Bin There, Done That — Boarding an airplane these days takes longer than some of the flights.
I’m not talking about the TSA cavity searches or nude photography (Pardon. I mean body-scan imaging). I’m referring to how long it takes to find a seat while people attempt to shove vanloads of clothing into the plane’s overhead storage bins.
On a recent trip to Austin, which they keep in Texas — and about which I’ll have more to say this week — we managed to score pretty good pole positions in the Southwest Airlines boarding queue: A-33 and A-34. But as we left the terminal and walked down the corridor to the plane, human traffic started to back up worse than an I-80 commute from Sacramento to Roseville at 5 p.m.
The reason, of course, is that the people who preceded us, already on the plane, had chosen seats in the first few aisles of the plane, presumably so they could land in Austin earlier than we would. In so doing, they brought the boarding procedure to a standstill as they jammed what looked like steamer trunks into bins capable of holding at most a tote, a briefcase and an undernourished cat.
There’s a remedy for this madness, and I hope someone at Southwest is not only listening but also knows someone on the Nobel Peace Prize committee. I’d even settle for a MacArthur Foundation genius grant.
Why can’t Southwest simply have passengers enter from the rear of the plane? They could rush down the aisle and still grab the front seats — but they’d schlep their luggage with them and bother no one as they fumbled, heaved and exhorted their “carry-ons” to fit in the storage bins.
I know what you’re thinking: What about those people who board early so they can claim seats toward the middle or even back of the plane? Wouldn’t they cause the same pile-up whether they entered from the front or back?
No. Not if the airlines would tell them to sit the hell down, shut the hell up and start checking their stupid bags curbside.
Why do the skies have to be so friendly, anyway?