This article disappointed me because they didn't go very broad in their exploration. It was well over a year ago I flew on JetBlue where the flight attendants greeted you in the aisle as you got on board, took your bag, ran back, and stowed it. They were experts and packing, just like a good grocery checkout experience. It was amazing to see them keep smiling, lifting, and running. And although I didn't take measurements, this seemed startingly efficient. They would ask your row number, and then go deal with it before you could make your way back that far.

That was a powerful illustration to me of how JetBlue was rethinking aspects of the travel experience that were seem as fixed and immutable.

The only problem with the southwest system is that not only are window seats desirable, but so are seats in the front(for quick departure) of the plane and on the aisle (for people who are tall or like to get up a lot). People self sort directly into becoming obstructions... Reminds me of the classic William H Whyte studies observing street corners. The most frequent place people have conversations on the street are exactly where they meet or depart, which just happens to be right on the corner in the most high traffic parts of the sidewalk. In any case I think Sothwest's speed comes mainly from removing the need to search for the right seat number. If a delay appears in front of you, you can get out of the way by claiming a seat on your side of the delay.

Like Steve I've always found JetBlue to have the smoothest boardings (not necessarily the same as the quickest), although I don't remember them ever taking my luggage as he describes. Why are they the smoothest? I think its mainly because they don't have first class and thus do a proper back to front boarding. Its the convoluted boarding strategies of the old carriers that really slow things I've found. The more they separate into classes, the more complex and jammed the process gets.

Back row to front, the only way to load a plane. Why they don't do this, I don't know.

Wilma, eh? Funny...

IM conversation

A:
hey, do you ever read Collision Detection? if not, i think you might like it. here's an .

B:
i thought it would be good to make a modular plane
» where people sit down at the gate
» and when the plane comes
» the nose opens
» the inside seating slides out
» and the new one slides in

A:
that's beautiful
» an airport full of human ice-cube trays

B:
yes and you can be towed all the way to luggage pickup
» first stop is for people to get off who have connections
» imagine "next stop baggage claim"

IM conversation

A:
hey, do you ever read Collision Detection? if not, i think you might like it. here's an [link to this page].

B:
i thought it would be good to make a modular plane
» where people sit down at the gate
» and when the plane comes
» the nose opens
» the inside seating slides out
» and the new one slides in

A:
that's beautiful
» an airport full of human ice-cube trays

B:
yes and you can be towed all the way to luggage pickup
» first stop is for people to get off who have connections
» imagine "next stop baggage claim"

Ahahahhaa! I love that idea!

Man, now that would make boarding a snap.

It would be good if boarding went faster. But I fly a lot, and I've never seen boarding time be a factor in plane delays. It's usually only a factor when coupled with some other delay, like late arrival of the plane from somewhere else.

And even if you do finger boarding time, the biggest problem is carry-on luggage. The amount of time taken up by idiots attempting to shove oversize carry-ons into already-full bins...

I've often thought that more airlines should adopt the approach of the smaller, regional carriers. They have a separate system for "checking" carry-on luggage. You get it back when you deplane. Then all you have to do when boarding is shove your purse/backpack/laptop case under the seat in front of you and you're done!

This is how all the cheapie airlines in Europe work. The downfall of this is people like me, who want an _aisle_ seat, so queue early to get my preference .. but it probably works better than the alternatives.

Ginna, yeah, I fly a lot and I hate hate hate those people too. Grrr ... check your luggage, and we'll all move a lot faster! But I do think that speed-of-boarding is a factor in plane delays. You might not sense it on your end, i.e. your boarding, but someone else's slow boarding can create a delay in the time your flight arrives at the gate, or how long you sit on the tarmac.

firefalluk, yep, precisely: This is what I've done every time I've flown easyjet and RyanAir!

I love the idea of ice cube-tray seating. It fits in well with earlier proposals for a passenger compartment that can be released from a falling plane to parachute or glide to safety. The crane picks up the passegners and slots them into the plane, neat as can be. Marvelous.

that modular plane idea isn't exactly original, it already exists in the form of model planes and computer simulations, of course with the intent to make it real. sorry, i'm too lazy to dig up a link now, but i do know that it cleverly deals with a major flaw in the above suggestion: if you handle pasengers exactly like a cargo container, it's silly to take away their luggage, only to give it back through an annoying, long-winded process during which a good deal of it gets lost. instead, every passenger stores her/his luggage under his/her own seat. in fact, the seats can be wheeled around and double as luggage trolleys. when they are loaded, they are pulled into an empty passenger container, which can then be slotted into a plane, which in turn can be ready for takeoff mere minutes after landing.