Passenger Boarding Methods

[Glenn Quagmire]

An interesting article:


http://flightclub.jalopnik.com/mythbusters-proves-most-airlines-board-planes-all-wrong-1636981904/+robertsorokanich

"When you're boarding a plane, do you usually think to yourself, "There has got to be a better way to do this" as you jockey around other people for overhead bin space? Discovery Channel's Mythbusters experimented with every type of boarding, and the results are efficient, if not very fun."

..."Another popular way to board planes is the "WilMA" method, for window, middle, aisle. Passengers board the plane at the window seats first, middle seats second, and aisle seats last. Again, this method is also supposed to minimize aisle congestion during the boarding process. The WilMA experiment took only 14 minutes, 55 seconds. Participants gave this method the most favorable score overall. This also proved that the method used by most airlines (back to front) os not the best in terms of efficiency nor customer enjoyment."

 

[jimntx]

Since those aisle seats are most often given to frequent flyers do we offer valet checking for their roll-a-board bag (as we won't have any space left in the OH bins)?  Or will they issue baseball bats to the flight attendants and when we see a window seat person putting their roll-a-board, their giant purse/computer bag/shoulder bag, and two shopping bags in the OH bin, we will be allowed to beat them severely about the neck and ears?  

 

[eolesen]

When I still owned gate procedures at AA, this was one of those topics that came up about every three years.

It came up in 1994 when Shuttle by United announced their revolutionary WILMA boarding method, so we tested it out in the field a few times with the stopwatch guys. It wasn't worth the trouble vs. boarding by rows.

Fast forward to 1997... new senior management at all levels, and everyone wanted to try a new way of boarding.

No joke - I pulled out the letter and Powerpoint from 1994, changed the dates and names of the MD and VP,and my manager sent the same letter and presentation up to the Sixth Floor. Eventually, we wound up with Group Boarding.

In 2001, the same question came up for the third time in seven years. I'd moved on, but it wouldn't surprise me if the people in charge of Airport Services at the time came up with the same letter and re-used the PPT we'd already used twice before to diffuse the same question...

 

[jimntx]

Well, no wonder you had to leave. Once their minds are made up, they really hate to be confused with facts.

 

[eolesen]

Well, no wonder you had to leave. Once their minds are made up, they really hate to be confused with facts.

Well, yes and no. We used to play by a simple set of rules: he with the most data usually wins. My job became making sure we had all the right data.

Then, the guys like Del Valle and Garton showed up, and it became he with the biggest ego wins regardless of the facts.

I'd like to believe things have changed back at AA within the last year. But I digress... this isn't the AA forum, and the Biggest Ego game is still alive and well in a few other venues.

 

[Kev3188]

...and the Biggest Ego game is still alive and well in a few other venues.

Lol. Awesome.

As for the topic: It's not just an AA thing; seems like my carrier does the same thing every so often, and news items touting some new formula hatched at a university that will revolutionize the way we board A/C seem to be a biennial event.

 

[Glenn Quagmire]

Lol. Awesome.As for the topic: It's not just an AA thing; seems like my carrier does the same thing every so often, and news items touting some new formula hatched at a university that will revolutionize the way we board A/C seem to be a biennial event.

Yeah, but now that Mythbusters has done it, we have absolute and irrefutable evidence on how boarding should be handled.

 

[jimntx]

The one thing that would speed boarding more than anything else would be for the employees who see the passengers before they go down the jetbridge to get serious about controlling the size and number of carryon items.  Among other things, somewhere along the way the people at the top of the jetbridge seem to have decided that large shopping bags don't count against the carry-on limit.  We had a guy one day come down the jetbridge with a "carryon" that was too thick AND too long to fit in the overhead bin.  He said that the agent told him that the flight attendants would have to make space for it in the closet!!!!  That would have meant putting the cockpit bags in an overhead bin.  The captain said", "No way, no how.  The last time I put my bag in an overhead, a passenger grabbed it at the end of the flight, and I had to chase the joker down the concourse."  We checked the bag, but the passenger acted like a pill the whole flight.  We, the flight attendants, were the ones who had to put up with him.

 

[eolesen]

Yeah, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. The days of having an agent to police things are long gone now that all the majors are unionized and can say "that's not in my job description..."

Maybe in an outsourced station you can get that type of service.

 

[Glenn Quagmire]

Yeah, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. The days of having an agent to police things are long gone now that all the majors are unionized and can say "that's not in my job description..."

Maybe in an outsourced station you can get that type of service.

 
Nice broad brush you paint with there E. 
 
The beatings will continue until we outsource you to the lowest bidder to get great customer service. That's the ticket. 

 

[Kev3188]

The one thing that would speed boarding more than anything else would be for the employees who see the passengers before they go down the jetbridge to get serious about controlling the size and number of carryon items...

We should be so lucky!

Agents in the lobby, at the counter, and at the gate should all be doing their part. At my carrier, people have become savvy enough to know that they can skirt the baggage fee(s) as long as they make it to the gate. So they show up at the podium, throw in a dash of mock indignation, and voila! a lot of $$$ stays in their pocket.

...and that's not even covering how home check-in (and with it the ability to never come near a counter) factors in...

 

[eolesen]

Nice broad brush you paint with there E. 
 
The beatings will continue until we outsource you to the lowest bidder to get great customer service. That's the ticket.

Might be a broad brush, but it's also a fact, Glenn. When AA outsourced in the 90's, those stations continually scored higher on QSI surveys, and AA can (and does) require vendors to do stuff their own employees refused to do because it wasn't in scope. No idea how it's working out today or with other carriers, but I've seen it on international carriers as well. IB is abysmal for customer service, but their ground handlers in the US and outside of Spain are usually far more pleasant to deal with.

The bigger point is that I can see the CWA fighting having the agents policing carry-on bags in the lounge, because it might require stepping out from around the safety of the desk.

 

[Kev3188]

Does AA generally have agents out in the lobby?

 

[jimntx]

Kev, if you mean outside security, the answer is yes and no and that's final.  For instance, they have outsourced the positions (even at DFW) that assisted customers using the kiosks to check-in and check bags.  (The kiosks even print the bag tags now.)  There were AA ticket agents at the counter to resolve rebooking, misconnect, ticketing issues.  However, now at DFW in Terminal C, there are no AA agents at the C7 counter and security portal.  There are a few at C21 portal.  I imagine it's about the same at the other counters.
 
It's become overhead bin space is a flight attendant problem, let them deal with the oversize bags.  And, some of them fully intend to check their bag...they just want to do it on the jetbridge where they won't get charged for it.

 

[Glenn Quagmire]

The way we get off airplanes makes absolutely no sense:

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/8/5877863/it-takes-forever-to-get-off-an-airplane-there-might-be-a-better-way