Analysis of Airplane Boarding Times

Eitan Bachmat (), Daniel Berend (), Luba Sapir (), Steven Skiena () and Natan Stolyarov ()
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Eitan Bachmat: Department of Computer Science, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel
Daniel Berend: Departments of Mathematics and Computer Science, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel
Luba Sapir: Department of Applied Mathematics, Holon Institute of Technology, and Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel
Steven Skiena: Department of Computer Science, SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794
Natan Stolyarov: Department of Computer Science, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel

Operations Research, 2009, vol. 57, issue 2, 499-513

Abstract: We model and analyze the process of passengers boarding an airplane. We show how the model yields closed-form estimates for the expected boarding time in many cases of interest. Comparison of our computations with previous work, based on discrete-event simulations, shows a high degree of agreement. Analysis of the model reveals a clear link between the efficiency of various airline boarding policies and a congestion parameter that is related to interior airplane design parameters, such as distance between rows. In particular, as congestion increases, random boarding becomes more attractive among row-based policies.

Keywords: air transportation; stochastic modeling application; space-time geometry; airplane boarding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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