Yes, you should stand up when your plane lands
Timothy P. Carney
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Social media outlets allow for a lot of discussion about minor points of etiquette. Many of these discussions are fruitful, as they might make someone think about small deeds of kindness or small acts of selfishness that are too small to warrant a real-world discussion, but are big enough to affect someone’s day.
But there’s one bit of travel etiquette that has been spreading steadily online for five years that has become something of a mantra in recent months — and it’s stupid.
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It’s the notion that it’s bad to stand up once the plane lands. Buzzfeed even had an article headlined, “If You Stand In The Airplane Aisle As Soon As The Plane Lands, You Are Wrong.”
The objectors here think they’re preaching good behavior, but really, they are being inconsiderate.
To be considerate involves two things. First, there’s what a basketball player might call court sense or what a soccer player might call field awareness: knowing where other humans are relative to you and where they might be heading.
The second part of being considerate is empathy: thinking about what other people might want or need.
Combine these two, and you begin to change your actions so as to help others or at least minimize how much you inconvenience them.
A considerate person has her ATM card in her hand by the time she gets to the front of the ATM line, and when she’s using the machine, she concentrates on the screen rather than staring at the birds or the clouds. She might get her cash only 10 seconds sooner by being quick and prepared, but the person seventh in line might get his cash a minute earlier if everyone in front of him is prepared and quick. That might make the difference between catching the next bus or missing it.
This is why the standard objection to the immediate-standers is not only dumb, but self-damning.
The people making this objection literally only think, “What is in it for you if you stand?” They don’t think, “What behavior might help other people?”
So here’s why, when I have the aisle seat, I stand up right away and start gathering my stuff: Yes, it’s true that if you stand up once the “fasten seatbelt” sign turns off, you can’t go anywhere. BuzzFeed argues that this is why everyone should “wait until the doors have opened and it’s your turn to get up and gather your s***.”
But gathering your things ahead of time is actually the courteous thing to do.
You have downtime while the doors are closed, and if you’re standing, you can use that downtime to get your bag down from the overhead bin. Maybe this saves you only 10 seconds, but if every aisle-sitter did it (both sides of the aisle for 30 rows), then the last person on the plane will get off 10 minutes sooner.
And there’s more. When I stand up once the seatbelt sign goes off, I am often able to pass a backpack or jacket to my rowmate or even get the roller bag from above my seat down for the lady two rows ahead, who otherwise would be clogging up more of the lane when it was “her turn” to get up.
Another benefit to others is this: When I’m standing in the aisle, the middle-seat person, who just spent two hours with no elbow room, now has a little bit more space. If the sitters had their way, we’d all be crammed into the same square footage we were crammed in during takeoff and landing.
Courtesy and consideration are about thinking about how you can help others or at least avoid inconveniencing them. Too many of the social media scolds think only of themselves.