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“We would like to begin boarding our flight at this time.”
You know the friendly boarding announcement from the gate agent. Unfortunately, it means the next 45 minutes of your life will be chaotic. And the airlines have made it inherently chaotic – so people will pay for an easier boarding process.
First, passengers crowd the gate queue, creating a bottleneck. Even though you told yourself you would sit quietly in the airport waiting area until your zone is called, you can’t resist. They go to the scrum.
Next comes confusion over which zone passengers are assigned to.
Zone 1 or Group A does not necessarily mean we get on board first. People line up out of line and wait for their group to be called. Some passengers cut the rope to make room in the overhead compartment for their carry-on luggage. Finally, your zone will be called and you can scan your ticket and board the plane.
But don’t get too excited – the pipe on the jet bridge is blocked. More waiting.
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A fuse on the jet bridge.
As soon as you have overcome the crawl space on the jet bridge and enter the aircraft, it will also be moved back.
Your seat is in the last section of the plane. You move in fits and starts, pushing your way through the narrow aisle until you reach the line.
If you’re lucky enough to find space in the overhead compartment for your carry-on luggage, you clumsily throw it in, hoping not to hit another passenger. It’s still not over.
You sit in our window seat, but someone is in the middle. You must get out and walk into the aisle, holding up the line behind you.
“Getting on a plane is the 21st century version of Lord of the Flies,” said Henry Harteveldt, who covers the travel industry for the Atmosphere Research Group. “The airlines have created this complexity and this madness.”
Here’s how it got so messy and why it’s not more efficient.
This panic over faster boarding and the guarantee of a baggage compartment is not a problem for the airlines. It’s a function.
Sure, airlines could improve boarding for everyone. But what’s better for airlines is to make boarding easier for just some people. The people who want to give them even more money.
Airlines have realized that they can make even more money from people willing to pay a fee for priority boarding.
There is internal tension between airline marketing teams focused on maximizing revenue from boarding and operations teams wanting the process to run more efficiently, said Robert Mann, an airline consultant and former executive.
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Crowded airports, crowded boarding.
“Because there’s so much money on the credit card and frequent flyer side, the marketing people win and the operations people have to take care of it,” he said.
Additionally, thanks to improved airline analytics, aircraft have become larger and more frequently booked out. And some airlines have reduced the number of agents at the gate because more agents mean airlines have to pay more people.
Despite different airline boarding strategies and techniques over the years, the process is still a nightmare.
Baggage fees and loyalty programs
Getting on a plane wasn’t always so complicated.
Decades ago, airlines boarded in first class and used an open boarding process for the main cabin. Passengers were able to check in their luggage free of charge.
But in 2008, as fuel prices skyrocketed, airlines began charging passengers fees for checked baggage.
“That’s when things started to get out of hand,” Harteveldt said.
Passengers began carrying more luggage to avoid paying a fee or waiting to collect their luggage upon arrival.
“The airlines have figured out they can make money with bags. That eliminated any efficiency for faster boarding,” said Massoud Bazargan, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, who studies flight planning and operations.
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Precious space above your head.
According to the Transportation Department, airlines collected nearly $7 billion in baggage fees last year.
In response, airlines began selling valuable overhead bin space to travelers willing to pay for earlier boarding. Airlines also started offering credit cards, frequent flyer programs, and loyalty programs, all of which they could sell to people who wanted priority boarding – something that wasn’t really necessary before, since the system mostly worked before the industry broke it.
In 2012, airlines began introducing basic economy fares and offering priority boarding for a fee.
Because of all these new passenger segments created, airlines had to separate them when boarding. The companies introduced new jargon for different entry zones and groups, which slowed down the process.
“The more zones and groups there are, the longer it takes,” Bazargan said.
Changes in the airline industry to improve airline profitability have also impacted boarding.
Planes are larger and equipped with denser, more cramped seats to accommodate more passengers. In addition, flights are more often overcrowded, which congests boarding.
Last April, passenger load factor – the ratio of passengers to available seats – was 84%, up from 74% in 2000, according to the Department of Transportation.
Airlines are experimenting with different boarding systems to speed up the process. But no one has found an optimal entry method.
Some airlines have tried carrying passengers first in window seats, then in middle seats, then in the aisles – known as Wilma. But companies abandoned this method because it separated families and was chaotic for people who arrived late to board.
Getting in from the back to the front didn’t go smoothly either.
This method creates congestion in the aisle as people look for their seats and stow their luggage upstairs.
Jason Steffen, a physics professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has developed a boarding method in which passengers board in rows of two.
Charlie Riedel/AP
Will getting in ever get easier? Probably not – unless you pay.
The Steffen Method allows multiple rows of passengers to stow their luggage at the same time and minimizes the time needed to load luggage. This method can reduce boarding time by almost half.
But the airlines didn’t implement it. This method requires strict quality controls over where people stand in line and compromises boarding strategies based on travelers’ status.
If airlines wanted to speed up the boarding process, they could make baggage check-in free, reduce the number of zones and switch to open seating.
Southwest Airlines has the fastest boarding process of any major airline because passengers can easily claim the first available seat. This works because passengers spend less time waiting in the aisle and have more freedom to sit where it is least crowded.
However, airlines are unlikely to switch to Southwest’s model.
“You don’t want random seating,” Bazargan said. “You would be depriving yourself of money for seat allocations.”