Friday, September 09, 2011

THE FASTEST WAY TO BOARD A PLANE

What's the quickest way to get passengers onto a plane? Millions of dollars hang on the question, since airlines lose money each time a flight is delayed by people futzing with carry-ons. Now an astrophysicist has devised and tested a method that's better, he says, than any currently used.
The key is staggered seating and moving from one side of the plane to the other, to prevent people-jams.
The physicist and a co-author tested the method against competing approaches on a mock airplane on a soundstage in Studio City, Calif.; the plane had 12 rows, six seats per row and one aisle.
Passengers lined up like so: "12A, 10A, 8A, 6A, 4A, 2A" ("A" signified a window seat.) Then seats on the opposite side of the plane got filled, in the same alternating pattern: "12F, 10F, 8F …" Then a return to the A row: "11A, 9A …" And so on—back and forth.
This method got 72 test subjects seated in three minutes, 40 seconds. Boarding all window seats, then middle seats, then aisle seats (United's approach), was next, at 4:21. Randomized boarding (American's) took 4:48. Seating by "blocks," the kind with which travelers might be most familiar, took a full 6:56.
"Experimental Test of Airplane Boarding Methods," Jason H. Steffen and Jon Hotchkiss, arXiv.org Physics, Aug. 25
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