Originally Posted by
siankaan1
What I didn't follow was the claim that random boarding resulted in more overhead bin space:
In addition to shaving precious minutes off the boarding process, the randomized system also reduced the number of bags American had been checking at the gate by nearly 20% because more overhead bin space was available...
How could that be, unless more people put some under the seat in front, and why would they do that as a result of random boarding?
I suspect it's partly because too many passengers put their bags in the first open overhead bin they see (sometimes closing the bin right away). If the first pax on board are all in the back of the plane, that means that the bins up front will be full before the passengers actually sitting there get on board. There may be some space in back, but it doesn't get used because late-boarding pax who sit up front can't find it.
Randomized boarding means that some of the (non-elite) passengers who board early actually are sitting near the front, so they're not wasting space when they put their bags in the first bin they see.
The only thing I can think (and this is just supposition) is that by not having all the people from the same section of the plane show up at the same time, the packing efficiency in the bins is better. Maybe having the bags put into a particular bin over time, rather than all-at-once, results in people looking and putting things in "better" so that the space is better-used. Maybe.
That also sounds plausible to me.