Jon Pretty

The boarding process at @SouthwestAir (no assigned seats, random boarding order) has been shown to be 70% more efficient than the "board assigned seats from the back" method that everyone else uses. So why doesn't every airline board this way?

Granted, every airline also corrupts its boarding efficiency by upselling "board sooner", which in turn costs them real money in longer gate dwell and higher delay risk, but beyond those features, boarding on most airlines is vastly, vastly more efficient than "back to front".

I thought I read that an airline was experimenting with individual-called-number-ordered boarding. This could be smart enough to not board people in aisle seats before the window seat in their row is taken, or could even sense when the passenger is seated.

United already boards such that aisles are in the last group, modulo some other complexities. Part of the problem with these schemes is not just upselling, but also passenger confusion and misunderstanding at the gate. It's a complex issue.

And, of course, not not everyone is at the gate when they should be.

But my next best idea is to have planes with open-top fuselages and giant caddies containing the entire passenger deck of the plane, which can be swapped in and out at the airport in seconds with cranes, while passengers can seat themselves at their leisure at the airport.