United Airlines will implement a new boarding plan for economy fliers that the airline says will significantly save onboarding time and money. Beginning Oct. 26, United passengers will be introduced to a six-group boarding procedure called WILMA to save “up to two minutes of boarding time.”
CNN reports that passengers boarding a commercial flight is one of the most challenging things for United to execute. Its solution has been dubbed WILMA, or “window-middle-aisle.” Primary boarding groups will still get on first, and economy class passengers without frequent flier status will board in order of window- seated, middle seats, and aisle seats boarding the plane last. United said in a company memo that WILMA “was tested at four domestic line stations and one hub, and it’s faster.”
WILMA will have no effect on boarding procedures for United passengers with disabilities, the highest level of frequent-flier status, first class, or business class.
Clarkson University’s John Milne explained how time-saving mattered for airlines like United.
“Saving even one minute in airplane turn time can sum up to several hundred million dollars per year for a large airline,” Milne said. Citing his expertise with over 20 journal articles on airplane boarding, Milne noted that time savings would equate to “particularly large savings for an airline result when the boarding time reduction leads to offering an additional flight during the day.”
Milne posited a system that could be even better than WILMA. He described the “reverse pyramid” method, which is slightly more complex than WILMA and includes four different boarding groups.
“The reverse pyramid method boards faster than WILMA, and it remains simple,” Milne told CNN. “If airlines can tolerate more complexity — and there is little evidence that they do — there are even better methods.”
His method separates passengers, first being window seats in the back half of the plane, then middle seats in the back half and window seats in the front half. The third group will be aisle seats in the plane’s back half, middle seats in the front half, and the fourth and final group is the aisle seat passengers in the front half of the plane.