Why do airliners park with the nose facing the terminal? A few other questions have touched on why we don't board airliners from the front and back at the same time. My question is why is it that we choose to board at the front, rather than park the aircraft facing away from the terminal? This question shows that parking backward seems to be unusual. Why is this design not adopted widely?

I have two guesses:


Is it because of the jet blast? But this can be solved by towing the aircraft away from the terminal before using the jet engines.
Because it is difficult to attach the jet bridge without hitting the tail?
To park a passenger plane with its tail towards the terminal has several disadvantages:


it would require a pushback tractor (plus personnel) to do that. Thrust reversers in general are not meant for making the plane go backwards. If it was possible for the plane to go autonomously backwards, it would be extremely = too risky.
you would also need the pushback tracktor for leaving the gate, you couldn't use engines because of the jetblast hitting the terminal
you could not use the APU because it would scorch the terminal
the horizontal tail of some planes might have clearance issues with the jet bridge.
last but maybe not least: the upper class travelers. They sit at the front for a reason: they get on and off the plane first. Yes, the business and first class could be moved to the back. Now, I don't know if riding closer to the cockpit rather than the arse of the plane has some intrinsic value, but at least it is usually noisier at the back.
So customer satisfaction might take a hit there.


So: twice the hassle with pushback + other issues, with no benefits whatsoever.