> I'm pretty sure unassigned seating has been proven to be the fastest way to load an aircraft in practice.
I would disagree with this. My experience is of low-cost operators in Europe (Ryanair, Easyjet, Wizz etc.), and I believe their experiences have been the opposite. Whilst most of the carriers used to operate on an unassigned seating basis, with fees for reserved seating, now seating is 'randomly' assigned at online check-in (although if possible groups are sat together). You can still pay for reserved seating but the benefit is obviously a lot less now.
My anecdotal evidence is that this has massively quickened the boarding process. Before, there would be delays waiting for people to sort out their seating and luggage arrangements (families especially), now it is much less of an issue and turnaround times are quicker.
It's also possible that the massive increase in people taking only hand-luggage in recent years has been a factor, but I'm not sure.
It's not clear from the link posted earlier[1] if mythbusters did a run of 10-100 seatings and calculated the average/median for each method - but it looks like they just did each once. If so I don't think a difference of +/-1 minute is significant. A difference of 100 in customer satisfaction probably is.
This is also culture dependent. Nobody boards planes like a group of Japanese. Be that salarymen or high-schoolers on a school trip.
The rest of the world might board in more reasonable time if they got help to stand in line by their seat numbers (better yet, print seatnumber and an integer on the ticket - have people line up at the gate prior to boarding in accordance to the integer).
Would work except for the Scandinavians that'd consider themselves exempt... ;-)
IMHO the reason Southwest free-for-all boarding works is that people choose their seat and then stick with it.
On assigned seating flights, I've noticed plenty of people deliberately sitting in the wrong seat. They know their assigned seat is waiting for them so they might as well try to score a better one. In addition, there are the more reasonable people who find their seat then ask people to switch to be closer to friends etc. This all takes time.
Having to play the seat game is stressful (o hai nonchalant couple straddling the middle seat...), but certainly not as stressful as getting fondled by the blue shirted molesters or wondering if you'll get into an argument with a flight attendant who wants to gate check your electronics-laden carryon.
> have people line up at the gate prior to boarding in accordance to the integer
Whenever I've had to queue way in advance of boarding in order just not to be at the end of my line, I've wished for this sort of solution—but, every time, it seems to me that you'd just run into the trouble where the lower-numbered folks wouldn't all show up on time, and then you'd have to (1) find a way to insert them into the line, which seems like it would have to slow them down, or (2) put them at the back of the line, in which case the whole point of the numbering scheme would be lost and we'd be right back to lines forming long before they need to do so.
If one had to print tickets, that might be a problem. But with cellphones, you could just have everyone et their seating at the gate. And "dynamically" move people that are late, out of the way.
So, lets say a plane seat 100, 75 show up on time - seat them automatically when the show up at the gate according to preferences. Those that remain, get what remains when they arrive. Want your seat? Want to sit with your group? Be at the gate 10 minutes before boarding (or however long it takes people to line up).
I guess maybe the practical limits of traveler behavior trump the theoretical ideal? The mathematical solution to boarding passengers was examined a while back:
At times they have taken this to a new low: upselling the benefit of sitting together. The seat assignment algorithm is probably optimizing profit, not retaining groups.
It gets far, far worse than that. I had an American Airlines flight which showed every seat except the "premium" paid ones as full. Since I highly value sitting next to my wife, I went ahead and coughed up the $20 necessary to buy two seats together.
The plane flew at about 20% capacity. That diagram showing all the seats except premium ones filled? Complete and utter bullshit. I got a refund in my email a couple days later; I can only assume due to my complaining to the flight attendant about the situation. And I haven't flown American since.
I would disagree with this. My experience is of low-cost operators in Europe (Ryanair, Easyjet, Wizz etc.), and I believe their experiences have been the opposite. Whilst most of the carriers used to operate on an unassigned seating basis, with fees for reserved seating, now seating is 'randomly' assigned at online check-in (although if possible groups are sat together). You can still pay for reserved seating but the benefit is obviously a lot less now.
My anecdotal evidence is that this has massively quickened the boarding process. Before, there would be delays waiting for people to sort out their seating and luggage arrangements (families especially), now it is much less of an issue and turnaround times are quicker.
It's also possible that the massive increase in people taking only hand-luggage in recent years has been a factor, but I'm not sure.