Why aren’t planes boarded back-to-front?

You might like this CGP Grey video that explains it pretty well: The Better Boarding Method Airlines Won't Use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHbLRjF0vo

Airlines started charging for checked bags so everyone started bringing massive carry-on bags. If you board last, there is no room for your bag. So it's a "perk" to get on first as an economy passenger. Boarding order for economy is usually 1. Frequent fliers with status giving them priority boarding, who also get to choose their seat and pick as close to the front as they can, 2. Back to front in "zones".

I'd also add, I've seen some more sophisticated theoretical boarding strategies, but passengers have trouble even understanding zones, there's no chance of boarding alternate rows or whatever working in practice.

United and Delta tried during the pandemic to improve social distancing [1] but switched back once travel came back, and I'm guessing this kind of boarding ended up being slower. It turns out the Southwest way (random boarding) was still the fastest.

>Loading back to front just moves the line inside the plane, but is not significantly faster than loading from the front to the back.[2]

[1]: https://thepointsguy.com/news/back-to-front-boarding-coronav...

[2]: https://thepointsguy.com/2012/10/travel-science-improving-ai...

Taking a guess that it's a sales tactic. Everyone has to walk past first class, where they're already being served food and beverages in their luxury sized seats. Then past business class. Then to your peasant seat.

Ha ha ha, coincidentally I just explained this to my son on a recent trip. There are seven levels of boarding classes for Alaska Airlines. Seven.

Seems simple if one cares to admit it: Status.

No judgment here, even though we were in fact in the last category of seven. Not needing extra time for kids/elderly, not premier, not business, not military, not strata du jour...so yes, our category boarded from the back to front! Sort of... :-)

It's literally because people who have paid for business class want to board first.

Think it through. You've just been charged an extra $500 to sit in a chair for four hours, and you're waiting in line behind a mother with five screaming children? You've got very important business things to attend to! Or whatever!

IDK if you ever watched _Veep_ but there's this marvellous episode where a megadonor is complaining that he didn't get more chicken than the $100-plate crowd at a fundraiser. He was literally counting (let's generously say) $5 chicken breasts.

Never mind that he was a hominid of roughly the same proportion as everyone else in the room; did not metabolize food any faster or differently; and certainly couldn't care less about $5.

So: like that, but for air travel.

If this question interests you, doing a search for "airline turn around time statistics" is likely to take you to lots of interesting discoveries.

As is commonly the case when one looks at a giant industry and says "I could do this way better having thought about it for 30 seconds" this is a far more difficult problem to optimize than it appears on first glance.

I used to travel ...a lot... Minimum twice a week, usually 4+. As an engineer (and process consultant), I spent countless hours sitting at airport gates looking for any optimization I could find, mostly focusing on wasteful and (seemingly expensive) boarding processes.

My favorite half-baked + stupid + fun one: Install the plane seating area at the gate itself, as a separate detached entity on a conveyor belt. Passengers can take their time, it's open, there aren't walls. You can just walk right into Row 20, seat A. No squeezing down aisles. Once everyone arrives and takes their seat, the belt moves and shuttles the seats+passengers into the fuselage. Kinda like a mini-roller coaster. Shut doors. Take off. Repeat in reverse after landing.

(There are obviously serious problems with this. You'd have to redesign planes and gates, at a minimum.)

I have a feeling that trying to get people organized enough for some sort of carefully optimized boarding program would take longer than the time it would actually save

Ryanair boards from both directions (except in airports which require the use of jet bridges); your ticket tells you which door to go to.

Of course, some fraction of passengers always ignore this, leading to a certain amount of chaos.

Because God forbid first class people have to walk extra long!

Here's an unethical life pro tip. When I fly for business, I intentionally wait until the final boarding call to get on.

Why?

Because then I would sit where ever I felt like on the plane! Extra leg room aisle rows? You betcha! Since I fly red eyes often, this would sometimes get me 3 seat rows to myself.

One time I got extra bold and just sat in an open first class seat. Managed to go half way before the stewardess said I shouldn't be in first class. She didn't make me leave however and I wasn't drinking their booze.

I always thought it was because the plane would tip if you put all that weight in the back

Last week I boarded an Air Canada 787 out of Hawaii, and it kinda-sorta did that, and not only that, window seats first. I think there was like 7 or 8 groups. The first few was the usual 1st Class and people that paid extra, but then the final bunch were all back to front AND outside to inside. That didn't seem to be the case for the same flight from Toronto, same plane too.

So that the people who paid the most get fist dibs on the overhead bins.

I watched a YouTube video on this topic a long time ago. This isn't the exact video but similar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMgarcFkXz4 (Vox)

tldw: random boarding turns out to be the fastest

Method one if you have access to both doors of the plane. They tell you which entrance to use based on your row number. (First half uses the first entrance, second uses the rear)

Method two: You start boarding based on your zone number. The people seated in the rear go first.

It sounds like a combination of the two would be even better but it would be hard to manage.

Isn't this how it's done around the world?

(Last piece of the puzzle to solve the biggest issue with boarding, you need dedicated flight attendends who will find a place for your carry on. They sometimes even ask some people to take their smaller items from out of the bin and put them under the seat)

CGP Grey covered this already years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHbLRjF0vo. It doesn't work even optimally.

But more importantly, boarding isn't the only action being taken. You can't take off without fuel and luggage, and even food factors into turnarounds.

I've heard an excellent way to board is to have people walk as far into the plane as possible, then take a nearby seat when they can't walk further. This is like boarding back-to-front, but handles variance in luggage loading more efficiently.

Back to front is better but not there l that much more efficient. You really want to board outside in. Window seats then middle seats then aisle. I think there was a study down that showed random boarding was best

Because First Class flyers need to be served their alcohol and pre-flight snacks.

Every person stuffing a bag into a bin says "this will only take a second" but all these bag stuffings add up.

Ask such people to step out of the aisle for a moment to let others pass, or if that fails, just run'em down.

There's some planes where you can board at the same time from front or back.

I think it's an issue of missing arms at the airport or doesn't add that much convenience but it's doable

I prefer to think that the most attractive people are those who are most relaxed.

Class and carry-on space?

They are

Just ban carry on luggage.

Of course this won't happen because of all the business travellers.

But I've noticed that lots of time is spent trying to stow carry ons and close overhead bins.

Just ban carry ons and reserve the time for getting people into their seats.