The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has imposed the need for a series of social distancing restrictions worldwide to mitigate the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic. This applies to many domains, including airplane boarding and seat assignments. As airlines are considering their passengers’ safety during the pandemic, boarding methods should be evaluated both in terms of social distancing norms and the resulting efficiency for the airlines. The present paper analyzes the impact of a series of restrictions that have been imposed or mooted worldwide on the boarding methods used by the airlines, featuring the use of jet-bridges and one-door boarding. To compare the efficacy of classical airplane boarding methods with respect to new social distancing norms, five metrics were used to evaluate their performance. One metric is the time to complete the boarding of the airplane. The other four metrics concern passenger health and reflect the potential exposure to the virus from other passengers through the air and surfaces (e.g., headrests and luggage) touched by passengers. We use the simulation platform in NetLogo to test six common boarding methods under various conditions. The back-to-front by row boarding method results in the longest time to complete boarding but has the advantage of providing the lowest health risk for two metrics. Those two metrics are based on passengers potentially infecting those passengers previously seated in the rows they traverse. Interestingly, those two risks are reduced for most boarding methods when the social distance between adjacent passengers advancing down the aisle is increased, thus indicating an unanticipated benefit stemming from this form of social distancing. The modified reverse pyramid by half zone method provides the shortest time to the completing boarding of the airplane and—along with the WilMA boarding method—provides the lowest health risk stemming from potential infection resulting from seat interferences. Airlines have the difficult task of making tradeoffs between economic productivity and the resulting impact on various health risks.

中文翻译：

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评估考虑 COVID-19 飞行限制的经典飞机登机方法

新型冠状病毒 (SARS-CoV-2) 要求在全球范围内实施一系列社会疏远限制，以减轻 COVID-19 大流行的祸害。这适用于许多领域，包括飞机登机和座位分配。由于航空公司正在考虑大流行期间乘客的安全，因此应从社会疏远规范和由此产生的航空公司效率两个方面评估登机方法。本文分析了全球范围内实施或提出的一系列限制对航空公司使用的登机方式的影响，其中包括使用喷气式登机桥和单门登机。为了比较经典登机方法在新的社会疏远规范方面的功效，使用了五个指标来评估它们的性能。一个指标是完成飞机登机的时间。其他四个指标与乘客健康有关，反映了其他乘客通过乘客接触的空气和表面（例如，头枕和行李）接触病毒的可能性。我们使用 NetLogo 中的仿真平台来测试各种条件下的六种常见登机方法。从后到前逐行登机的方法导致完成登机的时间最长，但具有为两个指标提供最低健康风险的优势。这两个指标基于乘客可能感染先前坐在他们所经过的行中的乘客。有趣的是，当沿过道前进的相邻乘客之间的社交距离增加时，对于大多数登机方法来说，这两种风险都会降低，因此表明这种形式的社会疏远带来了意想不到的好处。改进的半区倒金字塔方法为完成飞机登机提供了最短的时间，并且与 WilMA 登机方法一起提供了最低的健康风险，这些风险源于座椅干扰导致的潜在感染。航空公司面临着在经济生产力和由此产生的对各种健康风险的影响之间进行权衡的艰巨任务。