Ryanair loads its planes from both ends in most airports (except in airports where they're required to use a jetway). It _helps_ (I was recently on a Ryanair flight from Brussels, a mandatory-jetway airport, and it was noticeably slower than usual to load) but it's still a lot slower than you'd hope.
Ryanair actually orders specialised 737s with built-in airstairs and a few other modifications to facilitate this.
This only really works for 737-sized planes and down, though, where air-stairs are an easy option (AFAIK even A320s can be a bit of a stretch, as they're significantly taller than 737s).
Yeah I've done that on a few euro airlines. It's definitely faster to load, but usually you have to take a bus to the plane, which adds a lot of time and hassle that you don't have with a gate. I still really think that the double ended gate is probably the lowest hanging fruit in terms of speeding up air travel. The only reason I can think of that we don't have it is that you can pay more to be at the front of the plane, so a lot of the benefit goes to the lowest paying passengers. I would still think that this would improve the turn around time for the airplane so that the airline could get more utilization, but perhaps loading/unloading is not the critical path anymore in turning around the airplane.
> It's definitely faster to load, but usually you have to take a bus to the plane, which adds a lot of time and hassle that you don't have with a gate.
Ah, that depends on the airport. Haven’t been on one of those in a few years; I think Ryanair and friends managed to grab a lot more proper gate space during Covid when the higher-end airlines were practically giving it away.
(Years ago, I was on a Ryanair flight to Brussels airport which used a jet bridge, because it’s mandatory there… But the jet bridge was in the middle of nowhere, served by a bus. Half-convinced Ryanair does this sort of thing deliberately, to live up to their brand image of being quite annoying.)
> but perhaps loading/unloading is not the critical path anymore in turning around the airplane.
It _definitely_ is, at least for short-haul stuff.
Ryanair actually orders specialised 737s with built-in airstairs and a few other modifications to facilitate this.
This only really works for 737-sized planes and down, though, where air-stairs are an easy option (AFAIK even A320s can be a bit of a stretch, as they're significantly taller than 737s).