You know the feeling.
The plane has just landed. You’re ready to get your holiday started. You’re ready to disembark and feel the sun on your face as you walk across the tarmac and realise that your dressed far too heavily for this new climate.
But before all that, you’ve got to either sit or stand and wait for a path to clear so that you can get your bag from the overhead longer, and stand for even longer while everyone forms a queue to leave the plane. A queue that does not budge for 20 minutes. At best.
There can be no disputing that getting off an airplane is one of the most frustrating things in the world. There is basically no other closed space situation that takes longer to get out of. But, as it turns out, that’s our own fault.
According to recent research, there is a much quicker way for us all to get off the plane. The study by Northwestern University revealed that getting off the plane by aisle/column as opposed to row could cut the wait time by as much as 35%.
Because people tend to get off row by row, they end up blocking the people behind them as the walk space in the middle overcrowds. However, if everyone in the left aisle seat got off first, then the right aisle seat, then the left middle seat, then the right middle seat, and so on, the central walkspace would never overcrowd. People would simply step into the walkspace, retrieve their bag and walk straight out.
Imagine this, but the other way around:
So the next time you’re boarding a plane, spread the word about your new innovative strategy for deboarding the plane. Your fellow passengers will thank you for it.
Or they might ask you stop talking to them. That’s probably equally as likely.
