airscotia.
if you don't like the wording, imagine that the world does not revolve around you. it revolves around the lowest common denominator and is not so HIGH BROW as to provide entertainment for you.
Skyhigh, I'm afraid I can't understand your post at all. Can you clarify, please?
I think this thread highlights the fact that there's an inherent schism between the technical providers of air transport, and the commercial staff whose purpose is to sell the service profitably in a highly regulated environment full of competition. Both sides have different objectives and different constraints. The passenger becomes part of the battlefront.
Getting a passenger off a damaged plane is a requirement for the technical staff. However, the passenger may well consist of more than the body in a seat. A passenger shivering on the runway without vital medication, such as heart pills, insulin, steroids, asthma medicines, may rapidly become an emergency of a different kind - just one that's no longer the responsibility of pilots and cabin crew. A passenger separated permanently from identification documents, passport, medical prescriptions, may be more than slightly inconvenienced. In these situations, passengers have learned that no-one on the airline side takes much responsibility for them. This is not the passengers' fault.
Aviation professionals seem to think of evacuations as being the kind of thing they've taken part in as training exercises, with a lot of young, fit people moving purposefully for the exits to do something they've had a chance to practice before. In reality, a crash-landed plane is likely to contain a number of people who've been injured and can't move easily, elderly people who need help even to leave their seats, and large objects ejected from overhead lockers or ripped loose from the galleys. Given the narrowness of the aisle(s), it is likely that passengers will be stuck in place for a bit, waiting for a route to clear. If there isn't a smell of burning or kerosene, and the engines are off, and the plane isn't too far from horizontal, and you can't vacate the plane in the next ten seconds on account of injured people being helped, why wouldn't you take the five/six seconds to retrieve your bag/coat from the locker? Especially when you know the airline will do b*gger all to connect you with your belongings once you're off the plane.
Yes, it would be best if passengers got off the plane without delay. It would also be best if they got off the plane with vital pills and paperwork. Perhaps the industry should address some inconvenient truths?