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Featured Application: The work focuses on analyzing airplane boarding methods used in normal times and evaluating them by applying lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the airplane boarding methods used in practice by the airlines are analyzed through a series of health risks indicators and an operational indicator—the boarding time. The COVID-19 pandemic has produced changes in the entire aviation industry, including adjustments by airlines to keep the middle seats of airplanes empty to reduce the risk of disease spread. In this context, the scientific literature has introduced new metrics related to passengers' health when comparing airplane boarding methods in addition to the previous objective of minimizing boarding time. As the pandemic concludes and the aviation industry returns to the pre-pandemic situation, we leverage what we learned during the pandemic to reduce the health risk to passengers when they are not social distancing. In this paper, we examine the performance of classical airplane boarding methods in normal times but while considering the health metrics established during the pandemic and new metrics related to passenger health in the absence of social distancing. In addition to being helpful in normal times, the analysis may be particularly helpful in situations when people think everything is normal but an epidemic has begun prior to being acknowledged by the medical scientific community. The reverse pyramid boarding method provides favorable values for most health metrics in this context while also minimizing the time to complete boarding of the airplane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has imposed the need for a series of social distancing restrictions worldwide to mitigate the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic. This applies to many domains, including airplane boarding and seat assignments. As airlines are considering their passengers' safety during the pandemic, boarding methods should be evaluated both in terms of social distancing norms and the resulting efficiency for the airlines. The present paper analyzes the impact of a series of restrictions that have been imposed or mooted worldwide on the boarding methods used by the airlines, featuring the use of jet-bridges and one-door boarding. To compare the efficacy of classical airplane boarding methods with respect to new social distancing norms, five metrics were used to evaluate their performance. One metric is the time to complete the boarding of the airplane. The other four metrics concern passenger health and reflect the potential exposure to the virus from other passengers through the air and surfaces (e.g., headrests and luggage) touched by passengers. We use the simulation platform in NetLogo to test six common boarding methods under various conditions. The back-to-front by row boarding method results in the longest time to complete boarding but has the advantage of providing the lowest health risk for two metrics. Those two metrics are based on passengers potentially infecting those passengers previously seated in the rows they traverse. Interestingly, those two risks are reduced for most boarding methods when the social distance between adjacent passengers advancing down the aisle is increased, thus indicating an unanticipated benefit stemming from this form of social distancing. The modified reverse pyramid by half zone method provides the shortest time to the completing boarding of the airplane and—along with the WilMA boarding method—provides the lowest health risk stemming from potential infection resulting from seat interferences. Airlines have the difficult task of making tradeoffs between economic productivity and the resulting impact on various health risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social distancing imposed by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has affected people's everyday lives and has resulted in companies changing the way they conduct business. The airline industry has been continually adapting since the novel coronavirus appeared. A series of airlines have changed their airplane boarding and passenger seat allocation process to increase their passengers' safety. Many suggest a minimum social distance among passengers in the aisle while boarding. Some airlines have reduced their airplanes' capacities by keeping the middle seats empty. Recent literature indicates that the Reverse Pyramid boarding method provides favorable values for boarding time and passenger health metrics when compared to other boarding methods. This paper analyses the extent to which aisle social distancing, the quantity of carry-on luggage, and an airline's relative preferences for different performance metrics influence the optimal number of passengers to board the airplane in each of three boarding groups when the Reverse Pyramid method is used and the middle seats are empty. We also investigate the resulting impact on the average boarding time and health risks to boarding passengers. We use an agent-based model and stochastic simulation approach to evaluate various levels of aisle social distancing among passengers and the quantity of luggage carried aboard the airplane. When minimizing boarding time is the primary objective of an airline, for a given value of aisle social distance, decreasing the carry-on luggage volumes increases the optimal number of boarding group 1 passengers and decreases the optimal number of group 2 passengers with aisle seats; for a given volume of luggage, an increase in aisle social distance is associated with more passengers in group 1 and more aisle seat passengers in group 2. When minimizing the health risk to aisle seat passengers or to window seat passengers, the optimal solution results from assigning an equal number of window seat passengers to groups 1 and 2 and an equal number of aisle seat passengers to groups 2 and 3. This solution is robust to changes in luggage volume and the magnitude of aisle social distance. Furthermore, across all luggage and aisle social distancing scenarios, the solution reduces the health risk to aisle seat passengers between 22.76% and 35.31% while increasing average boarding time by less than 3% in each scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The onset of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2 has changed many aspects of people's economic and social activities. For many airlines, social distancing has reduced airplane capacity by one third as a result of keeping the middle seats empty. Additionally, social distancing between passengers traversing the aisle slows the boarding process. Recent literature has suggested that the reverse pyramid boarding method provides favorable values for boarding time and passenger health metrics when compared to other boarding methods with social distancing. Assuming reverse pyramid boarding with the middle seats unoccupied, we determined the number of passengers to include in each of three boarding groups. We assumed that passengers use a jet-bridge that connects the airport terminal to the airplane's front door. We used agent-based modeling and a stochastic simulation to evaluate solutions. A full grid search found an initial good solution, and then local search optimization determined the best solution based upon the airline's relative preference for minimizing average boarding time and minimizing risks to previously seated passengers from later-boarding, potentially contagious passengers breathing near them. The resulting solution contained the number of passengers to place into each of the three boarding groups. If an airline is most concerned about the health risk to seated passengers from later boarding passengers walking near them, the best three-group reverse pyramid method adapted for social distancing will first board passengers with window seats in the rear half of the airplane, then will board passengers with window seats in the front half of the airplane and those with aisle seats in the rear half of the airplane, and finally will board the passengers with aisle seats in the front half of the airplane. The resulting solution takes about 2% longer to board than the three-group solution that minimizes boarding time while providing a 25% decrease in health risk to aisle seat passengers from later boarding passengers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]