Airlines use slower boarding methods because they help sell perks like priority boarding and seat upgrades.
Why airlines board planes inefficiently and how to solve it
Airlines know group boarding isn’t the fastest way to get on a plane, but the system can help sell priority boarding and other paid perks.
- Airlines prioritize profit over efficiency with group boarding, which allows them to sell priority access.
- Southwest Airlines’ recent move to reserved seats highlights the homogenization trend across the airline industry.
- The most efficient method of boarding a plane, the Steffen method, is not used because it is complex and less profitable for airlines.
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Do you want to save time or make a little money? Southwest Airlines wasn’t the first to introduce seat reservations, but it’s certainly the latest airline to remind passengers that the airline industry prioritizes money over efficiency.
“This is a very important change for Southwest Airlines. This is one of the most monumental changes Southwest Airlines has made as an airline, because it changes the business process that the airline has used for 54 years,” Henry Harteveldt, president of travel industry analysis firm Atmosphere Research, told me. “Southwest Airlines realized that by adopting seat reservations and adding seats with extra legroom, they could become more competitive and more profitable… Submit this. If you can’t beat them, join them.”
The move by Southwest Airlines, long known as a quirky airline that does things its own way on many policies and is customer-friendly, shows how homogenized the airline industry has become over the years, coalescing around the importance of Wall Street performance. However, Southwest Airlines recently announced some adjustments after customers noted that the new process wasn’t going as smoothly.
Delta Air Lines similarly updated its boarding process in 2024, streamlining how boarding groups are classified and assigning group numbers to all passengers, not just those in the main cabin. American Airlines has changed its boarding process to start five minutes earlier.
While group boarding isn’t the most efficient way to load a plane from a time perspective, it allows the airline to monetize the boarding process in a way that Southwest Airlines couldn’t do as effectively when it had empty seats, Harteveldt said.
The most efficient boarding method
Researchers have shown time and time again that boarding in groups is not the most efficient way to load luggage onto a plane from a time standpoint. The same goes for back-to-front boarding.
While a random free-for-all would likely take less time than the way airlines currently organize boarding, the Steffen method, which is actually the most efficient method, is highly planned and requires the full cooperation of everyone on each flight.
The most efficient way to load onto a plane is for everyone sitting in the odd-numbered window seats to board first, then the even-numbered window seats, then the odd-numbered middle seats, and so on.
“It’s not always easy to implement. What I was looking for was not whether it was easy or not, but what was the fastest,” Jason Steffen, the researcher who first modeled the method in 2008, previously told me. “There are some challenges to implementing my method. Everyone has to line up in a certain order. This is a solvable problem, but it’s a solvable problem that comes at a cost.”
Why airlines board in groups
The cost Steffen mentioned is behind why airlines don’t adopt his efficient boarding process.
Airlines prioritize money that can be more easily extracted from customers even with inefficient boarding processes.
Aviation data analytics firm IdeaWorks Company predicted in November that airlines around the world will earn $157 billion in ancillary revenue in 2025 from surcharges such as priority boarding, seat assignments and checked baggage.
“We see travelers at the gate worried about whether their carry-on will fit in the overhead bin,” Harteveldt said. “The reason people value priority boarding is not because they want to be squeezed into a seat on the plane for an extra 10 to 20 minutes, but because they want the certainty of being able to put their carry-on in the overhead bin.”
Because of that fear, and the idea that you don’t want to gate check your bags, airlines can sell tickets with priority boarding at a premium, or sell priority boarding separately at their own rates.
“Airline finance teams love the fact that people are feeling anxious about flying,” Harteveldt said.
However, not all airlines have exactly the same group structure. For example, United Airlines uses so-called WILMA boarding for economy passengers, organizing groups so that window seat passengers board first, then middle seat passengers, then aisle seat passengers.
When I flew Southwest Airlines on the first day of reserved seating in January, I also noticed that people really expected to board in groups. I thought there might be some confusion and frustration, but the process is so standardized across airlines that no one seemed to be caught off guard by the change.
“Southwest Airlines was trying to be different. They had empty seats for over half a century,” Harteveldt said, adding that those days are now forever in the past.
“The only things that differ between airlines are the color of their exterior paint and the cities they use as hubs.”
Baggage fees also come into play. When Southwest Airlines started charging for checked bags to go along with its new check-in process, many passengers said they found it harder to find space in the overhead bins.
IdeaWorksCompany has advocated for airlines to start charging for carry-on bags as a way to free up space in overhead bins.
Will airline boarding methods change?
That’s unlikely, and at least it probably won’t go back to normal with empty seats on Southwest or other airlines boarding from the back.
“This could be further fragmented,” Harteveldt said. “Airlines are looking for ways to monetize travel, but do they go from six groups to nine groups, or from nine groups to 12 groups? Because they’re going to say that people who pay this fare and have this status are eligible to go further up the ladder.”
However, aside from small differences like when families with strollers board and elite mileage priority, all airlines basically load their luggage onto planes the same way these days.
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter and writes the Cruising Altitude column for USA TODAY. He is based in New York and can be reached at zwichter@usatoday.com.
