A Simulation Model of Boarding Process for Narrow-Body Aircraft

In this paper, we proposed a simulated boarding process for narrow-body passenger aircraft with consideration of passengers´ individual boarding time. The individual boarding time, consisting of walking time in aisle, time to store luggage and seating time, were analyzed at first. With characteristics of seat layout in narrow-body aircraft, a simulation model of boarding process for narrow-body aircraft was established by Monte Carlo stochastic modeling method. Then the model was applied to three typical aircrafts under five different aircraft boarding strategies including Back to Front, Random, Reverse Pyramid, Wilma Outside in and Wilma Block boarding strategies. Our numerical results of the total passenger boarding time were presented in three distributing graph forms. Finally, the results indicated that Reverse Pyramid and Wilma Block are more effective than the other three boarding strategies. The model parameters and boarding sequences also can be adjusted to adapt to different narrow-body aircrafts and various boarding patterns.