Every once-in-a-while someone looks at seating simulations to determine the fastest way to board a plane.

As a frequent flyer I like to board early, not just to stow my bag, but also because I’m usually in a window and if I get in first then I don’t have to get up.  Of course zone seating only works as well as people understand it.  Many of the legacies including United, Delta, US Airways, and even AirTran use a system of zone numbers to obfuscate the order they like to board the plane.  Other airlines like the old Northwest and Continental would either call just general boarding or would say X row or higher.  In their mergers to Delta and United respectively the zone boarding seems to be winning.

Among LCCs Southwest has open seating, but a very defined boarding order.  Airtran, on the other hand, follows the legacy model and boards with zones.  I believe with the merger Airtran will adopt Southwest’s open seating procedure.

Zones come down to zone enforcement.  If people in zone 7 try to board when zone 1 is called and the gate agent allows it, then what is the point of zones?  Also, many people aren’t present when boarding begins due to connections and such so people from lower zones inevitably have to board during higher zones.

Maybe all of that is factored into the simulations, but the simulation of the week says this is the fastest way to arrange boarding:

However, an approach called the Steffen method, alternating rows in the window-middle-aisle strategy, nearly doubles boarding speed.

[...]

He suggested boarding in alternate rows, window seats first, progressing from the rear forward: seats 12A, for example, followed by 10A, 8A and so on, then returning for 9A, 7A, 5A and so on, and then filling the middle and aisle seats in the same way.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14717695

Pretty much all of the simulations say that as a window person I should board earlier, but depending on what row I’m in I may not be in the first batch of windows.

I figure if I start paying someone else to track my weight I might hold myself a little more accountable so I just signed up for weight watchers. The most logical way for someone who is 80% travel would be to just use the online tools, but that’s too easy so I’m going to do it in person.
I figured I would see if they had a nice app to integrate with their website. They do have an app, but even after deleting all of the market apps on my phone I still don’t have the gargantuan space requirements for the app. It’s 17mb to download, then it expands to over twice that. I only have 32mb free so I will have to forego the app and trust my mind to recall my meals and enter them in the website.
It is just a beta so maybe things will improve. I would be nice to have a calorie counter that doesn’t depend on a network connection like others I have used, but that should be stored on the SD card, not the internal memory.

…but it sure did bother a bunch of people in CLT this morning.
I don’t fly out first thing on Monday morning too often, but this morning was definitely an unusual site. There were cots everywhere and people were in a line that looked about 2 hours long for rebooking assistance. I, on the other hand, was heading down to Florida which was actually safe from this hurricane. Funny how fate works out.

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Since airfares are back at summer levels and my company likes cheap airfare I’ve been flying Airtran a lot recently despite my hatred of them and their inability to get me to my destination (although with the current pattern I think I have enough evidence to get a waiver from the travel policy).

This week I had to deal with an airfare cap that is unrealistic for the city pairs so I had to venture down to GSP to comply (since extra mileage is OK, but going over their airfare restriction isn’t :S) and I got to fly Southwest for the first time in a few years.

I’m not a fan of open seating, but since I checked in at 23:15 til my flight I was able to get an A boarding pass for both flights and thus got my window seat.  The planes were much cleaner than any Airtran plane I’ve been on recently, the seats weren’t all falling apart, and the leg room was great.  I don’t think legroom can get worse than Airtran in the US.  According to Seat Guru Airtran’s 717 has 30″ and the 737 as 31″, but it feels about the same.  Southwest as 32-33, but it sure feels like more.  I don’t have to spread my legs to prevent my knees from digging into the seat in front of me.

Airtran is nice with free XM and paid Wifi on every plane, but that only matters if you are into that.

My hope for the eventual merger:

Now that I’m almost Elite on Airtran I’d like for them to keep Business Class, but overall I’d rather have a seat that doesn’t lead me straight to the massage therapist so I’d like:

• Seat pitch and seating configuration of Southwest
• Hub and Spoke of Airtran instead of Milk Runs of Southwest
• Assigned seats
• XM radio
• $5 for all alcohol

I know a lot of this has been discussed and decided, but I’m just chiming in with my $.02

Last week I violated one of my previous tips (always go to the gate) because my phone was dead.

I was flying Airtran and they’re batting 500 on mechanical issues for me this year.  My flight from CLT to ATL was delayed due to a mechanical issue delaying the ATL-CLT inbound.  When I finally got to ATL I was told by the gate agent that I had already missed my ATL-MCO flight although my phone said it was delayed and I might make it.  The problem is that my phone was quickly dying on me so I waited for that agent to rebook 8 of us misconnects and I charged my phone.  The agent was having printing issues so it was taking over 15 minutes to even start rebooking us.  I decided to grab the other guy heading to MCO and we went to Customer Service in the other concourse since that’s where the MCO flights were departing.  Good thing  I finally did because we got to the next MCO flight 5 minutes before they closed that flight.  If we had waited in D for the printer to work we would have been at the mercy of the final flight of the night.

…If my battery had been charged I would have just headed to C, but I figured an open outlet and an agent dedicated to my flight was worth something.