Airplane boarding strategies: ‘Steffen Method’ could be optimal process

(NewsNation) — Is there a better way to board airplanes? As the busy holiday travel season approaches, one astrophysicist says he’s cracked the code, discovering a more efficient boarding process for airlines.

Airlines have been trying to find the best process for decades, and now, United Airlines just announced it was switching up its boarding operations. Its new process focuses on prioritizing passengers with window seats first, followed by middle seats and then aisle seats.

Astrophysicist Dr. Jason Steffen crunched the numbers and even ran simulations with actors to prove what actually works and what doesn’t.

Steffen, an associate professor of physics at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said he was influenced to run the simulations after he found himself waiting in a series of lines during his travel. First, from waiting in traffic to waiting in line at the security gate, at the boarding gate and then again on the jet bridge to board the airplane.

“I thought, you know, one of these lines probably isn’t necessary if the whole process was a bit more efficient,” Steffen said.

It was just one too many lines for Steffen that sent him into research mode to find a solution. From it, he created the “Steffen Method,” also known as the optimal boarding strategy. He said it can be four to 10 times more efficient and faster than the standard boarding process seen at airports today.

The main issue when boarding an airplane, especially from back to front — which is what Steffen originally thought would be the fastest process — is that all the passengers end up getting grouped together in the aisle. Steffen explained that the first group of people to get on are all trying to cram into the last row, and what that does is it makes it so that the process takes forever.

“You’re waiting for the person in front of you, and you can’t sit down because everybody’s trying to get into the same spot,” he said.

Steffen said the faster way to board the plane is to actually spread people out inside the airplane so that as many people as possible can put their luggage away at the same time and then sit down all at once.

“It would basically be like every other row starting from the back of the plane,” Steffen said. “Everyone can put their luggage away without stepping on each other. And then everybody sits down and gets out of the way for the next group of people that come on board.”

United Airlines said it’s using the “WILMA Method,” which it says saves two whole minutes while boarding. Steffen said it’s definitely faster than the process United was using previously and might just be a little more practical than his own method.

He explained that when he was studying different methods, he wanted to find the fastest way to board the plane. But that doesn’t mean it is a practical way to board a flight.

“WILMA is certainly faster than boarding in blocks from the back to the front,” Steffen said. “If you have 1,000 flights, then that’s 2,000 minutes. That can probably add up over time.”