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.

Interesting read. I believe there is at least one thread in the UA forum on WilMA. While the concept makes sense, my resistance to this and similar processes is overhead space. With UA and other airlines tacitly allowing 2-3 carry-ons (remember that purses, camera bags, etc. each count as a carry-on) and some passengers who board early putting two or more of their carry-ons in the overhead bins, the last passengers to board may find all of the proximate overhead space taken.

If the carriers were to address the carry-on issues, I think they would find some additional efficiencies in the board process. There is no solution which will please everyone, particularly those who refused to be "inconvenienced" by checking baggage. However, improving the delivery times to the luggage carousels and reducing the number of bags which miss their connection would be big steps forward.

As a more drastic step, the airlines could issue one "overhead bin baggage tag" at check in (maybe 2 for those in F where there was extra space) to be attached to the item the pax intends to stow overhead. Any items placed overhead without one of these tags could be spotted easily and removed by the FAs if space was needed, so that those in the order last to board had a better shot at proximate overhead space.

If enough people did the right thing and put their "personal item" under their seat and kept their coat until later on most of the time things would be ok. Unfortunately there are enough "personal items" that are the same size as the large rollaboard people bring. Plus there's always the misfits who need to put their coat in the overhead bin right away next to their oversized rollaboard.

While I don't know how much, in reality, it ultimately helped as I was up front, but on my last flight 2 weeks ago from LAX-BOS, the purser on the plane, once the coach cabin started boarding, very politely 'reminded' everyone w/a wheelaboard to stow it in the overhead bin 'wheels first' & to put their 2nd carryon under the seat in front-I lost count of how many times he said this, but I give him credit for at least trying. AND, amazingly enough, NO ONE got mad or huffy w/him!!

I think the first real problem with any of this is simply enforcement.

Way too often people just ignore the announcements, rush in anyway and the GAs let them go....

I *LIKE* this idea except you need to issue two to those who are in seats with no underseat stowage.

I always got a bit annoyed at folks ignoring the "coats last" announcement, until one day when instead of my usual aisle, I got a window seat on a 3x3 757. How long would it take to get the coats up, if after everyone had boarded, everyone had to get back up to allow the window seat folks to stow their coats?

Sure - and one way to address this is solving the carry-on situation. When pax know they won't get away with excessive carry-ons, and checked baggage handling is improved, then there is no need to board as early as possible.

From experince, the method that seems to work the quickest is "Everyone board at once" I've had this three times. All three times completely full flights. Once on a BA A320, then a BA 777, and earlier this year on a CO 733.
Tonight I had FC, Platnum Elites, Gold Elites, Silver Elites, Elite Access Rows 20-25......., Everyone else Row 20-25, etc. It took over a half an hour to board a 733 doing it this way.

Interestingly, JAL boards its domestic Japanese flights this way. You'll see them board a full 747 (with over 550 seats) in 15 minutes just by boarding everyone at once. (There is not even pre-boarding for elites.)