Astrophysicist: I’ve Found the Optimal Way to Board a Plane
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 03.14.08 | 9:37 AM ET
Jason Steffen, a postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, says his method is four-times faster than the typical loading time for most airlines. Here’s what Steffen proposes in a paper for the Journal of Air Transport Management, as synthesized by NPR:
He found that lining up passengers whose seat assignments are two rows apart and boarding them from the back of the plane to the front—then repeating for the other rows—is the most efficient way of getting passengers onto a plane.
Wired believes Steffen’s paper will be popular with airlines. “People get seated sooner, which means planes take off sooner,” Chuck Squatriglia writes. He adds: “[P]lanes only make money when they’re in the air, as they are able to take off and land more flights on a given day.”
How did Steffen devise his method? He used “a Markov Chain Monte Carlo optimization algorithm and a computer simulation.”
Of course.
Related on World Hum:
* Attention Everyone in Groups A, B and C, and Rows 42 Through 1: Get on the Plane! Now!
* Zen and the Art of Strolling Past Bob Dole While Boarding a Plane