Improving airplane boarding time

Improving airplane boarding time: A review, a field study and an experiment with a new way of hand luggage stowing

Coppens, Jessica (Student TU Delft)
Dangal, Sagar (Student TU Delft)
Vendel, M.E. (Student TU Delft)
Anjani, S. (TU Delft Applied Ergonomics and Design)
Akkerman, Stefan (Student TU Delft)
Hiemstra-van Mastrigt, S. (TU Delft Applied Ergonomics and Design)
Vink, P. (TU Delft Applied Ergonomics and Design)

2018

The airplane (de)boarding process is not organized optimally. The goal of this paper is to search for improvement possibilities. In this paper literature is reviewed, boarding characteristics are studied in a field study and a pilot study with a new way of hand luggage stowing is performed. Computer simulations indicate that there are more efficient boarding methods than those currently in use, like the reverse pyramid method which starts window seat columns in the back and ends with aisle seat columns in the front. The literature also shows that hand luggage stowing in the overhead lockers can block other passengers increasing the boarding time. Also, the field observations and the pilot test indicate that hand luggage stowing could block the aisle and is one of the main elements in boarding that influences passenger experience and boarding time. Training and preparing the boarding process could potentially reduce the boarding time by 3-4 minutes, but further research is needed to prove this.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4effde78-d030-4736-93e5-d4a6096118c3

https://doi.org/10.15394/ijaaa.2018.1200

2374-6793

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace, 5 (2), 1-19

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2018 Jessica Coppens, Sagar Dangal, M.E. Vendel, S. Anjani, Stefan Akkerman, S. Hiemstra-van Mastrigt, P. Vink