At first it sounds like a typical case of bad behavior aboard airplanes.

The Mexico City International Airport acknowledged in a statement Friday that a man had opened an emergency exit and walked out on a wing of a plane that was parked and waiting for takeoff Thursday.

The airport said the man had been turned over to police.

But dozens of fellow passengers signed a written copy of a statement saying the airline made them wait for four hours without ventilation or water while the flight was delayed. According to photos of the statement posted online, fellow passengers said he acted “to protect everyone, with the support of everyone.”

  • Furbag@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I’ll never ever understand why they do not simply let the passengers deboard the aircraft, nor why consumers put up with this kind of shoddy treatment. The terminal is right there. Let the people wait out whatever bad weather or maintenance issue the airline is having in the comfort of the terminal.

    To demand anything less is simply a failure in logistics. The customer should never have to sit on a plane for any longer than an hour without it taking off once boarding is complete and the doors are sealed.

    I always told myself I’d be the guy to do this if I ever found myself in a similar situation. To be honest, I’m not sure I could go for nearly 5 hours without the plane taxiing. 3 hours would probably be my limit before I decided it would be preferable to spend my time in a jail cell rather than an airplane.

    • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      What I’m wondering is what they’d do if you told the flight attendant you’re having chest pains and a shooting pain in your left arm. They’re not going to want to hold a person on board who may require emergency medical treatment. You might not make it back on board that particular flight, but with that kind of delay I’d probably just rather rebook anyway.

      • Hazor@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Yeah, they’d take the plane straight back to a gate and pass you off to EMS. And then leave without you.

        • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          If they have a six hour delay, I probably have some padding in that timeline. They’d hook me up and say “It’s just a panic attack, here’s some O2” and send me on my way. Then I’m either getting back on the plane, rescheduling with the ticket desk, or hitting up a bar and heading home until tomorrow.

      • wagoner@infosec.pub
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        9 months ago

        Based on personal experience, they take you off the plane to a medical team who will evaluate you, run an EKG for example. They can refuse to let you board another flight depending on their evaluation.

    • wagoner@infosec.pub
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      9 months ago

      The worst is when you fall asleep on the plane for ages, wake up in your seat, and they still haven’t taken off.

    • fidodo@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s more work for them and I guess more work costs them more money?

      • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        I’m not sure why deplaning passengers would cost more money. The flight crew and terminal operators are still working throughout the period. The one thing I can see oosssibly causing an issue is going back to the terminal and u loading the luggage, but it literally happens every day. I can’t see it taking more than about 30 minutes based on my experiences.

        • fidodo@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          The staff that was boarding the plane may be working on boarding other planes now. The gate may no longer be available and taking one may require coordination with another plane and that could also cause delays to the other plane. The ground staff needed to get the plane to the gate would be needed again. There’s plenty of staff that’s not in the plane that’s needed that are probably busy working on other planes.

          • astral_avocado@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Let them out in a designated area next to the plane, I’ve been deboarded outside the terminal before, just walked down steps right onto the tarmac.

        • olympicyes@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I took a flight from Miami to LA. A bachelorette in the back of the plane had a panic attack (alcohol may or may not have been involved) and we had to stop in Austin to drop her off. I can’t imagine what it cost to do that or what consequence she may have suffered. Traveling is stressful for everyone but starting out with a four hour unexplained wait had to be unbearable.

    • Elric@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      If the passengers disembark the airlines have to pay more money to the airport authority so they keep everyone on board to save money. They only car about how much money they can extract from passengers not their comfort.

    • 100_percent_a_bot@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Talking completely out of my rear end here but whenever something like that happens it is usually a liability issue. Neither the airline - let alone the crew want passengers anywhere outside their plane after boarding. There’s a billion things that could go wrong if they left the plane. The crew could have likely fixed the issue with free drinks or something like that but then again, liability…

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Deboarding happens all the time. Passengers board, malfunction detected, everyone is taken off the plane. There is absolutely no liability to deboarding.

        The only issue was some manager’s bonus was at risk if they didn’t have 100% departures.

        • 100_percent_a_bot@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          It seems a bit odd to me that the crew would stick up for some manager this much. Especially since the plane did not depart in time either way. I’m leaning towards something going wrong with the communication between the airport and crew, resulting in them having no permission to deboard the plane but your guess is as good as mine.