Thursday, January 15, 2004
An Impassioned Plea
I'm trying to take Kevin's suggestion about not posting too often to heart, but when I have an idea and feel motivated to write about it, I definitely want to do so. In this case, I'd like to make an impassioned plea:
At a high-level, that plea is for everyone to think about how what they do can affect others. But that's very vague and a little too generic and lame for me, so I'll narrow it down a bit: When getting on or off an airplane, move your ass.
You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. For some reason, in airports, I think that humanity is at its worst. At the very least, common sense goes out the window. I firmly believe that one of the main reasons airlines have to lie about arrival and departure times, and add 30 extra minutes to every flight is because people take so damn long getting on the plane.
Maybe I'm just being overly nostalgic, but once upon a time, I believe, you just got on a plane. No boarding rows 25-30, then 20-25, etc. (At least, that's how I think it was when I was a kid.) But, airlines have been forced to using this boarding method because, in theory, it's faster. Now, one reason that things take longer is that the planes have gotten smaller, and so people have to hunt around for places to store their luggage. On the other hand, if airlines actually enforced the "1 carry-on, and it's gotta be smaller than a lunchbox", that wouldn't be an issue either.
Here's what I do when I get on a plane: Shove my one bag under the seat. Maybe I'll put my jacket into the overhead bin. (I'll cram it in - I don't have to search for a spot.) Then, I sit down. That's it. I've already removed whatever I'm going to need from my jacket and placed it in my hand. I've usually also already removed my jacket. I don't look in every overhead bin from the front of the plane to my seat, trying to find the optimal storage for my go-kart, or whatever silly thing I brought on board. I just sit down.
It's amazing to me how thoughtless people are. They stand there shouting across the rows, trying to decide if they should switch seats with their husband, who is 12 rows back. Maybe he has to come up the aisle, against the traffic, so they can discuss it more in depth. Some lady has to root around in her pocketbook for her Tic Tacs before she can stow it in the overhead bin. Think, people. Plan ahead. And sit the hell down.
Why do I care about this so much? Well, because if you take the effects cumulatively, over all the people that pocketbook lady is holding up, it's actually significant. On a typical plane, let's say there are 25 rows, with 5 people to a row. That's 125 people. Let's say that each of them, on average, takes just 30 seconds longer to sit down than they should. (Pocketbook lady averages out five people like me.) Add that up, and it's an hour. Of course, multiple people can sit down at the same time, so it never takes that long, but still, you can see how it would add up quickly.
Of course, this time is already built into the flight. Everyone has to sit down, and you're likely not going anywhere until you were scheduled to leave anyways, so hurrying people up here, while it would be nice, doesn't really gain you anything. The big win is in "deplaning", or, as I like to call it, "getting off of the plane."
I've never understood why it takes so long to empty a plane. You get up. You grab your stuff. Maybe you can't move into the aisle, but you certainly can be ready to go. This should all be done between the time the seatbelt light goes off (unless you're like me and just take the darn thing off as soon as you land) and when the door is actually opened. Usually this is at least a minute or two.
Once again, though, people dawdle. And in this case, unlike getting on the plane, no one can get off the plane until you do. People are shouting back and forth, placing cell phone calls, going against traffic to get the bag they had to cram in the way back of the plane because it was too darn big to fit anywhere else, etc.
In this case, though, delays have a much worse cumulative effect. Let's approximate 120 people on the plane, and that each person takes just 10 seconds longer to get off the plane than they should. It is a faster process than getting on the plane, after all. Add up 10 seconds over 120 people and that's just 20 minutes total. But not really. It's actually only 10 seconds for the first person, but 20 minutes for the last person. On average, it's 10 minutes per person wasted. 120 people * 10 minutes = 1200 person-minutes = 20 person-hours. Thrown out the window. Think about what you could do in 20 hours. And every flight wastes that amount of time. Just because people don't think.
I'm probably less tolerant than I should be of slow people, but my tolerance is a direct inverse of the total number of people waiting for said slow person. So if it's just a slow person at the checkout line in the supermarket, and they take an extra minute or two because they insist on paying in nickels, then ok, I'm annoyed, but it's just a minute or two. I don't really have anywhere THAT important to be. Go on, pay with your nickels. But if you're holding up a line of 100, well, sirree, you better have something really important to do. If we could only channel the cumulative frustration into one giant expletive, maybe it would help these people realize their thoughtlessness.
So, all I ask is that the next time you fly on a plane, optimize! Plan ahead! Put all the crap you need into one bag and shove it under your seat. Take your coat off ahead of time. Take the crap out of the coat pockets. Don't carry on stuff that won't fit in the bins without a crowbar, or that you can't lift without dropping on your head and critically injuring yourself. Do it for me. Do it for all of the other people in line behind you. Do it for all of humanity. Those 20 person-hours could be the 20 person-hours that cure cancer.
At a high-level, that plea is for everyone to think about how what they do can affect others. But that's very vague and a little too generic and lame for me, so I'll narrow it down a bit: When getting on or off an airplane, move your ass.
You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. For some reason, in airports, I think that humanity is at its worst. At the very least, common sense goes out the window. I firmly believe that one of the main reasons airlines have to lie about arrival and departure times, and add 30 extra minutes to every flight is because people take so damn long getting on the plane.
Maybe I'm just being overly nostalgic, but once upon a time, I believe, you just got on a plane. No boarding rows 25-30, then 20-25, etc. (At least, that's how I think it was when I was a kid.) But, airlines have been forced to using this boarding method because, in theory, it's faster. Now, one reason that things take longer is that the planes have gotten smaller, and so people have to hunt around for places to store their luggage. On the other hand, if airlines actually enforced the "1 carry-on, and it's gotta be smaller than a lunchbox", that wouldn't be an issue either.
Here's what I do when I get on a plane: Shove my one bag under the seat. Maybe I'll put my jacket into the overhead bin. (I'll cram it in - I don't have to search for a spot.) Then, I sit down. That's it. I've already removed whatever I'm going to need from my jacket and placed it in my hand. I've usually also already removed my jacket. I don't look in every overhead bin from the front of the plane to my seat, trying to find the optimal storage for my go-kart, or whatever silly thing I brought on board. I just sit down.
It's amazing to me how thoughtless people are. They stand there shouting across the rows, trying to decide if they should switch seats with their husband, who is 12 rows back. Maybe he has to come up the aisle, against the traffic, so they can discuss it more in depth. Some lady has to root around in her pocketbook for her Tic Tacs before she can stow it in the overhead bin. Think, people. Plan ahead. And sit the hell down.
Why do I care about this so much? Well, because if you take the effects cumulatively, over all the people that pocketbook lady is holding up, it's actually significant. On a typical plane, let's say there are 25 rows, with 5 people to a row. That's 125 people. Let's say that each of them, on average, takes just 30 seconds longer to sit down than they should. (Pocketbook lady averages out five people like me.) Add that up, and it's an hour. Of course, multiple people can sit down at the same time, so it never takes that long, but still, you can see how it would add up quickly.
Of course, this time is already built into the flight. Everyone has to sit down, and you're likely not going anywhere until you were scheduled to leave anyways, so hurrying people up here, while it would be nice, doesn't really gain you anything. The big win is in "deplaning", or, as I like to call it, "getting off of the plane."
I've never understood why it takes so long to empty a plane. You get up. You grab your stuff. Maybe you can't move into the aisle, but you certainly can be ready to go. This should all be done between the time the seatbelt light goes off (unless you're like me and just take the darn thing off as soon as you land) and when the door is actually opened. Usually this is at least a minute or two.
Once again, though, people dawdle. And in this case, unlike getting on the plane, no one can get off the plane until you do. People are shouting back and forth, placing cell phone calls, going against traffic to get the bag they had to cram in the way back of the plane because it was too darn big to fit anywhere else, etc.
In this case, though, delays have a much worse cumulative effect. Let's approximate 120 people on the plane, and that each person takes just 10 seconds longer to get off the plane than they should. It is a faster process than getting on the plane, after all. Add up 10 seconds over 120 people and that's just 20 minutes total. But not really. It's actually only 10 seconds for the first person, but 20 minutes for the last person. On average, it's 10 minutes per person wasted. 120 people * 10 minutes = 1200 person-minutes = 20 person-hours. Thrown out the window. Think about what you could do in 20 hours. And every flight wastes that amount of time. Just because people don't think.
I'm probably less tolerant than I should be of slow people, but my tolerance is a direct inverse of the total number of people waiting for said slow person. So if it's just a slow person at the checkout line in the supermarket, and they take an extra minute or two because they insist on paying in nickels, then ok, I'm annoyed, but it's just a minute or two. I don't really have anywhere THAT important to be. Go on, pay with your nickels. But if you're holding up a line of 100, well, sirree, you better have something really important to do. If we could only channel the cumulative frustration into one giant expletive, maybe it would help these people realize their thoughtlessness.
So, all I ask is that the next time you fly on a plane, optimize! Plan ahead! Put all the crap you need into one bag and shove it under your seat. Take your coat off ahead of time. Take the crap out of the coat pockets. Don't carry on stuff that won't fit in the bins without a crowbar, or that you can't lift without dropping on your head and critically injuring yourself. Do it for me. Do it for all of the other people in line behind you. Do it for all of humanity. Those 20 person-hours could be the 20 person-hours that cure cancer.
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