Boarding An Airplane – Why Must It Be So Difficult And Take So Long?
I do not fancy traveling by air as much as I love to drive my car. Both modes of transportation have their issues. Today I will focus on air travel since that is the method of transportation I had to deal with the most over the past few days.
The problem with air travel is not being in the air, it's getting on and off the plane. Actually, getting off the plane is fairly organized even the biggest douche canoe understands wait your turn to get up and leave.
Getting on the plane is as frustrating as watching pirated HBO back in the late 70's and early 80's was. It's a lot of start and stop and what did they just say?
The problem is all of this zone one, zone two, sky miles, first class, you can't walk through this lane crap the airlines force feed us at the gate. It's the same darn plane and we are all going to arrive at our destination or the crash site at the same time.
The TV show Mythbusters studied different methods of boarding an aircraft and they found that Southwest Airlines does it right when it comes to speed. The Southwest method is no reserved seats, it's first come first seated.
Funny how when people gotta get their butt in a chair they can do it. Otherwise you'll have the old lady blocking the aisle folding her coat that she is not supposed to put in the overhead storage because the flight attendant just announced that.
How would I fix plane boarding? It's really simple. I would make all carry on bags have to fit under the seat in front of you. This would make more people want to check that freaking over-sized bag they call a purse. Or else they would have to ride with their knees up around their ears.
I would make the overhead compartments large enough to hold a computer bag. That's it. You can put extra medicine, some candy, and any other thing you need to keep you company for the next three hours in that bag.
I have been on a 22 hour long flight. I found the airline provided all of the comforts I needed to keep me fed, sleeping, and entertained. You don't need to bring your entire DVD collection.
I would also have people line up by row at the gate. We would send the window seat people in first, then comes the middle people, then comes the aisle dwellers. Sure it would be uncomfortable but for only ten minutes then that plane would be boarded, we'd be sitting next to who we want to sit next to and we wouldn't have that angst of watching the guy try to force a bag as big as a king size mattress into an overhead bin.