Here's a topic that will get me flamed (and possibly burned in effigy) no matter which side of it I decide to take: a story in the St. Petersburg Times indicates that more and more airlines are abandoning their ages-old tradition of letting families with small children board the plane first. If you're a parent with small children who travels by air, this is an outrage. If you're a single parent traveling with multiple small children, it's an abomination. If you're a business traveler (particularly single or childless) you will point to the study noted in the article that states that EACH family group with small children slows an already slow boarding process by 10 to 12 minutes. If you're an efficiency expert, you'll probably note that filling the plane back to front, and windows to aisles, speeds up the whole process and benefits everyone. If you're an experienced customer service agent (or an experienced traveler), you'll probably just shake your head...
Most passengers would agree that they want to get on the airplane as quickly as possible, get off as quickly as possible, and spend as little time in between as possible. Most of them would therefore also agree that speeding up the boarding process is a good thing. Where we get into the violent disagreements is when the issue of special needs comes into the equation. No one wants to tell a single parent trying to get a toddler belted in while holding an infant that they can’t have an extra few moments to get settled, but by the same token nobody wants to have to wait for an extra ten or fifteen minutes while this happens. And NOBODY wants to be the poor ramp agent who has to tell that overworked parent that they can’t have any extra time…
As an experienced traveler myself, I think a much bigger issue is those people who insist on sitting at the front of the airplane, and want everyone boarding behind them to wait while they try to wrestle a carry-on bag the size of a small car into the overhead bin. If people would just move to the back of the airplane before beginning this struggle it would definitely help – and if the airline has assigned seating they can expedite this by boarding from the back instead of the traditional First Class and Business Class and then the first 15 rows of Coach. The “families with children” scenario is a much bigger issue when the families are in row 6 and they’re taking 15 minutes to get the kids settled while everyone in rows 7 through 45 wait for them…
Of course, an airline with “Open Seating” like Southwest can’t do this – and in fact, one of the more annoying aspects of any Southwest flight is the tiny people with huge luggage mentioned above, who will invariably clog up the aisle. I’m not sure how Southwest would deal with this issue (if they ever do), but for carriers with assigned seating there’s an easy fix: give priority for the last few rows in any flight to families with small children. That way these folks can have the extra time they need to get settled, the rest of us don’t have to wait for them, and all of the crying, whining, squirming, seat-kicking, food-flinging and aisle-running behavior can be contained in the same part of the cabin…
I’d certainly be willing to board last, under those conditions. Heck, I’d be willing to pay extra to sit twenty or thirty rows forward of the kids’ section! Maybe there’s a new business model here after all…
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Well, I was going to say one thing (due to a recent experience), but upon reading the article, I can actually understand why airlines do this. If it really does save the time to have the families board with the rest of the group, in the back to front model, then fine.
The problem with this (and its not just with families), is that even when people sit in the back of the plane, if they are on first, they tend to put their stuff in the overhead bins in the front of the plane, rather than the ones in the back where they are sitting.
I also still think the family will still hold up the line because there's no way to be absolutely sure that someone sitting behind the family doesn't end up boarding behind them in the line.
One possible solution is to allow the families to board with the first class passengers. They can zip right through the first class cabin (or not even need to go through it depending on where the door is) and get themselves and kids settled at the same time the first class passengers are being coddled into their seats. No extra time involved, no worry of holding up the line.
BTW, in Europe families do not get preboarding even if you ask.
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