Aboard! Boarding and Disembarking a Plane

Background 

In air transportation, efficiency is time and time is money. Even small delays in the schedules of passenger airplanes result in lost time for both air carriers and their passengers. During any passenger flight, there are two time-consuming operations that depend mostly on human behavior: boarding and disembarking the aircraft.

In commercial passenger air travel, airlines use various boarding and disembarking methods from completely unstructured (passengers board or leave the plane without guidance) to structured (passengers board or leave the plane using a prescribed method). Prescribed methods may be based on row numbers, seat positions, or priority groups. In practice, however, even when the prescribed method is announced, not all passengers follow the instructions.

The boarding process includes the movement of passengers from the entrance of the aircraft to their assigned seats. This movement can be hindered by aisle and seat interference. For example, many passengers have carry-on bags which they stow into the overhead bins before taking their seats. Each time a passenger stops to stow a bag, the queue of other passengers stops because narrow aircraft aisles allow only one passenger to pass at a time. Another hindrance is that some seats (e.g., window seats) are unreachable if other seats (e.g., aisle seats) are already occupied. When this occurs, some passengers must stand up and move into the aisle so other passengers can reach their seats.

The disembarking process is the opposite of boarding with its own possible hindrances to passenger movement. Some passengers are simply slow getting out of their seat and row, or slow moving to the exit. Passengers also block the aisle while collecting their belongings from either their seat or from the overhead bin forcing passengers behind them in the aircraft to wait.