Airlines Move Fliers Onto Planes Faster

Boarding an airplane can be a bit like the after-Christmas sale at Walmart. Passengers jockey to get better positions in line as gate agents bark commands. On board, the aisles become clogged with travelers stuffing luggage the size of a fourth-grader into overhead bins.

So American Airlines undertook a two-year study to try and speed up boarding. The result: The airline has recently rolled out a new strategy — randomized boarding. Travelers without elite status get assigned randomly to boarding groups instead of filing onto planes from back to front.

If you want to avoid the bedlam and board early, there’s a fee for that, of course. Passengers at some airlines, including American, offer the option for about $10. With randomized boarding, some passengers may want to pay the early boarding fee to ensure they will have plenty of overhead bin space.

American’s study relied on observers closely watching thousands of aircraft arrivals and departures to see where the process slowed down. One time factor was baggage: More bags are being carried into the cabin rather than checked in order to avoid fees. Back to front slowed because only two people on average got to their seats at a time, and everyone else standing and waiting started filling up bins at the front of the plane.

American ran computer simulations of different options and found that boarding passengers in window seats first, followed by middle and then aisle, was faster. United Airlines and Delta Air Lines Inc. both employ window-middle-aisle boarding schemes, and United will switch its Continental Airlines unit, which boards back-to-front, to window-middle-aisle next year.

But in American’s tests, random boarding performed even better. Multiple passengers got to their seats at the same time. Bins filled up more evenly in tests because people stowed bags where they were sitting, not at the front of the plane. The process also proved calmer when tested with real flights.

–By S. M.