United Airlines has a plan to fix one of the most annoying parts of travel: boarding, writes The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 19, 2023). United is bringing back a boarding method for passengers that it says is more efficient, hoping to shave up to 2 minutes off what is often a contentious process. It sounds simple: window, middle, aisle, or “Wilma.” When economy passengers board, those sitting in the window seat will go first, followed by middle seats, then aisles. Groups traveling on the same reservation will still board together.
For airlines, boarding is a logistical puzzle as well as a psychological test as they try to balance speed, fairness and revenue. Earlier access to overhead bin space is often a perk for higher paying customers, who clamor to get on first. Carriers have tried tweaks like better signage and text-message alerts about when to head to the gate. The number of boarding groups has proliferated as airlines have sought to reward loyal customers, military, handicapped, etc., while keeping things running more smoothly.
No matter what, crowding at gates and logjams on jet bridges seem inevitable. United said things have gotten even worse as travel has rebounded from the pandemic. Boarding times have increased by up to two minutes since 2019.
United has used the Wilma process before: But in 2017, it combined middle and aisle seats into a single group. Now, economy passengers in dreaded middle seats will board after those with window seats, followed by those with aisle seats. Basic Economy passengers will have their own newly created group and will be the last to get on the plane.
All airlines find that small reductions in that “turn” time can add up over the course of the day and allow for more flying, and all have different theories on the speediest procedure. But it seems no airline has found a panacea.
Classroom discussion questions:
- Check out some of our earlier posts on the topic by using the search engine on the right. Summarize the approaches tried.
- How would you tackle this problem as operations manger of an airline?