By Kevin Meyer
A couple weeks ago I told you about how Singapore is finding a solution to transit system capacity problems that doesn't require vast investments in trains and buses. They just took the time to dig a bit deeper to better understand the root cause of the problem.
Now we have another opportunity: airlines attempting to reduce the time it takes to board their planes. Unfortunately in this case they are completely missing the mark.
American Airlines undertook a two-year study to try and speed up boarding. The result: The airline has recently rolled out a new strategy—randomized boarding. Travelers without elite status get assigned randomly to boarding groups instead of filing onto planes from back to front.
Now that's an interesting idea, and the study behind it is a little counterintuitive. Randomized boarding is actually proven faster than rear-first and windows-first boarding. Go figure. And of course since this is the 2010's the airlines will find all kinds of ways to create little fees that allow you to circumvent the system – and presumably crumble the model.
If you want to avoid the bedlam and board early, there's a fee for that, of course. Passengers at some airlines, including American, offer the option for about $10. With randomized boarding, some passengers may still want to pay the early boarding fee to ensure they will have plenty of overhead bin space.
Ya, whatever. Asinine fees are not the point of this post. The article goes into all the nuances of the study, various loading strategies, and so on. And misses the obvious solutions.
The first obvious solution I observed while bouncing around Asia last December with several flights on Bangkok Air. Remarkable little airline – impressed me enough to write about them. They were able to load a full A320 in ten (10) minutes. They were also able to serve a full real meal, not a box thrown at you but an actual tray with multiple hot dishes, to a full plane on a 30 minute flight. Really. How'd they do it?
People. There were a few more flight attendants than we typically see. During boarding, which was completely random (I guess they somehow stumbled upon the concept that took American spending millions on consultants to learn?), the attendants efficiently handed people off to other attendants to get them to their seats and settled. A daisy chain of communication and activity that moved incredibly fast. During the meal service those two or three extra attendants dramatically added to the speed and efficiency of serving and clearing the trays. Thirty minutes from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia.
However there's one other major impediment to rapid boarding that American, or pretty much any U.S. airline for that matter, actively works to promote. Yes, I said promote the impediment – how crazy. It's that absurd checked baggage fee. Sure they make a few bucks, but at what cost? So here we have the cross-section of a typical aircraft:
We have the seats, a tiny amount of space beneath the seats, and a little bit of overhead space. Then of course the rather cavernous baggage space underneath. Guess what has happened with the baggage fees. Yep, utilization of the checked baggage area downstairs has gone down by 47% as everyone tries to carry on their bags and cram them into the overheads. What are the airlines doing? Hiring teams that are trying to fill up that space with cargo, mail, and the like.
Waste, anyone? So the airlines are incenting folks to use the smaller spaces, wasting the larger spaces, and delaying boarding in the process.
D'oh!
I wonder what would happen if the incentive was the reverse – you paid a fee to carry on anything larger than a briefcase or purse. How would that change the boarding process? What is the value of turning a plane around in 30 minutes instead of an hour or two? Returning to the Bangkok Air example, what would be the value, not cost, of two or three additional flight attendants – to the boarding process as well as the customer's flying experience?
What is real value – especially from the perspective of the customer – that will drive more business and thereby more profit? Fees? Comfortable flying? Efficient turnaround?
Who knows. I just know a bunch of airlines are spending millions to try to optimize a process that has been already, increasingly, suboptimized by subverting policies. Smack.
Jim Fernandez says
Great observation Kevin!
It’s interesting how some companies see short term profit as their main goal. While other companies understand that providing customer value brings consistent longer term profit. I think the “I want it now” mentality always pushes us away from providing better customer value.
Tony says
A couple other ways airlines could add value:
1. Get rid of the joke that is the TSA, and implement procedures that really enhance security (what do countries with real security like Israel do?). This is a major reason I avoid flying as much as possible.
2. Guarantee security of checked bags. Are you going to put stuff you value in checked luggage?
Andy Wagner says
Southwest Airlines has been doing randomized boarding to reduce turnaround time for about 30 years. The studies that really popularized it are probably about five years old or so. I cannot believe this is new to American. Some people are just slow, I guess.
Dick Kusleika says
Another waste is transporting the luggage around the airport. I haven’t checked a bag in a while, but from what I remember, I gave up my bag 1,000 yards away from the plane. It went on expensive machinery, got hand loaded on a truck, hand loaded on a plane, then reversed. Those big boxes in the lower half of the picture – they should be at the gate. I’ll put my own luggage in there and then one guy and a forklift can put it in the plane when it’s full. Use the big space, make the customer do the work. Win-win!
Dave Velzy says
What if the airlines now fill the vacant cargo holds with Paying Customers Commercial Cargo?
Perhaps they really do have a plan, and your convenience doesn’t rate very high in their valuation.
Wasted capacity is waste too.
Mark Graban says
@Andy, there’s a difference, operationally, between random boarding with no seat assignments (Southwest) and random boarding WITH seat assignments (American). Amazingly, random boarding (the free-for-all approach) works better in either circumstance. Northwest used to board that way, but it changed with the Delta merger, I believe.
john crossan says
Hard to understand some US companies, but would you want to.
Frenzied lemming like behavior sometimes off-shoring to reduce direct labor, yet other times refusing to copy or even acknowledge successful practices by competitors. Southwest has been cleaning the clocks of American, Delta, United and US Air for years by turning their planes around so much faster, yet they copy each other instead of Southwest.
Pete says
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the “waiting” due to the current batch and queue approach of airline baggage handling. I didn’t like to check bags before the added fees because I didn’t like waiting around in the baggage claim area for 15-20 minutes before the first bags began to arrive.
Louis Renaoult says
Southwest’s “general admission” seating kind of sucks for you, the customer, unless you happen to have a high status level with Southwest. If not, you are going to have to wait until last to board when the overheads are full and only the middle seats are left open. Maybe the reason the other airlines don’t blindly copy Southwest is that they aren’t as good as they would like everyone to think they are.
Pete–baggage handling is normally performed by airport personnel rather than airline employees. The quality of service varies airport to airport, but not much from airline to airline.
Dean says
Late to this thread, but I just got back from a vacation to Europe where I experienced a few different approaches to boarding and de-boarding.
Outbound, I flew with British Airways. They used the traditional method of back-to-front loading, with the typical results. Slow.
I also took a couple flights with Norwegian Air, one within Norway and another to Paris. They board and de-board from both ends of the plane using both the jetway and a portable stairway. Loading is random, to the extent that the front half is loaded from the jetway and the back half is loaded from the stairway. I was impressed at how quickly this worked. It took maybe 3 minutes to completely empty a 737.
My return flight was via American, so I experienced their random grouping method. It did seem faster and more effective than the traditional method used by BA, especially once you actually got on the plane. There was still quite a line at the gate, however.
Nancy Dailey says
If you want to be treated like an appreciated customer whose business is truly appreciated FLY SOUTHWEST!!!!! and no I am not one of their employees. I have just flown with them the last 12 years and have ALWAYS HAD EXCELLENT SERVICE. They board quickly and get you there on time!!! They are also happy to help with anything you might need in flight. The first time I flew with them was such a dramatic difference in how I was treated that I have been with them ever since!!!! They seem to recognize that THEIR PASSENGERS ARE THE WELL BEING OF THEIR COMPANY AND THEIR JOBS. THEY LET YOU KNOW THAT THEY KNOW AND APPRECIATE THAT.