Even if there is someone on the flight who poses a risk of infection, “at least one half – the front or the back – will never get in contact with that person.” At that point, “critical contact” drops down to “substantially below one, even with normal carry-on luggage”. “You can then separate the stream into two,” he says. The key, after running more than 100,000 simulations? Opening both the back and front door. Changing the boarding procedure to board window seat passengers at the back first, for instance, however, can reduce the number of so-called “critical contacts” even further. Introducing social distancing measures, where passengers remain about five feet apart, reduces that number down to one or two – not bad, but still too many. In the normal boarding procedure, a passenger might come into close contact with five or six others. He and co-author Jörg Fuchte of German aerospace company Diehl Aviation hope to publish it in coming weeks. Michael Schultz, an engineer at Dresden University’s Institute of Logistics and Aviation in Germany, has been working on precisely this problem for a new paper.
Even with masks, packing people close together on an unventilated jet bridge is needlessly risky, especially if there’s a better way. In the Covid-19 world, those traffic jams risk far more than just irritation. Traffic jams are inevitable as passengers line up to get onto the plane, let one another into their seats or lift bags into the overhead locker. As these groups are not generally ordered by row, it’s particularly inefficient, not to mention stressful. First up to board are higher-status flyers or anyone in need of extra assistance, followed by block after block of those in cattle class. Under normal circumstances, airlines opt for controlled disorder. In the long run, it could change the way we board planes for good. In the short term, more efficient boarding should keep passengers safe, while ideally saving carriers money. But that’s not a viable financial option for the future, making the pressure to get boarding right huge. Many planes are flying well short of full capacity, while some are leaving middle seats empty to allow social distancing. But during boarding, passengers are in close contact with one another, often in poorly ventilated spaces like the plane’s aisle or the walkway, also known as a jet bridge. Cabin air is entirely refreshed every five minutes or so and filtered using hospital-grade HEPA filters, which remove more than 99% of viruses and bacteria attached to droplets.
The airport terminal itself gives passengers room to spread out, while on board the plane, you’re surprisingly safe, providing the engine is running. All of a sudden, airlines and airports must scramble for new solutions to reduce the risk of virus transmission, while boarding passengers as quickly as possible.įrom a coronavirus perspective, boarding is one of the riskiest parts of taking a flight.
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