Why it takes so long to disembark the plane

If you’ve ever sat on a plane and watched people stand with their heads crooked to the side waiting to exit their row of the plane, you’re no doubt aware of how long it takes to get off the plane after it has landed.

It seems like a pretty straightforward process once the plane has landed and arrived at the gate – get the stairs or jet bridge aligned with the plane door and open her up. As it turns out, it’s a lot more complicated than it seems.

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Firstly, the pilot has to taxi the plane to the correct place, shut down the plane’s engines and signal to the ground crew that it’s safe to begin the disembarking process. Then, the crew need to bring the stairs or jet bridge over and align it correctly with the door. These things in themselves can take more time than you expect, but especially so if something goes wrong – and there are a lot of margins for error.

In terms of technical errors, the jet bridge or escape slide in the door could be malfunctioning, or if the jet bridge is aligned slightly too high or low to the plane door it will need to be backed up and recalibrated.

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Then there’s human error where the gate agent doesn’t know the plane has landed, or there are multiple planes that are competing for a space to disembark. This is not to mention the time it takes for the people in front of you to disembark. If one person takes a while to get their bags sorted and leave the plane, it causes the people around them to be held up, which then causes the people around them to be held up.

Unfortunately there’s nothing we as passengers can do to get out quicker, other than to get ourselves organised with our bags as soon as possible and leave the plane as quickly as possible.