Passengers getting up too early on landing? One country has had enough

“Passengers are required to remain seated with seatbelts fastened until the aircraft has come to a complete stop and the fasten seatbelt sign has been switched off!”

I’m on a domestic flight overseas, the aircraft is still taxiing, the announcement has already been made twice, yet passengers are still standing up to drag bags from the overhead lockers. I don’t get it. You might have your bag but now you’re being yelled by the crew and told to sit, and you’re not leaving the aircraft any quicker.

The urge to unbuckle and grab your bag even when the aircraft is moving is irresistible for some passengers. Apart from shouting at them over the PA system, there’s not much the cabin crew can do about it – they have to stay in their seats too, for the same safety reason.

Turkey is cracking down on passengers who get up from their seats too early.Credit: iStock

Turkey, however, has just called time on offenders. The Turkish Directorate General of Civil Aviation recently announced it intends to fine passengers who stand before the aircraft has come to a complete stop, who unfasten their seatbelts or open the overhead lockers prematurely. Based on Article 143 of the Turkish Civil Aviation Law No. 2920, the regulation applies to all carriers operating flights into Turkey. Violators can be fined $US70 ($110).

I get that it’s cramped in economy and some are busting to stand up and get moving as soon as possible but there’s a protocol that applies when you’re exiting an aircraft. Once the “fasten seatbelt” sign goes off, the well behaved aisle-seat passenger can either stand or stay seated – their choice - until the rows in front have cleared.

Passengers with backpacks, note that you’re packed in like a Tokyo subway commuter in evening rush hour. If you must put your pack on your back while you’re in the aisle, don’t swing around like a dunny door in the wind: you’re probably going to bonk someone’s head and that’s intensely irritating.

Better still, wait for the passenger slightly ahead in the queue to move, then retrieve your carry-on from the overhead locker and march promptly down the aisle. In any other seat, you’re at the mercy of the person in the aisle seat, so no reason to stand and anyway, what’s the rush? If you’re travelling with checked luggage you’re probably going to be kicking your heels at the baggage carousel regardless of when you exit the aircraft.

What can go wrong

A video shot by US filmmaker Adam Ellick and posted to social media in March shows passengers on an IndiGo flight standing to open overhead lockers and haul out their bags in defiance of safety announcements as the aircraft is still taxiing to its stand. After repeated warnings from the crew the offenders resume their seats, but only after they’ve removed their bags from the overhead lockers. What was the point? They have their bags but they’re not getting off the plane any quicker.

I’ve seen plenty of premature evacuations on recent flights in Italy, Egypt, Morocco, China and the UK. Since that video was shot on an Indian airline, the racist tropes followed, although several commentators with Indian names were just as scathing of their fellow citizens. Among the comments, Prateek Pathak suggested, “Airlines should modify the overhead bin design with a central electric-lock system for overhead bins that locks during take off landing and taxi... Its locking and unlocking could be controlled by cabin crew from a touch screen where cabin lights are dimmed.” Brilliant! This is the kind of aircraft innovation needed to blunt irresponsible passenger behaviour.

The benefit of lockable overhead bins was dramatically illustrated when an Emirates Boeing 777-300 crash-landed at Dubai International Airport in 2016. Footage (see above) showed panic-stricken passengers opening overhead lockers to retrieve their bags as oxygen masks hang from the ceiling and a female voice, probably a cabin crew member, screams, “Jump, jump, leave your bags behind.”

There can be no excuse for passengers who prioritise whatever is in their carry-on luggage over human lives. In 2015, images from a smouldering British Airways flight on the runway in Las Vegas with an engine on fire and emergency chutes deployed showed some passengers walking away carrying bags retrieved from overhead lockers.

Next time you fly, should you feel the urge to leap up as soon as the wheels kiss the tarmac, ask yourself if it’s worth the hate vibes from the cabin crew and your fellow passengers, or worse, the sudden grab of brakes that sends you sprawling in the aisle? Whether you stand early or sit tight, you’re ending up in the same immigration queue, taxi line or baggage carousel as the rest of us. Have a good flight, and please, watch that backpack.