The airline has tested dual boarding and deplaning in Sacramento and a couple of other cities on and off for the past few years to gauge how much faster it gets passengers on and off planes and reduces the turnaround time between flights.
Southwest's so-called turn times – a measure of the time from when the plane locks at the gate and leaves again – were as low as 10 minutes in the scrappy carrier's early days and have long been a financial boon and competitive advantage for Southwest.
Today, they average 42 minutes. The airline's flights in Burbank and Long Beach, California, older airports where dual boarding and deplaning has long been the standard for airlines due to the airport facilities, have among the quickest turnaround times in the company.
Goldberg said the Sacramento experiment is just one piece of a puzzle Southwest is working on to make its operation more efficient as it approaches its 50th birthday in a couple of years.
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