The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has imposed the need for a series of restrictions worldwide to mitigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. This also applies to the aviation, including airplane boarding. Therefore, boarding methods must be evaluated both in terms of social distancing rules, to reduce the possibility of contagion, and the resulting efficiency for airlines in terms of time. This study analyzes the impact of a series of restrictions imposed around the world on the turnaround process of a commercial aircraft, and in particular, it will focus on analyzing the boarding process. To compare the efficiency of the seven proposed boarding strategies, various metrics have been used, such as boarding time, the number of interferences, and the risk of contagion that the boarding process poses for the passenger. An agent-based model implemented in NetLogo is used to test seven common boarding methods under various conditions. The reverse pyramid, together with the WiLMA and Steffen methods, provide the shortest time to complete boarding, as well as the lowest health risk from possible infection resulting from seat interference. The back-to-front row boarding method presents a long time to complete boarding but has the advantage of providing a low health risk as it prevents passengers from infecting passengers who were previously seated in the rows that traverse. Airlines have the difficult task of making a tradeoff between productivity and health impact.
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