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There was once a time when traveling on an airplane was a fairly luxurious experience, but nowadays, it’s usually a pretty frustrating one thanks to the many headaches you can end up encountering. That includes the objectively idiotic way basically every airline boards their flights—although one carrier is adopting a new approach that’s a step in the right direction.
If you’re flying on a commercial flight, you’ll almost always be subjected to a traffic jam in the aisles thanks to the fairly inexplicable decision to have passengers board the plane from front to back.
While that allows people with theoretically “better” seats toward the front of airplanes to secure the coveted space in the overhead luggage compartments, it also drags out the boarding process for longer than necessary and makes it particularly annoying to navigate the narrow aisle.
At first glance, it would seem like it makes sense to board from front to back. However, there’s evidence that suggests the free-for-all approach harnessed by Southwest and other budget carriers with no assigned seats is actually the most efficient (a group of mathematicians claim a model based on passenger speed is the best method, although there’s no way to put it into practice).
Now, the folks at United Airlines are rolling out a new system they’ve been testing for a few years. According to NPR, the company plans to adopt what is known as the “WILMA method,” which involves having people in window seats board first, inviting those in the middle to get on next, and capping things off with a final wave of travelers sitting in the aisle.
The change only applies to passengers in economy class, as Groups 3, 4, and 5 will now be (respectively) reserved for people in window, middle, and aisle seats (a tweak you may want to take into consideration when booking a ticket with United if you want to avoid the dreaded gate check).
The airline estimates the WILMA method will help it cut down boarding times by an average of two minutes, and while it might not sound like much, it seems like a step in the right direction.