[thitcanh]

Semi-related: Do you think we’ll ever see a substantial reduction of pre-flight times? Why can’t we go through check-in and board directly, after an immediate security check? (Needless to say, this requires a brand new type of airport)

Some airports are in a good position to implement this already: Singapore airport has security checks right at the gate so you go through them and wait a short time in the seating area. When the plane is available, boarding happens immediately. What’s missing here is that the check-in desk is still way before this point.

[ekimekim]

I think the problem here is security checking, and not just because it adds time, but because it adds a highly variable AMOUNT of time.

Queueing theory says that unless you massively overprovision on available security screening stations, there's always going to be a long tail of latency for getting through security. For example, if a burst of people arrive all at once then you could take an hour to get through, whereas if you arrive at just the right moment you might only need 5 minutes.

The second part of the puzzle is that the plane costs a lot to be sitting around while people board. So it's important the plane spend as little time boarding as possible, which means passengers need to all be available to board at the same time.

I don't really see any other solution to these requirements except for passengers to arrive early enough that the worst-case security latency still gets them to their boarding on time, which means a long seemingly-useless wait for the vast majority of passengers who don't get unlucky.

Of course, the real solution to all of this is to discard or streamline the security theater that happens at airports, but that's a political problem, not a technical one.

[mFixman]

It might be different outside of Europe, but we did go through a significant reduction in pre-flight times in our lifetimes: I remember scrambling with my family to arrive to the airport 3–4 hours in advance and spending all that time queuing.

Now for most of my flights I just check-in online, arrive to the airport an hour before departure, and spend 45 minutes and jaywalking around the airport while drinking overpriced coffee.