The fastest way to board an airplane, according to science

Navigating air travel in 2026 is full of annoyances, but few bring more dread than the boarding process. What was once a straightforward exercise has grown increasingly complicated due to the proliferation of groups, zones, and variations of priority-based seating. All of this, studies show, has contributed to boarding times getting gradually longer each year. Boarding in the 1970s reportedly took just 15 minutes. Today, that process often takes up to 40.

Now, a University of Florida master’s student named Adam Jacobs has built a simulator that clearly visualizes what so many travelers already feel in their gut. Jacobs created a computer model simulating a 186-seat Airbus A320neo and had computer-generated travelers board using three well-documented methods: random, back-to-front, and the lesser-known but academically popular “Steffen method.” Jacobs initially posted the video clip on LinkedIn but it had since gained traction on Instagram and other social platforms.

The video shows passengers, represented as red dots, making their way through the cabin and sitting in their respective seats. The seats appear as blue squares when they are empty but then turn green once a passenger sits down. Each method plays out at the same time side by side for an up-to-moment comparison. The Steffen method, which prioritizes boarding window seats first, concluded boarding after just 11 minutes and and 16 seconds, by far the fastest of the three. Random seating, which is essentially Southwest Airlines offered until recently, completed in 17 minutes and 59 seconds.

Loading back-to-front, however, which many intuitively assume should be the most efficient approach, actually performed far worse than the other two, taking 31 minutes and 15 seconds. That sounds bad, but the real-world experience for most travelers is even worse. Numerous studies have shown that front-to-back loading, more or less the standard approach for most airlines, is even less efficient than back-to-front. Zone-based loading, meanwhile, arguably reduces chaos at the gate but does not produce meaningfully faster boarding times.

“Random boarding performs surprisingly well,” Jacobs writes. “People could get to their destination faster if gate agents just said ‘everyone get on the plane now.’

Despite seeming logical, back-to-front boarding is very slow compared to other methods. Screenshot: Adam Jacobs

Angry at long boarding times? Blame checked bag fees.

So why is something as seemingly simple as loading people onto a plane so complicated and so frustrating? The answer mostly comes down to two things: the battle for overhead bin space and ever-tightening, profit-maximizing by airlines. Boarding used to be straightforward. Most carriers would prioritize first class passengers and those needing extra time, then open the cabin to everyone else. But that began to change around 2008, when airlines started charging for checked bags. Checked bags, like so many things that were once included in the base fare, used to be free.

That seemingly small change had ripple effects. Now passengers wanting to sidestep paying for a checked bag had an incentive to bring their bags as carry-ons. But, as any regular traveler knows, there is rarely ever enough overhead bin space to accommodate a bag for every person. That meant a greater interest from passengers to board early. Airlines, seeing untapped demand there, decided to charge fees to non-first class passengers to board early. That evolved into the group and zones and seemingly endless options of prioritized seating. Passengers, trying to avoid paying a checked-bag fee, ended up paying another fee instead to board early. The resulting complexity of all of that translated to longer board times for everyone.

“Airlines figured out they could make money off of bags,” Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University professor Massoud Bazargan told CNN in 2023. “That killed any efficiency to do faster boarding.”

“Zones reduce congestion at the gate, and they’re how airlines sell priority boarding,” Jacobs said. “That revenue apparently outweighs a few minutes of turnaround time.”

Better ways to board already exist

Realization of the overhead bag bottleneck isn’t new. In fact, that’s exactly the problem being addressed in the Steffen model featured in Jacobs’ simulation video. The concept dates back to 2005 when a University of Nevada astrophysic professor named Jason Steffen reportedly became obsessed with airline boarding after getting stuck within a jet bridge at Seattle International Airport. Steffen took his expertise in computer modelling, which he has previously used to measure exoplanets, and applied it to airplane boarding.

After running hundreds of simulations, it became clear that much of the delay was caused by the aisle getting bogged down as passengers tried to stow their luggage. Steffen tweaked his model to specifically solve for that inefficiency. What followed was a system where passengers with even-numbered window seats board first, followed by those with odd-numbered window seats. Next come passengers with even-numbered middle seats, then odd-numbered middle seats, and so on, with all passengers boarding two at a time.

The process looks bizarre, but it works, at least in theory. By spacing out passengers and ensuring everyone can stow their luggage without blocking the aisle, the “Steffen Method” cuts overall boarding time by up to half in simulations compared to front-to-back boarding.

So if it’s so much faster, why isn’t the Steffen method the standard? Part of the issue is that the model doesn’t really account for families or companions traveling together. People sitting together wouldn’t board together under this method, which would likely cause frustration at the gate. More than that though, the real flaw lies in the reality of human behavior. People (especially cranky travellers) simply don’t behave like tidy mathematical models, a point viewers of Jacobs’ post seemed to intuitively grasp.

“It’s much easier to model things when you ignore basically everything and just pretend everyone it [sic] traveling alone and is of the exact same physical capability,” one user commented on Instagram.

“Would never work outside the simulation,” another user on LinkedIn wrote. “Sorting the people prior boarding would be a nightmare. Forcing families with small children to separate while boarding is inhumane.”

Other models have come along other the years tweaking Steffen’s downsides, but they all eventually come face to face with an arguably bigger roadblock: the airlines. When it comes to charging for boarding the cat’s out of the bag. What began as a niche product for a select few looking to get ahead has turned into a booming business. And with the average plane today fuller and more densely packed than ever before, travelers arguably have more incentive than ever to pay a few extra bucks to jump ahead, even if that creates a worse overall experience for everyone.

The science of airplane boarding, in other words, has less to do with models and efficiency and more to do with old-fashioned greed.

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