Modeling Airline Boarding for Improved Efficiency and Passenger Experience

摘要

We develop an agent-based model of airline boarding encompassing passengers arriving at a gate with carry-on luggage through to all passengers being boarded and seated. Our consideration of individual passenger boarding time as well as total aircraft boarding time allows us to study the tradeoff between an airline-centric view of boarding and a passenger-centric view. The passenger model is based on agents that start in the gate area with a goal of reaching their seats as they are called to the gate. Our aircraft models are based on realistic aircraft, incorporating specific dimensions and seating configurations in use in actual aircraft. We simulate scenarios of different boarding strategies and announcement policies to understand the best combinations for the different aircraft. We also consider how the performance of these management decisions may be affected by the composition of the passenger categories on the aircraft. Passenger categories have varying walking speeds and carry-on bag distributions. We find that the best combination of boarding strategy and announcement policy depends on the aircraft. We also identify combinations that are robust across many aircraft configurations.