'Steffen Method' of Airplane Boarding

[campbelluk]

Great. But assumes intelligence and patience by the passengers.

[DoubleBob]

Yeah. this text in the middle is totally cool and will motivate instead of annoying me.

[ServantOfPuppets]

Good job, science. This is definitely a major advancement within the scientific community.

[misterfeeto]

You'll never get people to do this.  It's just like how you're "supposed" to use the zipper method to merge into one lane on a highway (around an accident or construction zone).  However, that requires everyone cooperating.  One bad apple spoils the bunch and you're back to chaos.  

[darkus]

I liked the part where it says "Follow us on Twitter".

[batlin]

@milepost95 The same testing setup was used to evaluate the current method (which is among the worst of all possible methods, and significantly worse than random boarding), and it was almost twice as slow as Steffen's method. Even if it's not a completely accurate simulation - something you can rarely guarantee easily - those inconsistencies should have a minimal impact on the result since they're the same for all methods tested.

[MichaelOw]

I believe just applying some logic will speed up the time for boarding and passengers to get settled in faster. I believe the logic is to seat in order (if only one entry, at front of plane and 1 bag per person): family with kids, rear to front, window to aisle, odd then even seat numbers. This combination used with blocks of seating numbers should do it. Let the air stewards call the boarding... there'll be more on-time departures.

[tvienti]

It seems like the order people boarded in matched their seats... as opposed to, say, the first person in line getting the first seat and everyone having to go around him. Is ordered queuing part of the process?

[Obamasuckscameldick]

Pretty sure it's to ease the stress of the people boarding the plane. More for their comfort than conforming to flight schedules. And Dr. Jason Steffen, the creator of this method, is an astrophysicist, who kind of just came up with this in his spare time, so I guess he doesn't really deserve to be shot.

[deathguitarist]

It looks to me like everyone also boarded in the order of their seats. Good luck getting them to line up like that in the real world.

[Paelorian]

I think this could be accomplished with minimal cooperation by passengers using color-coded numbered tickets. "Passengers with red tickets, please form a single-file line next to the exit to the plane. Please make sure the person in front of you has a lower number and the person standing behind you has a higher number." The line self-organizes, and then someone in the staff comes by to check that the line is in order before they begin to let the front of the line board the plane.

There should be accomodation for the colorblind. Perhaps the colors are in the shape of animals or something. Instead of staying "red" or "yellow" tickets, they could be "red monkey" or "yellow bird" tickets. Or simple shapes, like circles, squares, triangles, diamonds, and stars. Name the seats after boarding order, perhaps. Seat "Triangle 23" (🔺23), "Circle 15" (⭕15), and "Diamond 21" (🔶21), etc.

There's enough leeway that parents should be able to board with small children without slowing down the system much. They could also be allowed to board before anyone else.

But passenger boarding speed does not usually matter much. It's rarely holding up the plane. Usually checked baggage and cargo takes longer to load. Faster plane turnaround requires the development of faster refueling, plane (pre-flight) check, and cargo loading methods. Slow passenger boarding isn't the holdup, at least not usually.

[TheSpiderByte]

You can hear him about to say 'half' before the beep.

[BrigitofBergental]

@deathguitarist12 - If I was in charge of boarding, that is exactly what would happen; passengers would be assigned a boarding number, based on what row & seat they are in & would be lined up in numerical order (except for small kids needing help) in that tunnel thingy. One other thing I would change is parents with small children being first; it makes at least as much, if not more, sense for them to be last, so they have more time before they have to sit still.

[borontheborelord]

@grizzlykillsall It's actually not the pilots that decide when to take off, it's the control tower. They tell the pilots when to take off at a specific time so that way no plane comes within 100-400 feet of another. When you have delays, such as weather, they still need to time when the plane is able to take off.

[batlin]

@vikmike Why not? They could just assign people to the appropriate position in the queue before boarding. They could even print this on the ticket (e.g. seat number 12A, queue position 1... seat 10A, queue position 2, etc) and people could line up in that order while the plane is getting ready for boarding.
Or the crew could call out the seat numbers in order and have people join the queue one by one. Even if people make mistakes, it'll still be faster than what we have now.

[SujanraAcoma]

@vikmike It wouldn't be like that. It's just that group numbers for boarding wouldn't be back, middle, front as 1 2 and 3 or whatever, it would be 1: left side of plane, window seats, odd numbered rows (but you'd just see Group 1 on your ticket and board when called). 2. Right side of plane, same thing, etc etc.

[goodgm]

What intrigues me is exactly how these $millions will be saved? Planes don't depart based on how quickly passengers board. Departure slots are controlled to allow a minimum amount of safe time between each plane according to FAA rules. Passengers will always be late to the gate or not hear and miss their slot in the boarding process but more fundamentally, people travelling together want to board together. This seems more like the musings of someone who has far too much time on their hands!

[VinylBluBear]

this, this makes insane amounts of sense to me.

[Rayofficial]

Why did they bleep out the amount of time it cuts out?!

[BrigitofBergental]

Also if kids were last, the carry-on with their toys would be on of the last things in the overhead bin so it would be easier to get out after take-off, kids wouldn't spend as much time with crotches in their little faces, other passengers wouldn't have to climb over their little swinging feet, and the flight attendants could be in the aisle helping the parents get the kids settled into their seats.