American Airlines started boarding most domestic flights 5 minutes earlier this month. Earlier boarding is already standard at competitors Delta. And it’s an abomination.
I did it a couple of times with American this week. It’s ‘only 5 minutes’ but every minute counts in your life. What are you wasting your life for?
- On a connecting itinerary, it’s 20 minutes roundtrip
- For someone who does that weekly, that’s more than 17 hours a year. It’s an entire day of waking hours.
The airlines are costing a day a year of life just for their best customers by being less efficient, when the whole idea of air travel is to be efficient. Instead of fixing boarding to be faster, American Airlines gave up and matched the failure of forcing customers to sit on planes longer like United and Delta.
Flight delays get a lot of attention. There’s also air traffic control which creates congestion – it isn’t just responsible for delays but also for longer flight times that get built into schedules. We don’t talk enough about that.
But built-in inefficiencies and time-wasters are something we don’t talk about at all. How is it possible that people are being told to show up at the airport 2.5 to 3 hours before their flight, and that isn’t considered a failure of massive proportions?
Showing up at the airport as early as airlines advise is costing the economy $79 billion a year. That’s a massive failure.
The lengthened times for showing up at the airport mean that it no longer even makes sense for many people to take shorter flights. The time it takes to get through security, make it through the airport, and board planes earlier and earlier is wasted time.
Instead of getting more efficient, we’re queuing more and wasting precious time. And that doesn’t even count the time spent waiting at baggage claim or busing to rideshare and rental car lots at the other end of the journey.
Air travel is supposed to be about making it from one place to another as quickly as possible. It seems as though we’ve forgotten this.
Making customers show up earlier, and board earlier is a way to force customers to accommodate failed systems and failed operations. It locks in a status quo of failure.
And by the way, when JSX began offering travel from private terminals where you show up just 20 minutes in advance even with checked bags, American Airlines and Southwest lobbied the government to block it instead of embracing what’s possible for customers.
More and smaller airports are needed. Streamlined security, that doesn’t wait for nationwide universal rollout, is needed. We need runways and taxiways and air traffic capacity to increase throughput without stacking delays. Most of all, we need to avoid complacency that accepts the status quo as given.
“Making customers show up earlier, and board earlier is a way to force customers to accommodate failed systems and failed operations”
No one is making anyone do anything. What the airlines suggest people do is different from what people are actually doing. And that’s what matters. Are there studies that indicate how early people are actually showing up to the airport?
When Clinton wanted to show he was “doing something” and his administration began to demand that everyone over 18 show IDs I pointed out that this would slow the check in process down. Previously with a car that was rented or airport parked everyone but the driver could get off at the terminal and go to the gate. Now, unless airports are well designed for this (most aren’t) the logical process is for everybody to take care of the car first and then to go the terminal. This crowds people at the end. It’s just another of several reasons why it was a very bad idea. It may have ended most black marketing in tickets, but that’s about it.
Amen. Short-haul air traffic has dried up in the United States. A lot of factors are responsible, including replacement of in-person business meetings with teleconferencing, but a big one — as you note — is the need to allow for extended lead time prior to boarding. For example, Southwest used to fly BNA-BHM 2+/ daily. The 200 mile drive could be replaced by maybe 45 minutes in the air. Even WN can no longer make this route work.
Email and smartphones offset some if the waste of waiting.
If people were hellbent on efficiency, they would be vaccinated against Covid and influenza and wear masks. A Covid vaccination 2 years ago is too long ago.
Problem is increased densification of narrow body fleets + use of larger planes like the A321neo + high load factors. At one point AA was down to only 150 seats on the 738, and now it’s 172. UA’s A321neo seats 200, with everyone boarding through one door and with only one aisle. Flights today are generally taking forever to board.
deregulation failed
this will sound crass, but it should not be possible to board a plane anywhere for $59
distortion of time and space by discounting pain and risk based on geography is absurd and is the primary macro rule of unregulated commercial air travel 47 years after deregulation
no pax should be transported for less than that airline’s CASM +10% and that includes all the miles for an entire routing
nonstops should not be a multiple of a connecting itinerary
all of the magas reading this – you should be all for it – it’s the same concept as tariffs
There have been studies on how to board airplanes faster and Southwest Airlines actually had a fast way to board. Those were rejected because getting people to pay more and giving them early boarding slots was more lucrative. Having 10 boarding groups slows things down. Gate lice are the true heroes. Boarding on demand would be a lot faster. But elites being elites is why we are where we are now. Most people want to board early. Those who want to be later can still come later as long as it is before the gate closes. I am always amazed on how fast Asiana boards everyone on a A380. Relatively few groups with some earlier boarding groups lumped together. Four wide automatic boarding pass checking at the gate at LAX.
Air travel in the US is a CF of delay and incompetence. I routinely fly to one of the poorest countries in this hemisphere – Honduras. The immigration and customs procedures are years ahead of what the US has. Security is the same as in the US, except it is friendly and quick. If a country with a GDP-PPP smaller than half the states can do it correctly, then it is an abomination that the richest nation in the world cannot.
2-3 hours early is just the recommendation for people who don’t have the experience to know better.
I reliably check my bag 5 to -5 minutes before bag check cut-off.
When I started flying, arriving 60 minutes prior to a flight, checking a bag, and boarding worked, It was 20-30 minutes to get the bag and exit the airport, I could do 2 cites a day with 2 meetings.
Then came 9-11
2 hours in advance, some cities 3, and 45 minutes to grab luggage..
Then came “on time” service and adding 30-60 minutes to the flight time, earlier boarding (20-25-30-now 40 minutes).
There is no way to do 2 cities a day.
Wasting 5 minutes on earlier boarding is a minor piece of the total.
If starting boarding 10 min early is going to cause the US aviation system to implode we’re in worse shape than I thought.
We do not need more airports. We need an economically sustainable commercial aviation system. Hand-wringing about boarding starting 10 minute earlier distracts from an ATC system in shambles, the TSA’s repeated lapses security and airlines building a system designed to their benefit, not ours.
Having everyone board 40 minute prior to departure and the doors closed 10 – 15 min prior to depart so we can address anything that will delay us seems completely reasonable. If that does work for you, fly private. The system has to work for the masses, the us super-users.
I’m really not sure the extra 5 minutes means all that much.
If it really takes 5 extra minutes to get everyone boarded and settled then all this change does is shift late departures up to 5 minutes closer to on time.
If they don’t need the extra 5 minutes, many AA flights will depart early. Thus giving you back the 5 extra minutes upon arrival.
Either way, there are worse things than this when flying. I’m not going to worry about it very much.
@CJR, frankly, I don’t believe you because 99% of the time the airlines actually won’t let check in the bag because the agent doesn’t want to go through the hassle of getting a volunteer separation form and they don’t care if you have to rebook.
As to short haul flights, I haven’t taken them for years, particularly because I live on Amtrak’s NEC. If I want to go anywhere from Boston through Washington, I take Amtrak, likely Acela. I can go from the city center to the city center just as fast or faster than by plane and more comfortably and more easily.
It’s not 5 wasted minutes, it’s 5 necessary minutes. The average passenger and crowd dynamics means the recently-gone-away timetable was too little time. Until crowds of American passengers behave more like the Germans or Japanese (ain’t gonna happen) and less like first-time travelers or infrequent ones, boarding will remain chaotic. Re-watch George Clooney’s character’s rant about airports in the movie Up in the Air. EVERYTHING in that scene is still true today.
Gary – you are obsessed with this like a few other things. First of all time at an airport or boarding early is NOT wasted. It is only wasted if you had something else to do that you otherwise can’t and plan your life to fill every minute. Maybe you do that but very few others do. Also, with wifi you can work from the airport so getting there 2 hours early (at avoid any potential stress) doesn’t take away from ANYTHING. You seem to plan your life to get to the airport and board as late as possible. That is OK, you do you, but most others frankly don’t care. I have flown around 8 million miles over 40 plus years and still get to the airport 2-2 1/2 hours early. I go to the lounge or simply find a restaurant and have a beer. As for boarding earlier as others noted you don’t have to board first but I like to get on, settle in and store my stuff. I can still check email or follow up on items from the plane.
You can be a very strange and obsessive person. Please don’t preach to us based on strictly your viewpoint and the article title is very misleading. No one is wasting anything or costing people money with the rare exception of someone that has absolutely no flex in their schedule or is so obsessive (freakishly so) that they measure every day in minutes. Frankly, I feel a little sorry for you man.
I agree with Retired Gambler that sitting at the airport and on the plane are not the downtime they once were. Over the last two decades or so, travel has changed so that you can be as productive traveling as being in the office. However, that is also why lounges are now so overcrowded.
You’re already at the airport. You’re waiting for the flight to begin boarding. How does the airline choosing to board five minutes earlier waste any of your time?
Or you’re not at the airport yet. But they started boarding five minutes earlier than normal. That means, when you do run to your gate, boarding will still have started five minutes earlier. And you were not there to have any of your life wasted.
I think the context you miss upgauging, whether it be by bigger planes or more seats on a plane.
Think about a 737-800 on AA–years ago, it had 150 passengers. Then, 160+. Now 172. Yes, that didn’t happen overnight on AA (and they just added the 5 min.), but it has meant that airlines are generally boarding more people in the same pre-flight time – hence, airlines are adding time.
@Alan – you either show up at the airport 5 minutes earlier, or stop working in the lounge 5 minutes earlier. It’s 5 more minutes crammed into a seat, for anyone boarding at the start to ensure overhead bin space (vs. risking having to gate check a bag and waste even more time at baggage claim)
“If people were hellbent on efficiency, they would be vaccinated against Covid and influenza and wear masks.”
Ladies and gentlemen, if you’re looking for a prospect to unload that “waterfront” property in Florida, here’s a good place to start.
Biggest boarding waste of time is boarding front to back.
When Delta boards early, they often arrive early (when they don’t get stuck waiting for a gate). My plane from London recently left 10 minutes early and arrived nearly an hour early, so I gained an hour instead of losing 10 minutes.
Typical nonsense from Leff. Starting boarding 5 minutes earlier doesn’t change the overall amount of time I spend at the airport. I’m still arriving at the airport before departure at the same time. No difference in the ‘time wasted’
This all comes back to checked bags and overhead bin space. If airlines stopped charging for checked bags, more people would chack bags, just like they used to. If more people checked, there would be more overhead bin space. If there was more overhead bin space, people wouldn’t feel the need to rush the gate to get on the plane as quickly as possible to make sure they could put their carry-on in the bin. If people didn’t feel the need to board as early as possible, 1) we’d see (likely) a more consistent throughput for demand when boarding, thus reducing bottlenecks and making things faster, and 2) we’d see fewer people carrying on, which means less time spent in the aisle putting up your bag, which also means quicker boarding. Checked bag fees slow down boarding. But those aren’t going anywhere anytime sokn, because airlines would rather the ancillary revenue from those fees rather than becoming more efficient with their boarding process. As long as they oush back on time, they could care less as to when you arrive at the airport and the gate.
Since I usually fly First, I among the first passengers to board.
I can do more, once I’m on the plane, like read or check my phone for e-mails and texts.
That is hard to do in a noisy gate area. On my last trip, every time I tried to talk to my wife, a gate agent made an announcement (full flight and free checked bags, Group 1, Group 2, etc).
The idea of adding an extra 5 minutes is to get everyone who checked in on the plane, clear the stand-by list and get those passengers boarded, shut the door, and push back the plane.
The real issue is that AA needs to lengthen turnaround. Waiting for a flight at MCO, the inbound flight was 5 minutes early. Still that gave AA only 15 minutes to deplane and clean, before boarding started.
If you think boarding is a bad process, there is one simple solution: ban carry-on bags.
When I was a kid in the days of regulation, you could carry on a briefcase, a camera bag, a cosmetic case, or a student backpack. They all fit under a seat. The overhead was for coats and hats.
How do you compare a charter service with regional jets to commercial aircraft? That’s just silly.
Derek how many shots have you had by now? You’ve probably had Covid just as many times! Works pretty well, huh?
Wow Gary, and I thought the whine of the engine was annoying. Would it make you happier if they started 5 minutes later in order to “give” you back a day?
Jsx is a god send. Praise be JSX
I prefer to get on board early so I can relax and stop worrying about missing announcements etc. I don’t unwind until then. I think Gary is out of ideas for outrage. But if you don’t like the policy, fly other airlines. I never fly AA.
Agreed, and it’s all due to the madness of charging for baggage carried in the hold (instead of the one in the cabin) and those awful large overhead bins (which also make cabins much smaller). The enshittification that ensued as a result of this single bad decision of American Airlines is staggering.
BTW, airlines are free to build private airports, so the fact that they are not building new smaller airports is also their doing (note: the era of government doing something useful for taxpayers is gone in an era of $7t deficits).
A real first world problem. Bring a book to read, then you don’t lose the 20 minutes! or arrive at the gate at the last minute, save time? (but don’t expect to find space for your carryon)
@hagbard
agree that this is a deregulation failure. Like all markets, it feeds on externalities and information asymmetries which require rules (laws) to keep in check.
Gary quantified the amount of consumer surplus being wasted, and only rules (laws) can fix the market since airlines don’t pay for it and have all the incentives to shift costs to this invisible category.
Also, for those few who know math, flying private is becoming an increasingly attractive proposition.
US Airlines are globally unique in not using two jetways to load a widebody airplane.
With only one jetway, it takes forever.
Their focus on cost cutting is just ridiculous.
Did anyone ask the airlines why?
My guess is that it is caused by not just fuller aircraft, but a marked increase in carry on luggage due to baggage fee breakouts.
And as we all know Wall Street loves luggage fee breakouts. But don’t care about a 5min add to board because it doesn’t impact revenue.
But it is yet another chip away at the economy of air travel. First the government demanded more of your time with TSA, then airlines demanded more to get luggage sorted and now want more just to board. 5 minutes cost them nothing.
And we wonder why malls across the US are being torn down but new airports with shopping malls are being built in droves. Because we are being required to waste more time in them awaiting yet more untimely air travel.
This model is going to break eventually.
This is not just airlines. Try to buy something in person at a department store. Back in the U.S.S.R . .
Now that I’ve been made aware of how much time and money the airlines are wasting, my awareness is focused on how much time you wasted in researching and writing this article, and how much time I just wasted reading it.
Really slow news day??? This is what you are all upset about. They used to say “ that’s life, get over it”!
I’m all for actual improvements, but there’s a tendency to chase short-term profits for shareholders, over long-term, meaningful progress, benefitting consumers and workers.
I’ve noticed this repetitive blasting of words like ‘efficiency’ or phrases like ‘waste, fraud, and abuse,’ loaded buzzwords that mean nothing, or worse, act as insidious distractions, ‘pretend solutions,’ meanwhile, general corruption proliferates, rewarding mere grifters. Yes, @Jack the Ladd, it really does feel like we’re re-living the fall of the Soviet Union, but not 1990s Russia, rather, it’s 2020s USA, under a similar-style of leadership…
@DWT — Boarding takes longer because our US-based companies are not using better methods. It’s by-design. It’s culture. And, it’s not the age or size of aircraft.
If ANA can load a 773 with several hundred people in less than 20 minutes, American should be able to load a 737 with 150 in the same time.
Likewise, newer aircraft, even single-aisle, like the a321neo can use cargo containers (with checked baggage inside) as opposed to individually loading checked baggage under the plane, saving time.
Additionally, airports can use better designs and methods, too, such as the use of stairs for the back of the plane and/or multiple jet bridges would also save time.
Further, flight attendants can ‘actively’ assist passengers to seats and to store carry-on baggage. (Fine, pay them more, too.) Finally, we, the passengers, have to ‘do better’ too, if we want ‘better.’
There it is. My rant.
I’m finding the additional five minutes in boarding often means the plane can get off the gate early. This helps with delays along the way, particularly if you have a sub one hour connection where every minute might count.
Security is a joke. It’s all theater being performed by minimally paid workers. AI should be doing the security which would make it faster, cheaper and more effective. Those new tunnel looking machines are a joke. At airports like ATL it has become a total cluster.
I had real COVID in 2020 before the shots, despite the hiding and taking the useless “precautions” going to a grocery store once. Knocked me flat on my ass for 5 days, missed Thanksgiving and Black Friday of work, popped up fine and went to work Monday. Tracing phone call and State “Order to stay home” came two weeks later.
No shots. Has “covid” a few weeks ago only because some test said I did, maybe 5% of the discomfort of the real covid, a minor annoyance like a cold. So did those around me that got “all the shots”. Biggest overreaction in American History.
There’s some flawed thinking here, one of which is using JSX’s model to allegedly replace how the majors operate.
If we did, we would effectively replace 121 operations with 135 operations.
Believe it or not, but that would over our already overtaxed system.
Basically, you’re trying to stuff a round peg into a square hole.
The argue about a wasted day is specious, at best. At worst, it sounds like entitled whining.
The five minutes you lose in extended boarding is nothing compared to the minutes you lose in traffic driving to the airport.
All. You. Do. Is. Complain. About. AA. Do you not get tired of shouting these mediocre puff pieces into the void? We get it. You hate AA. I’d tell you to move on but your entire being would likely dry up and wither away.
Right on!
For all your whiners……Take a bus.
I noticed one thing missing from the complaint.
People. why do THEY not board more efficiently? why does it take them 5 more minutes to find that row (can’t count?) stow bags, sit down, fasten seatbelt?
nope!
first they have to try to sneak on when it’s not their group called.
then they have to unpack their bags to find that inflight entertainment the MAY have brought,
And repack
then they have to go to the bathroom ( airports don’t have any?)
than they have to get a glass of water (or ask for an entire bottle) for their pills
then they have to ask for a different seat
then they have to wipe the seat down,
then they have to get on the phone record everything and post it..
then notice they are too large and need a seatbelt extension…
one thing I’ve noticed over the years,
and feel free to check me on this…
it takes 30-45 minutes to board a plane.
it takes 15 minutes to empty the plane.
My long comment about boarding time has disappeared. Let me see if it comes back. It had my observations of boarding times (about 30 minutes) and last off time (up to about 25 minutes.)
As for Covid-19 vaccine shots, my count is up to 8. I have never had Covid-19, but my wife did during a trip overseas. She had a number of vaccine shots, maybe half as many as I did, but she preferred to quit taking them quite a while before boosting her immunity level again by having Covid-19. Mom has never had Covid-19 and she kept up on her shots. My younger siblings were resistant to getting shots so they acquired some immunity by having Covid-19. I got used to having vaccine shots with yearly flu shots for more than 40 years. Never a problem for me but I had a coworker get very ill after getting one.
Didn’t realize this became a COVID discussion, but since some of y’all went there, I must disagree with @Brad Whitford, no, we did not ‘over-react,’ if anything, we, in the USA, under-reacted, and have seemingly had a ‘collective amnesia’ since those difficult years, especially 2020-2021. I tend to blame #45, specificially, for His haphazard politicization of masks and other precautions. Just as with other incidents and tragedies (see AA5342), He just can’t help take advantage of those events, usually for the worse. Yet, at least His administration completed Operation Warp Speed, because those vaccines have saved lives. I’ve had it, several times, some worse than others. I’ve gotten my shots, too, and will continue to do so annually, like the flu shot, because most doctors recommend it to most patients. I lived in NYC when we had the refrigerator trucks with the bodies. It was bad. I’m glad you (and @jns) personally survived and have only had relatively ‘mild’ case(s). However, many lost loved ones, here and abroad. Over 1 million confirmed dead in the US, over 7 million worldwide. Objectively, we did not handle this as well as we could have, and should have learned valuable lessons from it, but we really are not; we’re just moving on, willfully ignoring it, even minimizing it, as some of you are attempting to here. That’s a real shame.
Another thing that would be desperately needed in the US is common-use gates (which are very common in other countries and significantly increase operational efficiency while decreasing construction costs.)