大象传媒

As any frequent traveller knows, the time taken in boarding and disembarking from a flight generally seems the most frustrating and pointlessly time-consuming part of the whole journey. As of this week, American Airlines has launched a new boarding process, in which there are nine categories of passengers all asked to board in turn. The ninth category are, naturally, those using the new basic economy ultra-cheap fares. It's supposed to be a quicker and more efficient boarding system, but is it? The 大象传媒's Roger Hearing spoke to Dr Jason Steffen of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nevada, who has made a study of the mathematics of plane boarding.