Passengers On One American Airlines Flight Did The Impossible, Staying In Their Seats When Plane Landed
When the plane lands most people stand up and many people rush into the aisle. If you need to get a bag from an overhead bin that got stuck several rows behind you, you’d better hurry up because the aisle will quickly become impassable.
Often, a flight is delayed. And there are connecting passengers. Those passengers may have to run to make those connections. A flight attendant may make an announcement, asking everyone that doesn’t have a connection to remain seated so that those with a tight connection can get up, into the aisle, and towards the front of the aircraft – giving them precious minutes to make their next flight.
It almost never happens that passengers listen. Nobody knows who has a connection and who doesn’t. If asked, people lie. But most aren’t asked. Once everyone is up in the aisle, everyone else gets up too.
That’s why it was so striking to see an American Airlines flight where everyone without a connection remained seated so that those who had to run to make their next flights could get off the aircraft as quickly as possible.
Considerate humans in action!!! All of these seated passengers on @AmericanAir FLT 486 from @JohnWayneAir to Phoenix allowed us to exit first & run to our gates this morning. Thank you!!! #kindness #flying pic.twitter.com/oeCk71hc0v
— michele gile (@michelegiletv) February 21, 2024
This happened even though the flight appears to have arrived one minute early. Wazza wazza wha?
American Airlines-to-American Airlines domestic inline connections in Phoenix can be booked with as little as 25 minutes between the scheduled arrival of one flight and scheduled departure of the next. The airline can give away seats of passengers not in the boarding area for their next flight 15 minutes prior to departure, and doors close for an on-time flight 10 minutes before departure.
That means passengers have just 10 minutes from the time their inbound flight blocks in to the time they have to be at the gate for their next flight – even when they have to change concourses, for instance arriving at the high A gates in terminal 4 and connecting to a flight in the mid-B’s.
Some people rush off of the plane even when they’re not connecting and they’ll have to wait for checked luggage anyway, even when they’re asked not to. One man treats it as a race, sprinting from the back of the plane to the front before everyone else even gets up. Another one schemes by hiding in the lavatory in order to be first off the aircraft.
Just admit bro outsmarting you. pic.twitter.com/368ScI2RLn
— Wild content (@NoCapFights) October 14, 2023
But “don’t cut in line” really only doesn’t apply when you’re trying to make a connecting flight. Here everyone was polite and maintained standards of civility – something all too rare in modern air travel!
