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Comment by snarf21 | Hacker News Reader

Huh, I've always found deplaning fast except in the case of the person who's overhead is three rows back. There are ways to make it all faster but require some systemic changes to how we travel.

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I've been on flights where the attendant comes on and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, several passengers have connecting flights that they are in danger of missing. When we reach the gate, please let these passengers to the front of the plane." As soon as we're at the gate and parked, the seatbelt light goes off and every-freaking-body stands up in the aisles. Animals.

I've had this happen after landing due to a medical emergency. Please remain seated so that the medical personnel can get to the patient. This after a high speed decent with speed brakes on the whole way down. And still, everyone stands up. We weren't even at the gate, they had brought stairs to the back of the plane along with the emergency vehicle(s).

I wish airlines and airports would work at getting the checked bags off the damn plane faster. Whenever I check a bag I could have carried on, it feels like I'm being punished for it, as inevitably it comes out 1 minute after the every-30-minutes train departs.

I just wish they would reverse the trend of making checking luggage so damn expensive - once upon a time people most people didn't have wheely bags and it was much less unpleasant to board a plane.

Now a-days a lot of travelers will try and cram their entire luggage into a single wheely bag that they struggle to lift into the overhead bin.

Which slows down the boarding process, if anything they should be charging more for carry on board vs checked, it slows security too.

And also theoretically lowers the efficacy of the security - the bags we carry onto planes go through relatively weak scanners compared to the crazy ones they've got for checked luggage - it's why sending most film through the carry on scanners isn't a problem, while the checked scanners will distort even quite insensitive mediums - it's best to try and get it searched by hand though, if it's important to you.

> if anything they should be charging more for carry on board vs checked

Ryanair does that now.

I tend to side with the parent that it's more about the extra time than the extra money. Most of us who travel a lot get free checked bags with status on our preferred carrier or can usually expense the fee in any case. It's the waiting 30 minutes that's the issue. (Also reduced flexibility if travel goes sideways for some reason.)

This is very airline/airport dependent. I used to marvel at how fast my bags arrived at ABIA. Then I stopped flying for a while and when I resumed it seems like my bags would take nearly an hour. At first I thought it was some kind of additional security/whatever, but then I noticed that Southwest passengers that were deplaning at the same time I was would have their bags at the claim by the time they got there, while I would end up waiting 30+ mins for bags from my AA flights.

I started to pay more attention, and am 100% sure at least between AA and SW, it literally takes AA 4-5x longer at the same airport vs SW.

Fast turnarounds is actually a big part of Southwest's business model

Alaska Airlines has a 20 minute guarantee for bags; essentially, they promise to have your bag out and on the carousel within 20 minutes of the plane making it to the terminal. In practice this means (at most airports) that your bags arrive within a few minutes of you deplaning, using the restroom, and making your way to the baggage claim.

I've only been failed by them once, and they gave me a hundred bucks for the hassle ($50 per bag). Not a bad setup.

Supposedly masking this is part of how some airports are designed. They make you walk farther than you'd strictly have to, so that there's more time for baggage to get to baggage claim while you're walking.

Every sales person I've met knows never to check-in luggage, because it can range anywhere from 15 min to hours before you get bag back. It's just totally unreliable. A distribution of course, probably hanging closer to 15-30 min, but do enough flights and you'll always get bit by that tail..

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