Improving airplane boarding time by illumination guidance

Abstract

The airplane boarding process has certainly room for improvement. One of the improvement possibilities is seat finding. To improve seat finding a Boeing 737 was equipped with spotlights above the seats that starts to become more intense when you come closer. To test the effect 20 passengers boarded with and without light. The effects on time were recorded and a questionnaire was used to gain insight on the experience. In both situations the boarding with light was 2 s faster. However, the difference was not significant. The experience data were hard to interpret as a part of the participants were not aware that there was a light. The study shows that there is potential in using the light, but further research is needed to study the effect on a flight where many passengers board at the same time.