air passengers who crowd the boarding area

The BBQ Pit
1

While we’re all bitching at each other in IMHO about Knee Defenders, allow me to air my gripe about another aspect of air travel.

Flew Delta last weekend. Delta boards by “zones:” when they call zone “X” to board, if your boarding pass says zone “X”, you can go get in line to get on the plane. After first-class, families, and “people who need assistance,” they start calling zone 1/2/3, until everyone’s on board.

So as soon as the gate agent announces “we’re about to begin boarding,” everyone in the waiting area jumps out of their seat and forms a loose crowd a few feet from the door to the jetway, because hey, who wants to be late getting in line after their group is given permission to line up? They’re like goddam cats when the owner rips open a new bag of Meow Mix, hovering nearby for the moment the food begins to pour from the bag. So then the gate agent starts calling specifically for the groups mentioned in the previous paragraph, at which point a line begins forming in front of the gate agent. The problem? The back end of the line ends up blending in with the crowd, so when it’s your turn to get in line, you have no fucking idea where the back of the line is.

I mostly like flying, but I hate this part. I want to be considerate and not cut in line in front of other folks who are alread lined up, but I also want to board with my zone.

So what to do? If I stand there and wait for the end of the line to move (so I can spot it), well, the crowd shuffles forward so that they’re ready to attach to it the microsecond their zone is called, so it’s still hard to tell where the end is. Is that guy the end of the line? Is it the two people standing three feet behind him? I could ask “are you in line”, but I’m likely to end up asking half a dozen people before I find someone who says no, AND has someone in front of him who says yes.

FWIW, I’ve seen Delta make the zone boarding system work better than that, but only in Japan. Twice now I’ve boarded a 747 in Nagoya, and there were several gate agents in the area, each holding a sign for one of the boarding zones; you just went to the back of the line behind the appropriate agent. There was never any uncertainty with this system: if you were in Zone 1, then the back end of your line was right in front of the gate agent holding the “Zone 2” sign. Maybe this is an uneconomical use of labor for smaller planes, but given that the idea is to form a line whose end is conspicious and clear, it should be easy enough to achieve the same goal (making the end of the line really obvious) with a maze composed of a few cheap rope barriers, similar to what is done in the main terminal’s baggage check area, and prohibit passengers from entering the maze until their zone is called.

People bitch about Southwest’s “cattle call” boarding process, but it’s another solution that absolutely eliminates that uncertainty. A similar boarding process could be implemented for people with reserved seating, i.e. you line up in the order of your row.

Bottom line? Flying is great; getting onto the plane sucks.

2

Bah, I always fly with an assigned seat and my carry-on fits under the seat in front of me so I don’t have to worry about overhead bin space. I get to sit in the relatively comfy boarding area until the last minute and dash onto the plane just before it buttons up to go. The lack of aggravation is worth the $25 bag fee and the (very) occasionally misplaced luggage.

3

I don’t fly much, but when I last did, I did noticed something in relation to this ‘zone boarding’ system that pisses me off. Shockingly, it was not the passengers - most of the ones I encountered were the sort of cats who are pointedly busy washing themselves when you pour the food, because it’s important that you understand that they don’t need you, and that they’ll come when they’re good and ready.

No, my objection is that they always board the zones from the front. Zone 1, which is called first, is the first bunch of seats. Which means that when Zone 2 gets called, they have to get past all the Zone 1 people who are still fucking around with their carry-on luggage. By the time you get to the people in Zone 4, they have to shuffle their way past an entire goddamn plane full of people who are trying to stuff bags into bins, or get little Timmy to stop standing in the aisle making farting noises, or whatever.

They should board the back of the plane first. Get all of those people in the back, and then the next group doesn’t have to deal with them.

4

I guess that’s another solution: wait until final boarding call, when there’s nobody left in the boarding area, at which point the end of the line becomes obvious. Although that can only work if just a few people follow that procedure; if the entire planeload of passengers holds back, then it’s a stalemate.

That said, I think I’ll try it on my next trip; thanks.

5

Glad to help! It seems to me that the rush to get on the plane has been ongoing for at least the 25 years that I have been flying so I’m willing to bet that this will be a workable strategy for some time to come.

6

These people are called gate lice.

I particularly dislike the ones that line up out into the hallways and impede pedestrian and cart traffic.

7

There was a Mythbusters on this one.

WILMA boarding refers to having people board in the window seats first, then the interior seats, then the aisle seats last.

This group also did a study and said the Steffen method was fastest, which is the Wilma method, only in staggered blocks to avoid aisle interference.

While, at first glance, boarding back to front does seem like it would be the most efficient, both studies show that it’s actually one of the slowest/worst ways to board a plane.

8

This is exactly what I do too. It amuses me to watch the people crowding onto the plane when boarding starts. If one person doesn’t like the line they form a new line and try to zipper in to the primary line. The rudeness in that blob of people is palpable (not all of course, but the rudest people on the plane will be jostling in for position in this group of people).

But once that group gets on board you can see the people that are just hanging back. They’re much more polite, when a new line ultimately forms they don’t push or crowd, they just wait their turn and get on the plane. It’s so much nicer.

The final advantage is that you don’t have to sit in that tiny airplane seat getting jostled while everybody is trying to move past your row. Just get on near the end, take your seat, and be done with it.

9

Have heard of this, but it requires a complete disregard for the unity of families, couples, and other groups during the boarding process. And you also have to have the boarding passengers precisely sequenced. IOW, it ain’t gonna happen any time soon.

Thanks for alerting me to that brilliant term; I see now via Google that it’s in common use.

10

Yes, gate lice.

Another gate louse phenomenon is that if (when) the flight is delayed it gets even worse, as if standing by the gate will somehow force the issue.

I also follow the Cyros method whenever possible. Especially when I was still shelling out for the SkyClub membership (back when the SkyClub was worth shelling out for).

11

If delayed because the plane arrived late, they will crowd and slow down exit from the plane, further delaying departure.

12

I didn’t see an explanation of WHY this is.

13

Because people are all trying to sit in the same rows, so every time the middle seat person or window seat person gets to the aisle first they have to reshuffle their positions.

I think WILMA boarding would be awesome. Just let parents with kids of any age board first (not just small children, but any kid under 13 or so). Then board all window seats, followed by all middle seats, followed by aisle seats. You don’t need to sequence the passengers at all, they just walk in and turn into their row. There will never be someone standing in their way until they reach their destination.

14

I agree, but I’ll go one further; not just parents of small children, but anyone traveling with ANYONE who might need assistance to settle into their assigned seat. So Great Aunt Mary isn’t trying to wrestle her enormous carry-on into the bin without her strapping grand-nephew’s help.

15

That does not explain why back-to-front block boarding is worse than front-to-back block boarding.

16

Just a SWAG but I’d say overhead bins cause a problem. If you let people from the back board first they will put their carry on luggage in the overhead bins near the front. Then they won’t have to lug them through the aisle to the back nor will they have to lug them forward when leaving.

Then, since all of the front bins get booked up, anybody boarding for front seats has to lug their baggage to the back bins and then fight their way forward to their seat.

17

In the last year, I’ve boarded back-to-front three times.

Every time, there were people putting their bags in the overhead compartment of the earliest rows, when their asses actually went on row 20+. I’m not talking about people jumping the line, but people who really did go on the back but who were making the Big Tetris Game In The Sky a bigger pain in the ass for everybody involved. W? T? F?

Yesterday’s flight was a pretty tired bunch, most of the Spaniards couldn’t speak a word of English and most of the Scandinavians didn’t have a word of Spanish beyond maybe gracias but, since people were doing their best to be polite and helpful, those with kids were practically pushed to the front of the line and we boarded and debarked more quickly than in most other flights. It doesn’t seem to be so difficult…

18

Indeed. I’m prepared to accept that this is one of those bizarre counter-intuitive things, but I’d very much like to know how the heck it works.

19

It seems pretty intuitive to me. If you board front first, when you let the people further back on, the people in front might still be in the aisles. If you board back first, it’s less of an issue if people who just boarded take a little longer to get out of the aisle and into their seat.

What really pisses me off is when the airlines don’t enforce their size limits for carry-ons. That’s what causes the crowding - everyone knows there’s not going to be enough overhead space, so they need to make sure to get theirs in first. Either enforce the size limit, or, better yet, start charging for overhead space the same way they do for checked baggage. My impression is that’s when it got really bad anyways: when no one wanted to pay the fee to check a bag, so they started trying to bring on their full-sized luggage as carry-ons.

20

I usually pay extra for the extra leg room seats, especially when travelling with hubby because he’s tall. This mostly means there is no seat in front under which to put my bag and when I’m boarded last because I’m in row 12, someone invariably has taken the space right over my seat. So yes I do lurk at the back of the group boarding before me.

sorry.