I was flying from New Delhi to Kolkata. I was sitting on the aisle seat for a change. I didn’t want to pay extra for a window seat and since it was a late night flight, there wasn’t anything to look outside the window. Since I had the aisle seat, I boarded the flight after most of the passengers had boarded so that I didn’t have to move if the passengers in the window and middle seat arrived after me.
It was an uneventful journey. The flight landed and soon as it stopped on the tarmac, the clacking sound of seat belts engulfed the entire cabin and people got up from their seats. The cabin crew requested the passenger to be seated but nobody cared about it. They were already in the process of getting their bags from the overhead bins. Soon, the aisle got blocked with passengers queuing up to deboard.
Just then, the passengers on my left who were in the middle seat and the window seat asked me to give way so that they could get their bags and join the queue on the aisle.
There was no space to get out. People were standing next to me and I don’t understand what’s the hurry to deboard the aircraft! It’s better to remain seated than block the aisle like school kids queueing up to leave after school gets over. There’s no point in queuing up; you are not going anywhere. Yet they stand like this for 10 minutes before the aircraft’s door opens.
Strangely, I have seen this behaviour only with Indians. Citizens of other nations hardly do this. On my international flights, I have seen very few people get up as soon as the flight lands. Even on those flights, one can easily make out from their faces that the ones who get up are mostly Indians. The basic aviation guideline is to remain seated till the gate opens and after that, you are supposed to exit row-wise. I wonder what these people will do in case some Indian airline is required to do an emergency evacuation. Everyone will block the aisle to get to the emergency exits first and nobody will be able to get out ultimately.