&gt;For the study, they consider a purely theoretical situation in which people could line up at any time when a facility opens, like boarding an airplane.<p>&gt;The problem with “first come, first served” is it incentivizes people to arrive early, which researchers say results in people waiting for the longest period of time. When this incentive is removed—under a “last come, first served” system—the queues are more efficient.<p>Not too hard to see what would happen if this were implemented for actual aircraft boarding. Everyone would stand around in a circle just outside whatever area is officially declared the &quot;queue&quot;, waiting for other people to join first.<p>Actually, now I read the paper it seems that the aircraft is a bad example, the model system is one where the thing you want to minimise is the amount of time you spend waiting, not the order in which you get served. There&#x27;s no advantage to getting on a plane <i>earlier</i> (spending more time sitting on a plane isn&#x27;t great) but there&#x27;s an advantage in getting on a plane before someone else.