What if the fastest way to board a plane is one airlines barely use?

An aircraft earns money by flying — not by waiting at the gate.

Every commercial aircraft spends part of its day on the ground. Passengers need to leave, the cabin must be prepared and the next group has to board before the aircraft can depart again. Airlines therefore try to keep turnaround times predictable and as short as operationally possible.

A few minutes may not sound important on a single flight, but airlines repeat the same process hundreds or thousands of times across their networks. Time saved during boarding can contribute to faster turnarounds, better aircraft utilisation and more resilient schedules. Conversely, slow or unpredictable boarding can consume part of the available turnaround buffer before the aircraft has even pushed back.

The same aircraft, tested under three different conditions.

This was an iterative model, not a one-script result.

The audit found 18 unique executable versions across 19 named simulation files. The two V3.0 filenames are byte-identical aliases, so they count as one version.

The model moved from baseline aisle mechanics to experimental replication, movement and luggage sensitivity, behavioural compliance, travel groups, dual-door infrastructure and finally the 11-policy comparison. The total is based on the actual All Runs rows saved in the result workbooks, including the final V3.1.2 smoke test.

If these methods are faster, why don't airlines just use them?

Because airlines are solving a much bigger problem than this simulation.

A mathematically efficient boarding sequence may require exact passenger ordering, stronger gate control or separating people who want to board together. Airlines also need to accommodate families, premium products, accessibility, loyalty status and passenger expectations.

So the simulation should not be read as “airlines are doing boarding wrong.” It asks a narrower question: if we isolate passenger flow inside the cabin, what boarding structures reduce congestion most effectively?

A little more detail, if you want it.

This is a model, not a departure board.

The simulation isolates passenger boarding inside a representative narrow-body cabin. It does not model every part of airport operations, the complete turnaround process or an airline network.

The results are therefore best understood as a controlled comparison of boarding mechanisms rather than a prediction that every real flight would achieve exactly the same time.

The research behind the model.

These are selected sources from the supplied literature folder. They cover the Steffen method, experimental tests, Reverse Pyramid, robustness, luggage handling and recent Airbus A320 simulation work.