United Airlines to reintroduce window, middle aisle boarding this month

United Airlines is set to roll out a more efficient boarding process for its economy passengers later this month. It’s not quite the Steffen Method, but it takes some inspiration from that complex theory of the best way to board a plane, with the new plan calling for those in window seats to get on first, followed by middle seat sitters and then those on the aisle. An internal company document said that boarding times on United flights are up by up to two minutes since 2019 and that the so-called WILMA (somehow, an abbreviation for window-middle-aisle) method is shown to save about two minutes in boarding per flight. United previously used the WILMA boarding method until 2017, when it introduced basic economy seating. A spokesperson for the airline said that the computer systems in use at that time limited the airline to a five-group boarding structure. Newer technology allows for more boarding groups, which was the impetus behind the change.<br/>