Originally Posted by ashill

I'm sure they're right that random boarding is fastest. Boarding elites (and first class, for that matter) first probably slows things down overall, but AA considers it worth the tradeoff because elites like it.

Northwest figured this out a year or two before the merger, though I think Delta discontinued that practice.

Outside-in, back-to-front boarding I'm sure would be the fastest if it actually worked that way (ie 30A and 30F board first, followed by 30B and 30E, and so on), but there's no way that's going to happen in reality. Considering human passengers who don't do exactly what they're told, I'm not surprised that random is fastest.