Boarding Rush

Pick a flight, choose the racers, and watch boarding strategies compete through the same A320 manifest. Families stay together, children and assisted travelers move at their own pace, bags clog the aisle, and passengers do not always follow the plan.

scenarios · shareable seeds · deterministic races v— How it works

Choose your flight

Start with a recognizable bit of airport reality. Every scenario can still be fine-tuned below.

Ready.

Advanced flight settings Load, families, luggage, compliance, cabin personality, speed, and seed

Load factor100% Passengers in families30%

Family party-size weights (relative)raw total 100

2: 3: 4: 5:

Normalized at run time: 22.0% · 36.0% · 28.0% · 14.0%

Assisted parties Carry-on rate 70% Sequence compliance100% Priority policy Disruptive passengers Cabin chatter Animation speed

Seed

Choose the racers

Run one method, compare two side by side, or keep the whole field in view.

Plane size

Live race

provisional ranking

Short names keep the standings readable. The graph shows simulated time against passengers seated and never changes the race.

Graph size

Race clock 00:00

Passengers seated over time

Random

Boarding units shuffled; every party remains contiguous.

00:00

Seated0 / 186

Seat conflicts ?0

Blocked aisle ?0 s

Queue186

Strict back to front

Rows 31 → 1, randomized only within each row.

00:00

Seated0 / 186

Seat conflicts ?0

Blocked aisle ?0 s

Queue186

Strict front to back

Rows 1 → 31, randomized only within each row.

00:00

Seated0 / 186

Seat conflicts ?0

Blocked aisle ?0 s

Queue186

Airline zones

Six-row rear-first zones, shuffled within each zone.

00:00

Seated0 / 186

Seat conflicts ?0

Blocked aisle ?0 s

Queue186

WilMA, group-safe

Window, then middle, then aisle; parties remain atomic.

00:00

Seated0 / 186

Seat conflicts ?0

Blocked aisle ?0 s

Queue186

Steffen, group-safe

Alternating rows and window-first, with each party atomic.

00:00

Seated0 / 186

Seat conflicts ?0

Blocked aisle ?0 s

Queue186

Monte Carlo comparison

Run a benchmark to average over different manifests and delays.

Method	Mean	Median	P90	Wins
No benchmark results yet.

What the model assumes

Families occupy adjacent seats and enter as one contiguous boarding unit. Their colors and labels distinguish one party from the next.
Party-size inputs are relative weights. They are normalized to 100% at run time, so totals above or below 100 work normally; all-zero weights use an equal split.
Load factor controls occupied seats; unassigned seats remain visibly empty.
Sequence compliance is applied to whole parties within their normal priority tier.
Children walk and sit more slowly; assisted travelers board with a companion.
Carry-ons block the aisle; occupied aisle/middle seats create seat interference.
The same manifest, traits, and compliance draws are reused for all six methods.

individual families · F7·4 means family 7, four people assisted party 🧳 carry-on and overhead-bin placement

📘 Read the complete model guide for every assumption, formula, boarding rule, measurement, and known omission.

Method and model details

Random: shuffles boarding units. Strict back/front: orders rows exactly, randomizing only within a row. Airline zones: uses six-row rear-first blocks. WilMA: boards window, then middle, then aisle priorities. Group-safe Steffen: ranks window seats first and alternates row parity and side. For WilMA and Steffen, each party enters at its earliest member's rank.

Seat conflicts: when a passenger reaches a seat, the simulator counts each already-seated passenger between the aisle and that seat on the same side of the row. Each same-party blocker adds 2.2 seconds to seating time; a blocker from another party adds 5.4 seconds. Thus a window passenger arriving after both the aisle and middle passengers adds two conflicts.

Blocked aisle: cumulative simulated wall-clock time during which at least one passenger is stowing a bag or entering a seat. Multiple simultaneous blockers are counted once for that time interval, and ordinary walking queues do not add to this metric.

Visible luggage: passengers with carry-ons keep a suitcase marker while walking. During stowing it moves into the overhead strip on the correct row side, then remains visible there. This visualizes the existing luggage timing model; bins still have no hard capacity or overflow search.

This is a comparative discrete-time model, not a calibrated airline forecast. The useful claim is the relative result under stated assumptions; the absolute minutes are scenario output, not revealed scripture.