Why stand in line to board an airplane?
Why stand in line to board an airplane?
The seats are assigned. People have been standing in line for 15 minutes now. Why on earth would anyone want to stand there, when they could just sit and wait until the line clears?
I understand wanting to get off a plane ASAP, but boarding? You just end up sitting on the plane, waiting for everyone else to get on.
These same people will all stand up at once the moment the plane stops.. and continue to uncomfortably stand there for like twenty minutes.
On my last flight my gf sprung up and was irritated that I wasn't doing the same. Like where the fuck you going to go? One foot to the left? Just, why? I'm chillin.
Overhead space. The only upgrade I pay for is boarding group, and I want to maximize my upgrade purchase, so I want to be at the front of group 2.
I only travel with an appropriately sized carry-on but I'm a bit tall so I can NOT have the bag by my feet.
So I want to guarantee I have the overhead right above my seat.
I also generally work on the plane so I can get my laptop and such out easily while standing at my seat, then put my bag up worry free.
I'm hard of hearing and terrified of standing in the wrong place at an airport and missing the visual cues to board the flight. Once boarding starts and people start queueing up, I usually get in line because it's helpful to see what everyone in front of me is doing - the order that they hand over paperwork or get carry on double checked. I can't guarantee I'll be able to hear the attendant if they ask me questions at the gate because it's so noisy, so I like to at least feel like I'm prepared.
One time I was flying with crutches and qualified for early pre-boarding because I needed the plane wheelchair (skychair). I sat right next to the gate desk and waited, then I started seeing people queue up so I quickly joined the line, wondering how pre-boarding works when the whole plane of passengers are already vying to be at the front of the line.
I get to the front, the attendant looks at my ticket then after some awkward back and forward eventually I realised they were telling me I'll have to wait till everyone has boarded to get the sky-chair on. I should have come to the desk when pre boarding was announced. I pointed that I was sitting right in front of them... Apparently they were called my name 3 times over the loudspeaker.
Apparently airports can only comprehend one disability at a time (if that!) they knew I was hard of hearing (it's on my ticket) but still thought calling me over the PA was the best way to get the attention of the deaf person sitting 80cm from their desk.
So I sat back down and waited for the line to clear, then I got back up when there were 2 people in line, and after another back and forward I learned that they had tried calling my name again about halfway through boarding because they only had one skychair and it was now or never because the chair had told fly with the other passenger because their arrival airport didn't have a chair, or something, I dunno, anyway I kind of had to crawl down the ailse to get to my chair because in the past I've just used the backs of chairs to swing myself along, but the plane was full so I couldn't do that.
Yup, exactly what I think. So I used to sit in the gate area until the last possible moment until I found out that if you wait too long, they'll give away your seat. Plus since they are charging people for checking luggage through, you have to get that overhead bin before it's gone, unless your carry-on fits in front of you, which it doesn't if you're on a bulkhead. So, now I stand in line, frustrated by that and all the other crap we have to go through when traveling by plane these days. Looking at you TSA.
People are posting a lot of maybe more rational reasons, but I think there's another answer that's more in line with just being a human. Airports suck, air travel, generally, sucks and the whole process is riddle with both intentional and also just unavoidable misery. Every time a new step in the sequence of unpleasant and boring steps that is air travel nears, we start to anticipate it and get anxious to move on to that next step in the process. It doesn't make it faster, it likely only makes the misery arguably worse, but some times people just can't help trying to mentally hasten things even if in reality nothing is hastened at all.
I’m about to be seated for five hours straight with no possibility of standing or moving around. I’m standing while I still have the opportunity.
Stand, don’t stand, I don’t care. But I’m sitting in the marked disabled seats, with a gate checked walker, and only similarly disabled people or people wrangling little kids are getting on before me, so standing in front of me only tempts me to run into the back of your legs with my walker to bulldoze you out of my way. Leave those of us with extra trouble moving a little space, please!
Overhead space for carry-on bags.
CGP Grey has a good video on a better way to board planes.
I'm about to sit down for the next six hours. I'm happy to stand for a bit.
Not all airlines assign seats. I learned this last year. Southwest doesn’t assign seats but you get assigned groups for boarding. You can probably pay for earlier groups but I don’t know, I wasn’t the one who purchased the tickets directly.
Anyways, you line up in order of your boarding assignment. The earlier you get on the plane the better seat you get.
I hated it. Just assign seats.
Because airlines have hiked the cost of checked luggage to absurd levels so a large number of people have roller suitcase carryons. I have a small messenger bag I travel with that's soft-sided and I want to get on early so I can make sure it's over my head in case some asshole tries to cram their bag in over mine.
Because once through thebgate, there's the line of actually getting into your seat because some people tend to stand in the aisle and block everyone while taking their jacket off. And if you're in a prioritized boarding group you can circumvent most of these by getting into the plane early, which results in more time watching youtube while sitting on my ass.
Source: frequent flier. In fact, I'm typing this from seat 9F on an Airbus A320neo right after sitting down.
Big issue for musicians. Many of us have instruments that are just small enough to be carry-ons but just large enough to be a bit unwieldy compared to other carry-ons, so nabbing primo carry-on storage is a must.
I don’t want to look for my seat with 20 people in front and 20 people behind me, touching my ass cos there is no space . If I have a window seat, then I have to also deal with the people sitting next to me, they get up, walk out, I sit down, they get in blah blah blah
Agreed. Can we talk about getting off though? Everyone seems to have their own idea about how to do it and here is my proposal that I am very certain is the most efficient: plane lands at gate, but doors haven’t opened yet. The AISLE seats get up, get their bags, wait patiently in aisle till doors open. The WHOLE LINE of aisle standers files off (they are all ready to just leave), then the next inner seats get up, get their stuff, and file off, etc. Every time someone is “polite” and lets people get up infront of them, they hold up the entire line of aisle standers, and anyone else who could be getting up from their seat and grabbing their things. The entire plane has to wait each time someone says “yes I could just walk forward and leave the plane right now, but please go ahead and take your time getting out of your seat and grabbing your things before I go”
People's mentality after waiting at the airport for six hours for a six hour flight ...
THIS IS THE LAST HELICOPTER OUT OF VIETNAM!!!!
I do it to give the people still sitting something to tut over.
I dont I just chill. Those goobers will fuck something up and I'll stand there for like 30 min like a moron.
Depends on what airline you're taking, Southwest doesn't assign seats
brother you and I are the same
Mostly already mentioned I guess.
Bag fees is the answer. And people who’d rather screw over the next person by putting everything into the overhead bin (jacket, backpack, whatever) that should be under the seat.
People don’t want to pay to check more bags, so they cram as much as they can into anything checked and then the rest into a carry on (assuming they check anything at all). These over-stuffed carry-ons have to then be shoved into an overhead bin, and once the bins are full, the airline will gate check it to the destination. Now you have to wait at baggage claim for your bag along with the fear that for whatever reason it won’t make it. People don’t want that, so they line up to make sure they can put all their stuff in the overhead bin.
So there’s everyone filling up the overhead bin with purses, backpacks, and whatever other items that should have been placed under the seat in front of them. Yeah, I get it, space is tight. No, airline travel will never be like “the old days” when you can spend $250 or less round-trip today to cross the US and back. You wanted cheap, you got it, along with commensurate service. It’s no secret that space is limited. However, IMO those people are dickheads for forcing fellow passengers to check a bag because they take half the bin for all the stuff their cheap asses didn’t want to check while they simultaneously complain about the service they wanted to pay bottom dollar for.
From the airline's point of view, having the next person right there ready to get in their seat is preferable to having everyone come up one at a time. This is why they have boarding groups. You usually see between 3 and 5 boarding groups because it's a reasonable number between 1 and N (N being the total number of passengers). I'm curious how ~10 boarding groups would fare, but presumably there's a reason airlines don't do that.
Unless you need/like to stand before takeoff, I don't see the point. I don't mind if people do, as long as they are polite.
Bag space woes? It's real, but seriously see what you can do without. I fly for work at least once a month and I'm a pro one bagger for trips of 4 days or less; more if I'm doing summer weight clothes. It means I rewear things if they are clean and sometimes wash clothes in my hotel, but damn does it make travel easy.
Checked bag fees suck. Be the first to volunteer to gate check. I can only recall one flight in the last few months where an announcement wasn't made. The bag is waiting at the destination gate so you don't even have to handle bag claim. I do it every time I travel.
I see only one reason, why i would want to be early at the seat. its bcs if i am not, my backpack might be placed above but multiple seats away by the crew, where it is then uneasy for me to have an eye on it whilst easy for theives to take and open them, especially on long flights there would be plenty of opportunity like when everyone is sleeping.
but for this case i use locks on the backpack anyway, so that anyone who wants to open it, either opens it where nothing of value is in it thus no lock, or at least has a much harder time than when trying the very same with other bags...
also on longer flights i usually did not have that problem, but that could also have been just luck
Capitalism to sell premium seating and priority to seat
People are dumb. Mostly.
The question you should be asking instead is why would you shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane?
I literally chill til the very end of boarding before I get on. Like you said, my seat is assigned, it ain't changing, and I'm packed light enough to put my backpack under the seat in front of me. Sometimes people don't show up n I sneak into a better seat 🤫. I've only ever been called out for that on Frontier, they know the hustle apparently. I've never bothered trying 1st class or anything, but I've gotten some middle seats to transform into aisles that way.
