Sean Bonner –

Last month landing in Munich on a stopover from Paris the pilot made an announcement as we were taxing to the gate. He said if we looked out the window we’d see several emergency vehicles heading towards the plane, that there was nothing to worry about but one of the passengers was having a medical emergency and the medics needed to get on the plane and help the person off and this needed to happen before anyone else could get off the plane. He asked everyone to please be considerate and remain in their seats once we pulled up to the gate, explicitly asking people not to stand up in the isles or start taking down suitcases because it would block the path, and the medics needed a clear path to get in and out. He said this should only take a few minutes and again asked everyone for their cooperation to help one of their fellow passengers. He thanked everyone, then repeated the request in German and French.

As soon as we got to the gate a guy stood up and opened an over head bin and pulled out his suitcase. He had headphones on and it was possible he didn’t hear the announcement, and a few of the people around him told him what was going on, and he paused for a moment. About 10 medical emergency workers rushed into the plane and down the aisle towards the middle of the plane and people stayed calmly in their seats… for about 30 seconds. Then they started getting up and getting their bags. Flight attendants started calling out asking people to stop and wait and these requests were largely ignored. People grabbed their bags and pushed into the aisle blocking the medical staff. The woman in the row behind us, who was in the window seat, told the people in the middle and aisle seats in her row to get out of her way, that she had a connecting flight and wasn’t going to wait any longer and pushed past them. Others did the same. The normal “wait my turn and get off when the line allows” method of plane disembarkment fell completely apart and became pushing shoving madness.

I watched from my seat as the flight attendants threw their hands up in frustration and forfeit. The medical team shook their heads in disgust. I have no idea what the medical emergency was, or if they were able to do anything to help or not, everyone kind of got lost in the crowd. I bright this up only because it was a pretty brutal display of how long people are willing to be inconvenienced for the benefit of a stranger. It’s less than a minute. If you have high hopes for the majority of people doing the right thing for everyone else, you are going to end up disappointed.