be that we first have passengers with window seats board with one person for each row. We should only use every other row to ensure people can maneuver. So we'd first board seats NA, N-2A, N-4A, etc. down to row 1 with N being the last row. Then NF, N-2F, N-4F etc. And then N-1A, N-3A and so on. Then we work our way through the middle seats and then aisle seats.

The current approach which commonly boards people starting from the front or back FORCES congestion and minimizes probability of two people reaching their seat at the same time and being able to put up their luggage in parallel.

Even if the approach I describe is broken because groups board together, it becomes at worst a random boarding order which is still much more efficient than the current nonsense.

The reason we cannot board more efficiently is because it's unintuitive, people don't like it and behave like wild animals in groups.

> Even if the approach I describe is broken because groups board together, it becomes at worst a random boarding order which is still much more efficient than the current nonsense.

I think it can quickly become worse than random.

Imagine you have the perfect sequence for max parallelism, but right in the middle is one 6 person family group who are going to take 10 minutes to get seated while they arrange toys and stuff for each child, blocking the aisle the whole time.

With the perfect sequence, this halts all boarding for those 10 mins, since people need to pass the blockage for the scheme to work. Whereas with random boarding, there will actually be many people who manage to get seated during those 10 mins, because there will be a bunch of people who, by chance, are seated between the door and the blockage and can get to their seats.

Unless the method is reactive, that family would always lead to the entire aisle being filled within seconds with waiting passengers who need to pass them unless the family is very far back in the plane.

> right in the middle is one 6 person family group who are going to take 10 minutes to get seated while they arrange toys and stuff for each child

such a group is slower, certainly.

they do not take 10 minutes.

No thanks. As someone who prefers aisle seats I don't want to get stuck boarding last to find that the overhead bins are already full.

Most flights I've taken in the last 5+ years use group boarding, which roughly approximates filling outside in (not front to back).

It only roughly approximates though because the first few groups are usually not outside-in (eg. first class, premium/rewards customers, veterans, families with small children).

I never understood the concept of boarding from the front. I would never want to be the first on a plane; regardless of status. And this means that every single person passing them will bump, cough, shuffle, past those that boarded first.

I guess it's just that people would feel bad going *last*? Psychology is weird - but powerful.

At least for me, the main benefit of boarding early is still having carry-on space. Last thing I wanna do is to have to check any luggage and then wait forever to retrieve it later.

On european airlines, luggage rarely overflows the overhead bins because you have to pay to use the overhead bins (often nearly the same as the cost of your seat on short cheap flights). The only storage you can use for free is the space under the seat.

That really changes the dynamics.

I always board as soon as my group is called. It ensures that I have space next to me for my overhead luggage, and I can start settling in, sometimes going to sleep. Plus, I'm already uncomfortable at the airport, what's a little more discomfort on the plane?

> The challenge here is you need to get people to enter the plane door in a very precise order.

Small amounts of money are often very motivating.

You could, for example, say that anyone can enter or leave the plane in any order they like. However, if they do so before their turn in the system, they don't get a $10 refund on their ticket. If they don't present their ticket, they are assumed to have gone early.

The question then, is whether the benefit would remain with proportional instead of total compliance, and whether the benefit outweighs the costs of enforcement.

My first thought is that there no way the boarding time is worth $10 per passenger to the airline, and no way they increase the cost $10 and don’t lose tickets to other people just using aggregate services like google flights and picking cheap options

Every plane I've been on in the last decade already sorts people by "boarding groups" which are relatively fine-grained. They won't let you onto the boarding ramp unless you're in the correct group, which they check by scanning your boarding pass. All they would have to do is make those boarding groups be based on your seating position instead of how much extra money you paid.