Passenger's plane etiquette sparks furious debate over whether it’s a flight ‘rule’ to wait when plane lands

When it comes to travelling by air, there are some unofficial rules which passengers are probably best off following. The only problem is not everyone is on the same page about what's good and what's not.

If a passenger comes up to you on the plane and asks you to switch places apparently etiquette dictates that unless it allows a parent or guardian to sit with their child then your buttocks should remain firmly planted in your seat.

The middle seat armrests both belong to the person in the middle as recompense for not getting a window seat, having to awkwardly past other people to get up and getting sandwiched in between other people.

If you've got to answer the call of nature then the times to avoid are right before take-off and just before landing for obvious reasons.

While it's not a titbit of etiquette, you're also advised to avoid wearing shorts on a plane because that's just more uncovered skin to get coated in germs.

As for this particular pickle one passenger found themselves in, it's all to do with the moment the plane has landed and it's time to disembark.

robertharding/Alamy Stock Photo

Taking to Reddit, they explained that they'd been sitting near the back of a flight and when the moment came to get off the plane the people at the front stood up and disembarked first.

So far, so sensible, but then nobody in the middle was getting up yet to leave so our debate-sparking passenger figured that they might as well head out as they were travelling light and had just a backpack.

Getting out of their seat and joining the queue of people who'd been sitting at the front and were about to get off the plane, they were then told to 'go back to the back and wait like everyone else'.

They were branded a 'jerk' and accused of cutting into the line, but they wanted to know what others thought of getting into the queue when nobody else was joining so threw the situation out to the internet.

This one caused a bit of disagreement over what the right thing to do was, as one of the most popular responses told them to 'sit your f**kin' ass down and wait' so that people sitting ahead of them could clear out first.

Hanna Kuprevich/Alamy Stock Photo

Someone else said 'by manners it should be row by row' and another said the proper etiquette was to 'wait in your seats while the rows in front of you disembark'.

Some said that if more passengers sitting near the back had acted like them then it'd have caused chaos, so one person joining the line might not hold things up but loads of people doing the same thing would cause chaos, hence the need to wait.

However, others pointed out that according to the passenger's story nobody in the middle section got up to disembark the plane, so 'who cares'.

Another said they 'didn't prevent anyone from getting off' the plane so they shouldn't feel bad about it, while a third argued that 'if you're ready to go, get off the plane'.

Topics: Travel, Plane Etiquette

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker