Fastest way to board a plane revealed!
It's happened to us all: Queuing up inside the airport terminal to board your plane only to wait for ages while everyone gets on (sometimes painfully slowly) from back to front.
Now, a Discovery Channel series called Mythbusters has tested whether this is the fastest way to board a plane - and found that it definitely is not.
Most airlines board business class first, before boarding people by zones, starting with the back.
But the Mythbusters test found that this was the slowest and least efficient of six possible seating techniques, reports the Daily Mail.
According to All Things Aero, the team set up a mock cabin in an old boat storage facility, and created a 173-seat airline cabin with three seats on each side and a single aisle.
They installed real airline seats and overhead bins, as well as real life flight attendants, to re-create a realistic environment. They also threw in 'wild cards' that often make the process longer, like mothers with babies, sitting in the wrong seat, and people trying to use the bathroom.
They then timed six different methods of boarding as well as gaining a passenger evaluation of the method.
The first method started with the standard back to front method, which took 24 minutes and 29 seconds.
Boarding at random with assigned seats was quicker at 17 minutes 15 seconds.
The fastest with a time of 14 minutes and seven seconds was boarding business class first and then all passengers choosing their seats at random as they stepped on the aircraft.
However, although this was the fastest method, it had the lowest passenger satisfaction rating.
Boarding window seats first, followed by the middle and then aisle seats (called the Wilma method) also came out at a respectable 14 minutes and 55 seconds.
The reverse pyramid method, where passengers in economy boarded the plane from back to front and outside in, had the highest customer satisfaction rating, and was the third fastest technique with a time of 15 minutes and 10 seconds.
Do you think airlines should change their boarding techniques? Leave a comment below.
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