When did boarding a plane become so complicated?

It feels eons ago that passengers were subjected to the free-for-all lottery of unallocated seating on planes. Granted, it was an anxiety-inducing chaos, but at least you knew where you stood (if not where you sat).

Nowadays, it seems that airlines are stumbling over each other to come up with boarding policies so complex you need an accompanying crib sheet to understand when it’s your turn to approach the gate. Enter Delta Airlines.

The American carrier has introduced a new method “to bring consistency, simplicity and clarity” to the boarding experience, “simplifying” the six categories it previously used to eight, all coded by colour, most of them a shade of blue.

Travellers are by now familiar with the principle that those who pay more for their ticket will board first, but Delta has broken down the order yet further, from Delta One (first) through to Basic Economy (last).

Not only are five of the colours a variation on blue (and the other three not so different to one another), but giving priority to loyalty card holders, regardless of their position on the plane, and forcing those who pay for the most basic fare to board last, means there will be passengers who take their seat only to be forced to stand again so others can take theirs.

The “branded boarding order” was of course intended to board passengers faster and therefore decrease turnaround times and limit delays, but Delta said it was also intended to reduce stress.

“Every customer values consistency and a sense of knowing what to expect when they're travelling,” the airline's senior vice president Tim Mapes said.

“We have been listening to our customers about the stress they often feel at the gate before boarding, and implementing small changes for years. This latest enhancement further refines how Delta's process works.”

Delta is not alone in adopting an indecipherable boarding strategy. Last year, its US rival American Airlines “simplified” its process by prioritising passengers according to nine numbered groups, up from four, with, naturally, “basic economy” last.

Last year, British Airways divided opinion with a new “pay least, board last” policy that meant those with the cheapest tickets would be last called. A spokesperson said it was seeking to “improve the customer journey by creating a number of groups to speed up the process”, adding: “This method has been used by airlines around the world for a number of years, including by our partners American Airlines, Iberia and Qatar.”

It's bizarre to think that it was as recently as 2013 that we all just queued at the gate to grab whichever seat we wanted. EasyJet only introduced allocated seating in 2012, and Ryanair followed suit in 2013. 

So what is the best way to board planes?

According to various studies, from sources as varied as Northwestern University in Illinois and the Discovery Channel’s TV series MythBusters, there is a simple approach that could save airlines – and passengers – up to 20 minutes of runway faffing on every return flight.

Instead of getting passengers to board according to their row number, they should board according to their column. Those with a window seat first, followed by those in the middle and, finally, those in the aisle. The “WilMA” method, as it has been dubbed – window, middle, aisle – could cut boarding times by more than 35 per cent, according to Northwestern. Similar savings could be made if WilMA is used to disembark the plane, too, it said.

MythBusters, which devoted almost an entire show to the thorny problem, tested six options using a replica of an aircraft interior and 173 willing volunteers. To simulate reality, five per cent of passengers were asked to behave “problematically” – sitting in the wrong seat, wasting time folding up their coat in the aisle, that sort of thing.

The regular method, with business class getting on first and then everyone else boarding in zones, starting at the back and moving to the front, took a whopping 24 minutes and 29 seconds. WilMA took just 14 minutes and 55 seconds, even when premium passengers were still permitted to board first. Volunteers were also asked to give each method a “satisfaction” score, and WilMA scored far higher than the standard boarding technique.

Remarkably, the method currently favoured by airlines was shown to be far slower than simply letting everyone on board at once to find their own assigned seats (17 minutes and 15 minutes).

Quickest of all, however, was allowing passengers to board all at once and to choose their own seats – a method once favoured by Ryanair et al but abandoned in 2013 as part of its “family-friendly” facelift.

So why don’t airlines take heed? For one, passengers who like to take advantage of speedy boarding – and airlines who like to take advantage of charging them for the privilege – would be scuppered. But the most glaringly obvious reason is that groups and families would – albeit temporarily – be split up. As a family will typically share a row of seats, mum in the window seat would need to leave behind everyone else to take her place, while little Jimmy in the middle would be expected to find his seat all on his own.

How else could airlines speed things up? The best option of all, according to Dr R. John Milne, of Clarkson University in New York, and set out in the Journal of Air Transport Management, would be for passengers with the most luggage to be given window seats and kept as far apart as possible, before boarding in a carefully choreographed order.

Window seat passengers in odd numbered seats on one side of the plane would board first, followed by those in even numbered seats, or vice versa. The process would be repeated for window seats on the other side of the cabin, then for middle seats and aisle seats in the same manner.

OK, that sounds about as complicated, too.