A Reddit user has sparked a fierce debate online after they posted a scathing rant about how slow people are during the deplaning process on a flight.
The traveler, who goes by the username Romantic_Thinker, from New Mexico, recently went on a tirade against people who take a long time to get their bag from the overhead bin and exit a plane after he took a Delta flight from San Francisco to his home state – and it launched a major argument between other social media users.
‘Why does it take SO LONG for people to exit an airplane?’ he asked in the post, which was shared earlier this week.
‘Stand up, grab your bag from the overhead bin, and walk. Why does this simple maneuver seem to take the majority of people so much time to execute?’
A Reddit user has sparked a fierce debate online after they posted a scathing rant about how slow people are during the deplaning process on a flight (stock image)
The traveler, who goes by the username Romantic_Thinker, went on a tirade against people who take a long time to get their bag from the overhead bin and exit a plane
His question led to hundreds of comments from other flyers – some of whom shared in his frustration and others who insisted it wasn’t the passengers’ fault, but rather, the design of the aircraft was to blame.
‘If you insert one person with a touch of dysfunction and lack of awareness, the entire system falls,’ wrote one person.
‘It’s the noobs, children, old folks, and the highly inconsiderate that take forever,’ said someone else.
‘It’s always amazing how a pretty high percentage of people are in no particular hurry and just take their sweet time getting their stuff out of the overhead storage,’ added a different user.
‘I will never forget the time a man put his jacket on and started slowly buttoning it in the aisle blocking the entire plane from leaving,’ recalled another person.
‘The rage was immense. I was trying to figure out what to say but just stewed silently.’
‘It’s a Starbucks line effect. Everyone’s impatiently wanting the people ahead of them to move faster, and then once it’s their turn it’s like they have no idea where their bag is or where the exit is,’ joked one commenter.
‘Because people are idiots and don’t pay attention to their surroundings. I’m also convinced the average traveler’s IQ drops 50 per cent as soon as they hit airport property,’ another disgruntled person wrote.
His post led to hundreds of comments from flyers – some of whom shared in his frustration and others who insisted it wasn’t the passengers’ fault, but rather, the airline was to blame
‘If you need help, if you are older, if you have children or some other reason that is holding you up you get a pass on this but if you are just a jacka** taking your sweet time because you don’t give a damn about the other 100+ people behind you, or you don’t even realize you are the one holding up the entire plane – you suck,’ read a different comment.
Someone else shared: ‘I’ve missed two [connecting] flights so far because of absolute clueless morons taking their time to get their doo-doo together and getting their butts off the plane.
‘Absolutely infuriating. That said, if more people would be courteous and offer to help older/disabled people get their luggage out of the overhead, deplaning time would be cut in half.
‘Far too often I see people in their 20s and 30’ stare at their phones while the 75 year old woman in front of them grunts and groans trying to get her 20lb carry on from over her head. Even more infuriating.’
Others, however, said if the airline was more organized or if the plane had wider aisles, the delay would never happen.
‘Everyone gets up at once to grab bags. Chaos ensues because bags aren’t always directly next to/over people, and because there’s less space in the aisle than necessary for everyone to get up at once,’ read another comment.
Someone else responded: ‘Because the overhead space is so limited a bunch of people have to put their suitcases far away from them.’
A different person claimed the hold up was because you usually have to wait ’15 minutes for the doors to open.’
Another Reddit user said they had figured out a way to beat the process. They wrote: ‘I also found this infuriating, then I had an idea.
‘Now I usually sit and wait for the plane to empty, then I stroll off and pass by those same dilly-dalliers walking through the terminal.
‘If I checked a bag, there’s no sense rushing, only to wait at the baggage carousel. If I have no bag, just carry-on, I’m usually passed the slowpokes by the time I hit the exit door to the terminal.
‘Most of the timewasters are inexperienced travelers, which is why flying to Orlando is like flying to Hell.’
Someone else explained that there’s no avoiding the long wait time since there’s simply so many people on board.
Some commenters pointed out that if the airline was more organized or if the aircraft had wider aisles, the delay would never happen
‘A Delta 737 has about 180 people in the three cabins when full. Let’s just give everyone 10 seconds to get their s**t and start walking down the aisle.
‘That’s 1,800 seconds or 30 minutes to empty the plane. So chill the f**k out. I fly over 100,000 miles a year and I’ve never had it take 30 minutes to disembark.
‘If you think 10 seconds per person is too long you need to fork over the cash to ride in the first row for your flights.’
Back in 2014, a study by Northwestern found that de-boarding times would be reduced by 35 per cent if airlines had people exit by seat type rather than row.
That means all the people sitting in aisle seats would go first, followed by the middle seats, and then the window seats.
‘The only real efficient use of the aisle and overhead bins comes right when the plane first parks, and all the aisle seat passengers are able to get their bags down at once without blocking others,’ Vox reported while discussing the results.
‘This deboarding method would replicate this stage for the whole process. All middle and window seat passengers would similarly have a minute in the aisle to pull their bags down without blocking people behind them.
‘At any given moment, use of the aisle space and overhead bins would be maximized, and the line would be blocked for a much smaller amount of time.’
The problem with this method, however, would mean that families sitting together would be separated.
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