OT: Southwest Airlines.. I don't know how they're gonna make it after losing all their handicap passengers.
- Thread starter Xenomorph
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Nothing makes me madder. I’m jumping out in front and blocking them out every time until all in front of me are gone.
It could work if they make whatever the % of folks in the back of the plane check all luggage. Can’t have the people that paid a premium not having overhead space. Albeit minor, I like my pdb even if it’s a juice on an early flight.
I’d just say you could make the bottom 20% of passengers check their bag at the gate. Aka a pink tag. You pick it up when you get off a flight.
also the flight attendants on delta already do a good job of monitoring overhead space so have all of the bins closed in the upper front 2/3s of plane.
then open middle third.
but navigating front to back and fighting the middle aisle seems like the worst logistical planning ever.
I gate checked a bag once that went to Orlando instead of New Orleans. It was in Calgary and I presume switched during layover, but still baffling.
I guess the bags just wanted to go to Disney. It does happen sometimes. Only issue I've ever had was flying to Boston for a weekend with my brother. Checked bags, got to ATL and a weather system about like this one in the northeast was coming through. So my flight cancelled. They couldn't get me scheduled for Saturday and were saying Sunday morning. I figured I'm not flying to Boston on Sunday just to fly back on Monday. So I got on the last flight back to Jackson (7AM - 10PM just to fly to ATL, hang out in the airport, and fly back). But my bags flew to Boston. I got them back Sunday afternoon.
Slash checked bags to $10 per bag or god forbid, free. Require any size suitcase, duffel bag, or backpack bigger than a purse to be checked . Load from the back forward. It’s pretty common sense.
I still don’t think it’s that complicated
you really don’t have to chance much with baggage.
maximum just make the back check at gate with a pink tag and have attendants monitor the space.
but yes loading from the back seems extremely logical.
this is coming from someone who is platinum medallion and usually boards first.
I’d much rather wait knowing there is a smooth and quicker process.
American is bad about this and it's a pet peeve. The first boarding are the "pre-boarders" that "need extra time. There's invariably at least 5 people who are otherwise perfectly fine who need extra time getting on the plane.
It's kinda like the fatasses on the scooters in Walmart. If they got their fatasses up and walked, they wouldn't need the scooter.....but then they wouldn't get to use the scooter and take advantage of everyone else.
you still have to wait for the "pre-boarders" to board first.
MythBusters proved that the fastest boarding was outside in, window seats first to aisle seats.
They don't necessarily need checked bags to be cheap but just have some logical pricing. On flights back home, especially direct ones, I'm generally happy to check everything but a laptop bag. But I'm not paying extra for the inconvenience.
People would lose their ****, but it'd also be nice and airlines would just weigh people and their bags at checkin. It's absurd to have people moving things from checked to carryon luggage to avoid a $100 charge for being 3 lbs overweight. Just decide how much you want to charge for weight and charge it. If somebody weights 250lbs and checks a 49 lb bag, they shouldn't be charged less than a female that weighs 110 lbs and has a 52 lb bag.
Obviously outside to in, back to front, would be fastest if you could count on people to be logical and self sufficient, but not sure it's big enough of an improvement to break up passengers. Sometimes older people in a group or just women can't lift their bag into an overhead bin and most parents aren't going to want a kid younger than 10 separated from them to have a minor improvement in loading time.
Best loading should be by:
- military
- business class
- loyalty levels
- regular price tickets
- discount tickets
- families with children
- disabled
this loads the business travelers first who are not clueless how the process works. Then the slowest who don’t have to fumble where their seats are and have to move thinking someone will trade with them
- military
- business class
- loyalty levels
- regular price tickets
- discount tickets
- families with children
- disabled
this loads the business travelers first who are not clueless how the process works. Then the slowest who don’t have to fumble where their seats are and have to move thinking someone will trade with them
Have flown Southwest for years (or Jesus airlines as my wife and I called them with all the healing going on from ATL to where we we went). Flew to Colorado for skiing last week and amazingly there were only 2 true pre boarders and they were sitting in assigned seats. Was amazing! Will have to go back to calling them their normal name. It had gotten so out of hand with them. I am A list, have two SW credit cards business and personal, and haven't paid for a ticket for my wife to fly in 10 years because of companion pass (SW is the best for that). But had been growing tired of the pre board charades. I'm glad they've gone to the new system, now the biggest problem is getting people to actually put real carry-on luggage in the compartments and their backpack and purses under the seat!
Not going to happen. SWA decided to just blend in with the rest, so do not expect the moronic tendencies of the masses to be any different.
You are correct on both accounts.
- people WOULD lose their shit.
- someone with a total flight weight of 162 should not pay for luggage while someone with a total flight weight of 299 doesnt pay for luggage.
Similar to when we had to shift weight out of my wife's checked bag into my checked bag because hers was over the limit. Nothing actually changed- we still had the same total weight for the two of us and our bags, but shifting some weight to my bag made us compliant.
These rules are in place and there are silly exceptions because a more logical process is simply unrealistic to implement.
A couple of reasons it doesn’t happen. One, many planes would tip on their tail. You might notice sometimes on some stretched aircraft, they actually put a tail stand under it to prevent it from tipping when it deplanes.
The airlines have gone through all sorts of tests to see what is the quickest, but that is also complicated by what people pay for a seat. Typically the people in steerage or the back of the airplane pay the least. In that scenario, they would get to board first and always have space in the overhead for luggage. Whether you agree or not, the high value customers want to board first and room for their luggage and they don’t want to sit in the back of the airplane.
Premium tickets make up a huge portion on any flight now and just like any other business, you want to make sure those people keep coming back.
This isn’t true particularly when it comes to passenger planes like we are talking about.
We’ve discussed this. Have the back third of the plane check bags with a pink tag. Flight attendants control overhead space as plane fills. They already do this in many occasions.
I dint know we were being airline specific, but I can promise you applies to many variants of the 737.
If you are talking about WN in particular, I can’t speak how they would “in theory” handle it since they still don’t board back to front.
I was speaking more to airlines that have several different levels of service. I know with over 30 years of experience in the industry, that at least at my airline, just about every option for speedy boarding has been tried, but it also limited by the things like I described early like having all the weight aft in the aircraft can cause it to tip and also trying to provide what your high value customers desire.
The picture is of a tail stand on a 737.
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Weighing people would be unrealistic because you’d have to weigh checked baggage and then weigh them again at the gate (unrealistic aside from the PR nightmare), but they could make the processes easier if they weren’t addicted to fees for revenue. If the first five pounds over were $20 instead of $100, you’d probably have some people pay rather than moving Things around at checking. Or even better, reduce the allowed pounds to 45 and charge them $2 per pound for the next 10 pounds, although that is probably too small of a fee to cover the administration costs. But those are off the table
Similar to the free carry on but expensive checked baggage. Make the numbers somewhat reflect economic reality and you’ll get reasonable decisions from people. $100 for one pound over is just a money grab. I'm not sure how costs for baggage handling are treated, so there may be some real savings for people to not check bags, but considering how much effort is spent trying to get people to gate check and slowing down boarding because of people trying to find overhead bin space, I can't believe that zero is the right price for an overhead bag.
It’s happened but it’s fairly rare and their are easy precautions that can prevent it.
Usually it’s more about cargo and fuel than passenger loading and even then it’s rare.
take it easy on the tall guys, standing up is not to get off the plane first
And one of the precautions is how you board the aircraft. The reason they put a tail stand on a 737 is because of deplaning. If the people in the front deplane quickly, you have just simulated boarding the aft part of the aircraft first and boom, the tail is on the grounds.Sure it is rare, because precautions are in place and it isn’t like you want to rely on a tail stand just so you can board from the back first.
Fuel will not cause an airliner to tip.
Agree, cargo can be a player.
Any of the stretched narrowbodys like the Airbus 321 would be a candidate for this to happen. The point is, is it worth that sort of risk of damage to an aircraft just so you save 2 minutes in the boarding process?
I mean let’s be real. We have had some amazing leaders in this industry like Kelleher, Richard Anderson etc. That idea is not new, Do you not think they would have been all over if it were that simple?
Its very rare. FACT.
There are simple precautions to prevent it. FACT.
Fuel absolutely could contribute in some planes (lack of fuel or too much fuel in aft causing center of gravity to change) BUT it is still very rare. FACT.
There are amazing leaders in lots of industries who do and don't do some simple things.