Why isn't two-door/split boarding on commercial airplanes more common?
Why isn't two-door/split boarding on commercial airplanes more common?
Split boarding or two-door boarding sounds at least to me like a no-brainer. Basically you open both the front and back doors and let passengers board from ends of the airplane. Seems at least to me it's a lot more common with the terminals that use air stairs that you need to walk across the apron to get to rather than jet-bridges, as it's pretty easy to just roll two air stairs up to the aircraft.
Why isn't this more common? Boarding and deboarding a plane is slow and very prone to a single person holding up the entire process as there is no room to go past them in the aisle. Allowing boarding from both the front and back doors will at least half the time it takes, and especially with deboarding, gives passengers two options for exits which means a single person can't hold up the entire plane. If the people in front are being slow, just leave from the back.
I know that designing a jet-bridge that can line up with the back door is pretty difficult especially since you have to fit it alongside the jetbridge for the front door, but why not just use the jetbridge for the front door and roll air stairs up to the back door and have half the passengers go down to the ground and walk across the apron? I'll gladly spend a few minutes walking through the heat or rain if it means we can board and deboard in half the time, especially if it means we don't lose our takeoff slot from a slow boarding process and have to wait on the tarmac for even longer.
What do you think? Are there practical issues that this is not done more often? Or is it simply because the airlines don't really want to pay for more gate services?
I recently experienced just this!
My flight boarded on the tarmac using air stairs from the front and back entrances. My seat was on row 15 of the 28 row plane.
Knowing little of the jet’s layout, and not receiving instructions about where to board, I guessed correctly when picking an entrance, but many people did not.
The entire middle third of the plane was a snarl of people crossing paths. With no clear direction of travel and only one aisle, it meant that people had to step into unfilled rows to allow’ oncoming passengers’ to pass. When overhead bins didn’t quite align with a seat row, people placed their bags nearest to where they entered, leading to the middle compartments being almost empty, and the ones around it being jam-packed. Moments later many passengers got up again and moved their bags to be in a more logical place - leading to delays for late boarders because the aisles were not clearing efficiently.All-in-all, I couldn’t recommend it.
It perhaps could be more efficient with better communication and per-section boarding, but that means more announcements that could blend into background noise, and asking passengers to make more choices they could get wrong.
Here are my thoughts.
One part certainly is that you need to pay for more infrastructure, without a real benefit for the airline. Passenger boarding/deplaning is not the bottleneck for turnaround. Evidence: after boarding, you normally sit around for quite some time before the plane starts moving. You also need a flight attendant at each door, who is then bound up and cannot perform other duties.
With airstairs, it's different, because you often need buses, and you always need security personnel, and the faster you get all people off the apron, the better for everyone, so in that case, time is a factor.
Using airstairs in combination with the jetbridge introduces the security angle again, so you basically have the worst of both worlds, and have to pay for the jetbridge privilege and for security personnel. And if you don't separate the passengers by row properly, you won't even gain a lot, because more people have to pass each other in the aisles. As you have found out, passing through the door isn't actually the bottleneck, but stowing carry-on luggage and finding the right seat, and waiting for the aisle passenger to get up and let you get into your window seat.
P.S. I don't think it's a good idea to post this to two different communities. If you want to reach both, just post a short link to the discussion on the other community.
In the US I bet this is due to the airlines wanting you to feel the pain of sitting at the back of the plane. Whereas the people who buy first class tickets can get on and off without much discomfort and don’t need as much patience. Also probably 9/11 related security shit.
Having first class walk by everyone to board first is seen as an effective way to advertise first class.
They could also halve boarding speed by loading handicapped/parents with children first, then window seat, middle, aisle.
How is it twice as fast when you don't just have one person blocking the way until they unloaded... but instead multiple persons that are not even at their seat yet wanting to get past each other? That would only work if you separate the 2 groups to make sure they don't mix. So back side is back half, front is front half.
Also, note that the time it takes off usually also time they spend refueling etc., so it is inconvenient to you but not really for the Airline.