Dumb Routines Part IV
15-Mar-2009/14:24 Filed in:Personal
Looks like there are more things really strange than I expected to write about. Ok, now for a dumb routine I don’t understand why it’s not changed:
How to board a plane?
How to board a plane?
I’m not going by plane that often but if I’m always puzzled about the boarding process. There are several boarding variants you can fall victim to:
I think there is only one boarding pattern that would be fast, stress-free and simple to do: Boarding by seat-columns. With this all people with seats A or F (window seats) are boarding first, than the people in the middle seats and so on. So boarding from outer to inner places.
With this, no movement in/out of seats and so on is necessary. Yes, I know there are exceptions like babys, old people, disabled , etc. No problem, can be handled like today. Boarding those first.
Let’s see how long it will take airlines to adopt this idea. Maybe, there is a regulatory I’m not aware of that forbids this approach... I don’t know.
- The low-cost carrier variant: It’s the „there are not seat reservations“ way to handle boarding. The result is moderate anarchy at the gate (because everyone can watch everyone quite good) and total anarchy in the plane. Boarding by this option takes long, people are discussing about swapping seats back and forth and so on.
What’s interesting about this option is, that it’s sold as a feature by the carriers. That’s what I call marketing: It’s a feature not a bug! You are free to sit where you want.
I really don’t like this option and I booked an other airline just because of this and payed 20€ more. - The short-distance variant: Here you have a dedicated seat number, the plane is not that big and everyone passes the gate in random order. This variant is a lot better than number 1 but still has some drawbacks. Mostly, you still need to get people move in/out of their seats if you have a window seat.
The funny thing is, that people with aisle seats are always there first. - The long-distance variant: Most of the time boarding is done by seat-row numbers because the plane is quite big. Overall it falls back to be variant 2 in a part of a bigger airplane.
Depending on the number of seat-rows that are boarded at the same time it works bad or quite OK. But it’s still not perfect.
I think there is only one boarding pattern that would be fast, stress-free and simple to do: Boarding by seat-columns. With this all people with seats A or F (window seats) are boarding first, than the people in the middle seats and so on. So boarding from outer to inner places.
With this, no movement in/out of seats and so on is necessary. Yes, I know there are exceptions like babys, old people, disabled , etc. No problem, can be handled like today. Boarding those first.
Let’s see how long it will take airlines to adopt this idea. Maybe, there is a regulatory I’m not aware of that forbids this approach... I don’t know.
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