Airplane Boarding Simulation

How long does it really take to board a plane? It depends a lot on the order in which passengers walk down the aisle. This page simulates five popular boarding methods on a 30-row, single-aisle cabin (think 737 / A320) and compares how each one performs.

Pick a method below and hit Start. To race all five at once and see a ranked dashboard, scroll down to the Comparison Mode section.

Method Speed Group: —

Walking Stowing luggage Blocked Seated

Elapsed Time

0.0s

Seated

0 / 180

Aisle Conflicts

Seat Conflicts

Avg Wait

0.0s

Comparison Mode

Run all five methods head-to-head. Each runs in its own mini cabin so you can watch them race in parallel.

Speed Trials per method

How the methods work

Steffen Method — window seats first, every other row, back-to-front, then middles, then aisles. The staggered geometry lets many people stow luggage simultaneously.
WILMA (Window-Middle-Aisle) — all windows first (rear-to-front), then all middles, then all aisles. Eliminates seat-swap interference.
Back-to-Front — classic zone-by-zone boarding from the rear forward. The natural intuition… that produces the worst aisle congestion.
Reverse Pyramid — diagonal waves from the rear-window corner toward the front-aisle corner. Aisle seats board last.
Random — same seat assignments, shuffled boarding order. Often beats Back-to-Front because passengers spread out naturally.

The simulation models walking speed, luggage-stowing time (2–5 seconds), and aisle blocking when an upstream passenger is in the way. Blocked passengers turn yellow.