Re JetBlue Tries "Textbook" Boarding Process - But Is It Doomed to Fail?

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross.stapletongray () gmail com>
> Date: October 23, 2017 at 3:48:56 PM EDT
> To: DAVID FARBER <dave () farber net>, jonathan.spira () accuramediagroup com
> Subject: Re: [IP] JetBlue Tries "Textbook" Boarding Process - But Is It Doomed to Fail?
>
> > On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 12:13 PM, jonathan.spira () accuramediagroup com wrote:
> >
> > JetBlue is rolling out what scientists believe to be a textbook-perfect boarding process.  Passengers with rear 
> > window seats will be the first to board, followed by those in the rear middle seats and forward window seats and so 
> > on. 
> > This means that passengers traveling together in the same row can't board together of course, which will generate 
> > some ill will towards the airline (it actually already has, based on what I'm hearing).
>
> I really hate that first sentence. "Textbook-perfect" means, what? Here, it sounds like, "When reduced to an 
> artificially simple equation, this is optimal." But in addition to generating ill will, breaking up groups traveling 
> together is almost certain to increase friction in the flow of passengers, as, say, a child boarding first will need 
> to wait for a parent to stow a carry-on for them in the overhead bin. It may be that boarding known clusters of 
> passengers together would be a better strategy, but I'd advise JetBlue to do some actual research. If it's boarding 
> thousands of flights a day, try an alternative approach in some airports, and measure the results.
>
> And there are lots of potential variables here, e.g., the entitled boor who stows his overhead luggage in row 8 
> before moving back to sit in row 20.
>
> Of course, in this era of mass surveil^h^h^h^h^h^h^hcustomer relations management, it may be possible to build a 
> profile on each air traveler, and dynamically assign boarding positions based on fine-grained factors, e.g., later 
> boarding for introverts who aren't going to actively complain about inconvenience.
>
> More than a decade ago I wrote a thinkpiece on the future opportunities for data collection and analysis offered by 
> more ubiquitous surveil^h^h^h^h^h^h^hcustomer relations collection, more focused on RFID, but as apropos to, say, a 
> camera sighting down the aircraft aisle and able to collect on and characterize boarding passenger behavior: 
> http://stapleton-gray.com/papers/scenarios.pdf  That (dirt cheap) camera, which would serve to help resolve any 
> security incidents, could also be readily mined for behavioral data to better optimize boarding, or to build a deeper 
> dossier on the occupant of Seat 34A, or any of a host of other things.
>
> I'm reminded also of David Lodge's "Small World," where Cheryl, an airline check-in attendant, assigns seats based on 
> how she imagines the pairings will work out, and, when she falls for academic Persse, assigns him a seat between two 
> nuns for safekeeping.
>
> Ross
>
> Stapleton-Gray & Associates, Inc.
> Albany, CA



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