Airlines Experiment on Easier Boarding

Throughout the years, passengers have found boarding a far more challenging task. According to a research conducted by Boeing, boarding time on a place has slowed down by 50% since the year 1970.

As to why slow boarding process, reasons vary. It could be because there are more priority passengers now and there are more baggage blocking the aisles.

This 50% rate has so far affected airlines as well, which is why they have been exploring different ways to ease the boarding and lessen the costs as well. According to the study, $30 is saved per minute of quicker boarding time because airlines make money up in the air and not on ground.

This ultimately leads to airlines devising ways to experiment on quicker and easier boarding.

Self boarding

Those traveling with South African Airways who are in Heathrow airport can do a DIY boarding, in the form of a scanning machine. Passengers go through an electronic barrier, which scans their faces. If the face is a match with the earlier scan made during check in, then passengers can go ahead and board.

According to CNN, Mark Walker, passenger process program manager at Heathrow says, "The specific application of this trial is to remove the need for a passport check."

"Smart boarding"

Dutch airline KLM came up with their own process of boarding, which they refer to as "smart boarding". It could be likened to a cheese counter method in which the airline translates passengers' seat numbers to a sequence number that appear on a 5-second interval per flyer. This then allows passengers to board one at a time.

This method is being used in three European flights as of now and the airline says that it's been working for them, leaving the process to be 20% faster.

"Positive boarding"

Heathrow airport is also trying another method, which they call a 'positive' approach. Passenger data is collected, which will then be sent to the airline in order to verify if the passenger is in the right terminal and how much time s/he needs to make it to boarding. Messages are also being sent to passengers for them to constantly be aware of their flight status.

United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic have since tried the method.

Now that there are more innovations, passengers can expect to experience better boarding anytime soon.