Airplane boarding - connections to project planning and optics

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Florian Jaehn
• Subject Area: Accounting and Finance
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 404483117

Research on airplane boarding has gained momentum in the last few years. To some extent, this is due to the funding of this project by the DFG. In the project, several research gaps, e.g., on the influencing factors on airplane boarding times and the theoretical analysis and development of boarding methods were closed. However, several new research questions arose, which especially show connections to other research fields, and which promise a mutual stimulation of these fields. Naturally, there are some connections between boarding and project planning. More surprisingly, there are close relations between optics and boarding (and thus project planning). Indeed, in our first results, we show that lenses can be used to describe boarding methods and project plans. The construction of lenses allows us to define boarding methods in which a decent share of slow passengers (those with hand luggage) does not increase boarding time compared to a situation with only fast passengers. Besides that, connections to server farms and biological processes are given. This is just the start of an emerging research field in which we will analyze the interdependencies systematically so that the possibilities of lens construction for project planning, boarding and other fields are investigated. We intend to classify the types of lenses and projects that allow for knowledge transfer.Moreover, the first part of the project delivered a huge study on passengers’ preferences in aviation with over 1,500 participants from three countries. The first evaluations of the data revealed the somewhat surprising result that a considerable share of passengers prefers a low individual boarding time over a short total boarding time even if this implies a possible delayed departure. Thus, we will analyze how boarding methods perform on the average individual boarding time as a measure for customer satisfaction. In a second step, customer preferences are to be considered on an individual basis as the survey shows that preferences often vary.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Simone Neumann
• International Co-Applicant: Professor Dr. Eitan Bachmat