Here’s some good news, world: There is definitely a faster way to board an airplane. It exists, and it’s awesome, and it's hella logical. The bad news? Most airlines (we're assuming, but come on) refuse to use this method because it’s monetarily beneficial to encourage impatient flyers to purchase seating upgrades. That’s pretty sly of you, airlines. Pretty sly indeed. According to this Vox video, the easiest and fastest way to board an airline is by using unassigned seating (well done, Southwest!). Most airlines use the back-to-front method, which takes an average of 24.5 minutes, as opposed to the 14.1 minutes it takes when passengers have unassigned seating. The other runner-up methods are: random seating (17.3 minutes), and outside-in seating (14.9 minutes).
The video explains that letting passengers in back-to-front is super inefficient, “because people are trying to access the same rows and bins at the same time which causes congestion in the aisle.” We can’t really complain too, too much though—air travel used to cost an average of $600+ dollars per ticket in the ‘80s, and now it’s around $400. Plus, do we really have a choice? (And don’t say, “yes, we do” because you know driving a car across the country is the worst, and taking a ship to different continents take weeks, so please.) And on another positive note, you could use all that time and nourish your brainz with some reading material, which the airport has conveniently offered you as well.
