The term is used in road, rail, water and air transport (for example, passengers board a coach).
This can begin any time from an hour to thirty minutes before departure (depending on the size of the plane and number of passengers).
Many airlines use the IATA standard Bar Coded Boarding Passes (BCBP) to automate this process.
[2] All airlines allow passengers in premium cabins or with elite status to board earlier, with some offering it to coach customers for a fee.
Several boarding patterns by seating location are possible: Efficiency considerations to minimize overall boarding time include: Competing considerations include: Computer simulations indicate that the outside-in and reverse-pyramid patterns should be fastest, followed by block and random, followed by back-to-front and rotating zone.
[2][3][4] Another proposed method to speed boarding is to have passengers sort themselves by row and seat while still standing in the waiting area.