Shortening Airline Boarding Processes

Traveling is exhausting, even when you’re jet-setting to a beautiful vacation destination. Already, you have to carve out sufficient time to travel to the airport, go through security, and arrive at your gate before boarding commences. But even when your pre-flight plan goes smoothly—no traffic, security is a breeze, the flight is on time—frustration can still ensue when you’re boarding the plane.

When you arrive at the gate, you see dozens of people lined up to board. As you purchased a lower-fare ticket, you’re in Zone 5. Since you won’t be boarding for a while, you take a seat, astonished that so many people are already queuing. The airline representative begins calling out zones to board, and passengers have to fight their way through the crowd. You continue to wait as each zone is called, and have to wait again once you get on the plane, as people are trying to find space for their bags and get into their seats. You make your way to your seat only to find that all the bins above are full. Now, you have to shuffle around the tight space trying to find a place for your carry-on. It’s a long time before everyone is in their seats and the doors can be closed.

These frictions in the boarding process are more than a minor inconvenience—they create system-wide delays. Airlines increasingly board customers based on their value to the airline, with premium passengers and frequent flyers entering first, while basic economy travelers wait until the end. This system, designed to reward loyalty and higher fares, has had the unintended consequence of slowing the entire process, often pushing back departure times.

Throughout this article, we’ll examine the inefficiencies in today’s boarding systems and the behavioral factors that turn an orderly process into a bottleneck. From queuing dynamics to seating logistics, we’ll explore why boarding feels so drawn out, and what airlines could do differently to reduce delays, improve passenger experience, and ensure that flights leave on time.