I don't think boarding efficiency is a criteria on which people judge airlines. They will forget the boarding process. I really think people buy on price and/or convenience and then on board service would be next. Just my unscientific guess.

Of course these days, boarding has become a thing based on privilege as opposed to efficiency anyway. People want to make sure their bag is on board with them. It's nice when you're only carrying a small backpack to board last.

PVN did not say that boarding times are not a limiting factor, pvn said that boarding times are not a limiting factor as long as they don't exceed turnaround time, so that kind of takes the push out of your pushback. And the Southwest comparison is not really meaningful as DL is a full service operation with a very diverse fleet, so it just takes more time. Also, you could argue that for many, the 10 minutes saved in southwest's boarding process would be taken up by the need to purchase food in the terminal before the flight, whereas for DL you can buy food on board or in several cases be served a complimentary meal.

If you want to buy on time efficiency you need to look at on-time arrivals, too. Even with a couple of well-publicized meltdowns, DL beat AA, UA and WN for 2017. It's not just a function of more padding in the schedules, either. A study looked at actual travel times on the ~80 routes flown by both DL and UA and found DL was faster gate to gate on nearly all of them.

IIRC, 40-minute boarding of narrowbodies was introduced by NW with the 753s.

I guess I should rephrase it a bit. There certainly are tight turnarounds where there isn't any idle time between the arriving pax getting off and the next flight beginning to board, but planes are already pretty much at max utilization with the current boarding process. Cutting 5 more minutes off of boarding now isn't going to let Delta schedule an additional segment per day for their equipment.

Going from 2 hours to 1 hour for turnaround is huge for utilization, going from 40 minutes to 35 isn't nearly as useful.

Who says you have to be there when boarding begins?

AA has up until Zone 9 I believe.....yikes!

Anyone who is counting on using OHB space so they don't have to add 20+ minutes at the end of their trip waiting for luggage.

Pretty much all the out and backs I fly on end up being tight - usually around 50-55 minutes turn time when in practice it looks like it takes about 55-65 minutes for Delta to really turn a, say, 739 or 75x depending on passenger makeup. Usually if the previous plane arrives "on time" it means my flight will push off a bit late due to the excessively long boarding time (combined with deplaning + cleaning). Fortunately Delta pads schedules pretty aggressively so the inbound flight usually gets in 20-30 minutes and it is no issue. Regardless of whether it is the limiting factor, I hate that I have to be at the gate 40 minutes early to board.



Just like jdrtravel said - if you want OHB space, you better be there when it's time to start boarding. Otherwise it's a crap shoot if you end up stuck at the end of the SKY or Zone 1 line. At best you'll get a bin spot far away from your seat, at worst you'll probably have to check it.

Southwest comparison is perfectly meaningful. Boarding and deplaning time is the limiting factor to plane turnaround time, full stop. The only difference between DL and WN's turnaround (especially on out and backs where there are no crew switches) is that DL may bring a couple of extra catering carts onboard. That's hardly a make or break. Yes, ground crews have to deal with a few more plane variants, but with enough time those learning curve issues should mostly go away. Southwest primarily turns flights quicker because their boarding process is quicker (both because of the lack of seat assignments and the fact that more WN passengers check bags).

For me at least, my food purchasing decisions are never determined about what options I may or may not get onboard. I've never bought food before a domestic flight - whether or not I'm getting a meal on the plane. It's 5 hours, no one is going to die of hunger in 5 hours. I could literally not care less whether or not DL has food on their planes. Just extra garbage calories that usually taste mediocre at best.

DL has a 'Bags on time' guarantee. How many miles have you collected with the 20+ minute wait? I have only had a long wait at LAX TBIT waiting in customs - where the guarantee doesn't apply.

I've collected miles several times actually. But even 20 minutes is still 20 more minutes that I am in transit.

Yep! Even for the little DASH-8s.

last year on a 1/3 full MDT-PHL hop, we all stood at the gate staring at each other, while the agent called EVERY. SINGLE. ZONE. I don't think anybody even moved until they called zone 6.

Mythbusters did an episode about this. There was quite a bit of variation in timing, which you can see in that link. Interestingly, the fastest option (premium then no assigned seats) also received the lowest approval rating.

It still means wasting time stopping by the check-in counter, diverting from how I usually exit the airport, still almost guarantees a wait unless I'm in the back of the airplane, and also risks getting my bag lost. I have zero desire to deal with any of that. Way worse than the alternative.

It sounds like a lot, but it isn't bad in practice though. The idea is to reduce gate lice and also helps with traffic in the premium line since the first four zones all qualify for that.