Airlines need to devise a quicker method of, in the parlance of flight attendants, deplaning. It’s ridiculous that you can cover 600 miles in an hour getting to your destination, then spend what invariably seems like another hour to cover the final 600 feet into the terminal.

These planes are built with at least four exits, if not more, yet we only use one. I believe that highway engineers were consulted on this phase of the operational design — deplaning always results in a bottleneck at the aircraft’s single exit. Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam is the only exception I’m aware of. It offers two exits for jumbo jets.

I submit that the airlines consider the following suggestions for speeding up the deplaning process:

• Give us the option of using the old-style stairway. Anything to get moving and not have to wait scrunched below the overhead compartment while our fellow passengers slowly single-file off the plane. Besides, the exercise would do us good.
• Use the emergency slides. This could even be fun. In fact, put Disney in charge of it. Make an E-ticket ride out of it and turn those rarely used expense items into profit centers. The flight attendants could sell the tickets along with cocktails. “Yes, I’ll have a G and T and one ticket for the Escape Chute. The plane arrives at the gate, the exit doors are thrown open, you jump on the slide and “Whoopee!” You’re off the plane and headed for a restroom you can actually turn around in. (As a bonus, you can have your picture taken and pay a ransom-like amount for the print.)

The airlines will claim safety concerns as a reason not to employ such sensible solutions, but that’s just a lame excuse. Even the pedestrian city bus has two exits. There’s no reason an airplane shouldn’t use two or three or even four exits, too. Why, it might even make air travel exciting again.

— RP