How to find disembarkation policy (fore or fore/aft) for given airline / airport ?

MuffinsDa

For a lot of people, choice of seat when they fly will depend on whether embarkation / disembarkation happens through both front and rear of the aircraft or only through the front.

For regular fliers on regular routes, it's easy: I know for example that BA to LCY disembarks front and rear usually, and EI to heathrow only front. You'd also make a guess that for most Ryanair flights (bar a few exceptions) it's both ends.

But is there a way of finding out the policy without having specific knowledge of airline / airport so that you can make an educated seat choice when flying to an unfamiliar airport and want to get out quickly? Is it a policy that can be found somewhere or is it more ad-hoc and really need on-the-ground info to tell?

Locker10a

While there may be a general policy this is very loose and aircraft and handled on a case by case basis, where I work anyway.
We always used the air bridges( unless there wasn't one available) but this year changed to use steps at both end to speed up turnaround, or indeed steps and airbridge.
On some occasions however disembarkation will only be using the front even though steps are attached to the back. Usually this is due to a lack of availability of ground to supervise passengers on the ramp. However when it comes to boarding both ends are generally used.
It Also depends on the time of day, late night steps are never used only airbridges however during the day, in order to achieve fast turnarounds steps are generally used.

coylemj

MuffinsDa wrote: »

For a lot of people, choice of seat when they fly will depend on whether embarkation / disembarkation happens through both front and rear of the aircraft or only through the front.

Supplementing Locker10a's excellent response above and speaking purely as a passenger (i.e. I don't work in aviation), I frequently notice that when passengers are allowed to disembark from the rear, it's usually after a last-minute announcement which suggests to me that in almost all cases, the cabin crew have no idea before the plane lands whether they will be using front or front+rear to disembark.

It clearly does make sense when landing in daylight to use both but as Locker10a points out, it seems to be down to the availability of ground crew to supervise both steps, I guess this is mandated by the airport management in order to safely guide passengers to the terminal entrance.