Ever wondered about the most efficient way of getting passengers into an aircraft? Or the best way of minimising interference between passengers while boarding?

No?

Well, some clever folks in the Industrial Engineering Department at Arizona State University have been pondering just these questions and there's an article about their findings here.

Thoroughly recommended for those of you who are interested in aircraft loading systems (and I suspect that some of you are) or simply for those of you who find jargon like back-to-front, reverse pyramid, rotating zone, WilMA, etc. mystifying and would like to know more. There's even a cute demo.

Giler.