Comparing Airplane Boarding Methods

Group/Zone Boarding

Boarding Systems

Analytical and simulation results show that group/zone boarding can speed up the airplane boarding process. Airlines use a number of different group/zone boarding systems or boarding rules, the idea (there are numerous variations) of some of them, are shown below. By pressing play you can view a simulation of different airplane boarding strategies. Note, random boarding (i.e. boarding all rows at the same time) is faster than back-to-front boarding. Hence, you will actually speed up the boarding process if you board before your turn in back-to-front boarding. Try and explain that to your boarding agent :) See comparison study for a summary of results. Also, see below for a list of people and businesses who have developed simulation models for airplane boarding).

See http://menkes76.com/projects/boarding/boarding.htm for videos of animations