I read today about a pretty simple approach to seating people quickly on a passenger aircraft. It’s claimed that this may be as much as 50% faster…which would be a great boon to passengers as well as a saving in standing fees to airlines.
The question remains how to get people to arrive at the aircraft in the optimal order? Today’s invention offers a simple approach.
On entry to the departure lounge, passengers are asked to sit in a particular numbered seat as indicated on a small sticker printed onto their ticket when they appear (the lounge seat being determined by any preferences expressed when they bought their ticket).
Boarding would be done in lounge seat order, so that the right window seats fill first, the left window seats next etc. The boarding computer would know the precise seat layout of each aircraft and adjust the lounge seat sticker number accordingly.
(If people don’t mind where they sit, or when they board, or want to sit outside the numbered seat area in the lounge, they would still be free to do so, of course).