Airplane Boarding
Aircraft boarding has always seemed like a strange process to me. Southwest has their semi-free-for-all system, United recently switched to WILMA, Alaska has the traditional letter groups (as a side note, Alaska uses a phonetic alphabet that they try to make funny, but after a while sounds dumb – “Group C as in Charming” is only charming the first couple times), and Delta has something similar to United.
There are a few key things when boarding that are important: getting to your seat, getting overhead bin space and getting settled while disinfecting the seat around you. For airlines, the objectives are a bit more complicated. They need to: reward loyal passengers, board crew members, get everyone in their seats as quickly as possible and not cause any injuries or other issues. They also want to make as much money as possible and lose as little money as possible. This all sounds so simple!
United’s new boarding process moves from five groups to six groups, plus all of the pre-board groups that are not called groups. At an airport like Houston, the Premier 1K not-a-group is often bigger than group one. The new WILMA system boards these non-groups first, followed by those in first class and those with lesser-but-still-loyal status. Then it should go window, middle, aisle.
The “pre-board” non-groups are all a little silly to me. People with disabilities are often the least-frequent flyers and generally have seats in the back. I appreciate that they have more time to get back there. I do get a bit scared when they are sitting in an exit-row seat. Is this the person I’ll need to jump over in the event of an emergency? Do we throw the person out the exit with the door? This has never been very clear to me.
I understand why we board the front of the plane first, despite what we did in COVID when human contact was potentially deadly. Those in the front of the plane have more status, earned through many more hours in the narrow and cramped seats in the back of the plane. We appreciate the extra space and time to watch everyone else board the plane.
Also, physics plays an important part in flying. If you notice most domestic aircraft have wheels on the bottom in the front of the plane and roughly at the center of gravity of the plane, around where the wings are. Center of gravity is important. The front landing gear helps keep the plane stable when boarding and exiting the aircraft, where the weight is generally forward of the main gear. The back of the plane doesn’t have landing gear. As we know from physics, if you have a fulcrum in the center and put more weight on one side (looking at you guy taking up most of two seats in row 28), we get an exciting piece of playground equipment. Airlines prefer to have airplanes, not teeter-totters.
Southwest alleviates this problem with a pole on the back of the plane when at the gate. Other airlines don’t seem to do this as often. So, yay, physics! It makes things go.
Yes, this is a stock image of a United 737. It shows the tricycle landing gear that is good for taking off and landing, but not for boarding from the back.
