Every frequent traveler knows in his or her heart that there has to be a better way to handle the chaos of boarding the plane and stowing carry-ons, and they all know that every single airline is doing it wrong.
Common complaints are that too many people are in the aisle, that too many people have too many kinds of priority, that the plane should be boarded from the front, from the back, window seats first, etc. etc. Airlines group and regroup their passengers constantly, always hoping to get it right.
Now London's Gatwick airport is turning its Gate 101 into a testing lab for more efficient boarding, with airlines including Ryanair, EasyJet and Lufthansa somewhat reluctantly giving over boarding control to airport staff, who will tell each passenger at the gate exactly in what order to get on. Period. No elite priority, no paid pre-boarding. Just what works—if it does.
Engineering theory has argued that the most efficient boarding is from the back of the plane, and with the window seat passengers going first, followed by the middles, followed by the aisles. But that breaks down quickly when Row 29 Seat A's toddler daughter is told to weight until it's time for the middle seats to board.
Ryanair has argued that their fast turnaround is based on skipping the jet bridges, and making all passengers climb either the front or rear stairs. But many passengers, especially the elderly or disabled hate that, and bad weather is another factor.
The Gatwick trial takes another tack, as yet untried: Load whole rows at a time, but skip spaces. Row 30, 27 and 24 first, then 29, 26 and 23 and so forth. The families stay together, the aisles should be less crowded and, in theory, the plane should load about 10% faster.
If that proves to be true, the next step will be the hard sell: To convince airlines that make a pot of money selling elite status and priority boarding to give up that revenue stream in favor of the potential cost savings in turning planes around faster and getting them back in the air quickly.
All eyes on Gate 101!
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