Why Do Some Airlines Board Back to Front and Others Don’t?
Back to front? Front to back? What’s the deal? Why does stepping inside a metal tube that ascends to Himalayan heights and then lands thousands of miles away from its original destination have to be so complicated?
While logic would suggest that there’s only one surefire way to board a plane safely and efficiently, not all airlines agree. Like explaining the miracle of flight itself, there are science-based reasons as to why boarding one way works and why the other way doesn’t. It’s time to put front vs back boarding to bed, once and for all.
Is There a Case for Back to Front?
Back to front is a time-tested method. Since the advent of commerical air-travel, this boarding method has been the go-to. It makes sense on paper: the first people on board schlep their stuff to the back, then the middle is filled, and finally the front. But while back to front is the established method, scientists suggests that there ironically isn’t a case for back to front at all. The scientists in question? The Mythbusters themselves!
After casually building a 173-seat airplane interior over the course of an episode, the Mythbusters determined that back to front boarding is the worst method for filling up a plane. After testing multiple methods, they discovered that this method was bafflingly 10 minutes slower than what logic suggests would the worst method of all: boarding randomly with no assigned seats in no assigned order.
Their findings are confirmed by an oft-cited research paper on plane boarding. Fermilab Center for Particle Physics researcher Jason Steffan concluded that boarding by rows is the least efficient method of all. The reason? Isle interference. Boarding by rows causes a ton of congestion as passengers heave their luggage up into the carry-on compartments, making it nearly impossible for other passengers to squeeze by in a timely manner.
If Back to Front is Bad, Why Do Some Airlines Still Do It?
The back to front boarding is an inefficient, time-consuming, and stressful method — one that passengers will pay extra to avoid. Airlines are incentivized to keep the back to front method in place because it allows them to sell boarding perks to higher paying customers that want to skip the line.
Though the potential for extra profit is reason enough to keep the back to front method for many airlines, there’s also a psychological benefit. According to The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, other boarding methods such as seating passengers randomly create confusion and stress — stress that those passengers take out on airline staff. Though random boarding is actually faster than the back to front method, American Airlines has refused to implement the model due to the emotional toll it takes on flight attendants and passengers alike.
Despite its inefficiencies, multiple airlines have worked the back to front method into their business model — making a change now is too costly.
(featured image: Kuster & Wildhaber Photography)
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