Deplaning Etiquette

Yes - Etiquette. In case you didn't know, there is one. OK, everybody else may not think there is, but in my mind and many of my co-travelers, there is.

Simply put, you deplane in an orderly fashion, one row at a time, starting from the front. One of my biggest pet peeves is the person that jumps up upon parking at the gate, and rushes to the front of the plane, pushing past all others. That's just rude.

So, rude is what I experience again just this weekend. My sister and I took a girls getaway weekend to Florida. Though our flight to Memphis arrived early - we didn't have a gate to park at as ours was occupied by a delayed flight. We sat on the tarmac for over an hour, turning our 1 hour 15 minute nice leisurely layover into a mad dash. We were in the front of the plane, and as soon as the seat belt sign was off, I stood up and started gathering our belongings from the overhead bin. All of a sudden this woman was crashing into me, trying to push her way from somewhere behind me to the front of the plane. I said (probably in a not so nice tone - I wasn't feeling very friendly at the time) "EXCUSE ME..." She replied "Well I've got a tight connection - I'm going to miss my plane." To which I of course responded, "Well so do we - so do a lot of people on the plane." My statement was followed by a lot of other folks stating "so do I" and "I've only got 10 minutes to get to mine". Her response was a simple "oh, well, uh..." upon realizing that low and behold she was not the only person on the plane who had a connecting flight.

Now if she had known the deplaning etiquette, this little exchange wouldn't have happened and she could have avoided the embarrassment.

Another part of the deplaning etiquette that seems to be routinely disregarded is the "rule" applying to late arriving flights. In situations like the late flight mentioned above, any passenger that does not have a connection (or even if they do, still have plenty of time to catch it) should remain seated to allow those who are in danger of missing theirs deplane first. However, I can't tell you how many times I have seen people that I know were at their final destination selfishly crowd into the aisles and deplane in front of folks trying to make a connection. Seriously, are they that busy that the extra 5 or 10 minutes would hurt them? As anyone who has ever "just" missed a flight, 5 minutes can be the difference between making your flight to see grandma or ruining the weekend because the next flight isn't until the following morning.

So - Etiquette. 'Nuff said.