Are Seat and Aisle Interferences Affecting the Overall Airplane Boarding Time? An Agent-Based Approach

Seat and aisle interferences are assumed to be linked with a prolonged boarding time along with several other aspects related to airplane boarding such as: luggage handling, luggage distribution inside the cabin, number of passengers, passengers' physique characteristics, group behavior, seat selection, aircraft occupancy, aircraft design, etc. Based on these assumptions, a series of proposed boarding methods, underlying their efficiency starting from the absence or limited presence of these types of interferences, are proposed. The present paper aims to analyze whether the different types of seat or aisle interferences do matter for the overall boarding time by considering 24 boarding methods proposed in the literature. A series of specific elements related to interferences, such as: the average waiting time, the average number of interferences based on their types, and the average number of interference-affected passengers, have been considered. Also, the presence of multiple interferences in different parts of the aircraft has been analyzed in order to offer a complete picture of the considered situation. An agent-based model in NetLogo 6.0.4, fed with values form field trials within the literature is created and used for simulations, which enables the agents to act like real passengers involved in an airplane boarding process.