Seating procedure may or may not sit well

Depending on whom you talk to, the new boarding process at American Airlines has either shortened the time it takes to load the planes or caused "complete chaos" in the cabin.

The new boarding procedure, launched in May, does away with the airline's long-held practice of boarding passengers starting from the back of the plane to the front.

Once the first- and executive-class passengers and other travelers with priority seating get onboard, the airline gate agents now board coach passengers in the order they checked in, regardless of where they are seated.

The airline says the new procedure, known as the "random" seating method, saves time because it minimizes the gridlock that occurs when people in the same row try to get to their seats at the same time.

"You definitely will not have 24 people in four rows boarding at the same time," says Scott Santoro, director of airport consulting for American Airlines. He said studies have shown that the random seating process reduces boarding times 5 percent to 10 percent.

The Association of Professional Flight Attendants disagrees. It contends the process has created "complete chaos" among passengers, forcing attendants to spend more time preparing the plane for takeoff. The attendants are irked, it says, because they are not paid for the extra time needed to load the plane.

"We understand it needs to be tweaked a little," says Jeff Pharr, a spokesman for the flight attendants union.

BOARDING STRATEGY

For nearly a decade, airlines and academics have tried to determine the fastest way to load a plane. And for good reason: The less time airlines spend boarding passengers, the more revenue-generating flights they can squeeze into a day. Every minute cut on boarding can save $30 a flight, according to a 2008 study in the Journal of Transport Management.

All major airlines first board the first-class, business-class or elite-status passengers and the travelers with children or disabilities. But after that, strategies diverge.

JetBlue, US Airways, Continental and several others load their planes from the back of the cabin to the front.

United prefers the "outside-in" method: Passengers with window seats board first, then those with middle seats and finally those with aisle seats. Southwest Airlines doesn't assign seats; the first passengers to check in are the first to board.