You've probably experienced it before– the announcement of beginning the boarding process at the airport creates an instant mob around the gate. The entire boarding ordeal, filled with confusion and stress, can take up almost an hour. Surprisingly, this chaos does not happen by accident. Rather, it's carefully orchestrated to become an income-generator for airlines.
Passengers often unwittingly contribute to this disorder by crowding the gate queue. Although you had initially resolved to wait calmly until your zone was called, the anticipation pulls you towards the crowded lineup. What follows next is the bewilderment of boarding zones. Surprisingly, Zone 1 or Group A doesn't necessarily mean you'll board first.
"There's a certain madness to boarding a plane that can only be compared to the Lord of the Flies," says Henry Harteveldt, who covers the travel industry for Atmosphere Research Group.
Airlines have capitalized on the anxiety surrounding early boarding and the guarantee of overhead cabin space. The extra charges to ensure a more stress-free boarding experience meaning more money for carriers. According to Robert Mann, an airline consultant and former executive, there's an ongoing battle between airline marketing teams that want to maximize revenue and operations teams that want efficiency.
Airlines' tactical exploits don't end there. Changes over the years have included selling overhead bin access as priority boarding, offering credit cards, and dangling loyalty programs to persuade passengers to pay more. Furthermore, larger aircraft with densely packed seating have been introduced, with flights becoming more frequently full. This has only served to exacerbate the boarding conundrum.
Several decades ago, it wasn't this complex. Airlines once offered first-class boarding along with an open boarding process for the main cabin, coupled with free baggage check. A shift occurred when airlines began charging for checked bags in 2008, amid escalating fuel prices. This change led passengers to carry more bags, reducing boarding efficiency significantly.
Nowadays, airlines generate colossal revenue from luggage, with almost $7 billion collected last year, according to the Transportation Department. This led to the creation of further passenger segments, needing separation during boarding, with new terms for boarding zones and groups. "The more zones and groups for boarding, the longer it takes," says Massoud Bazargan, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
While airlines have experimented with various boarding tactics, like boarding window seat passengers first or boarding from the back to the front, they haven't found an optimal method yet. However, it seems clear that if airlines truly wanted to streamline the boarding process, they could eliminate check-in bag fees, lower the number of zones, and switch to open seating.
Southwest Airlines demonstrates that the boarding process doesn't need to be a nightmare. The carrier has the fastest boarding protocol among major airlines by merely allowing passengers to claim the first available seat. However, with much to gain financially from current methods, other airlines seem unlikely to follow Southwest's example.
"They don’t want to lose the revenue from specific seat assignments," concludes Bazargan.
