A Reddit user sparked a debate on deplaning etiquette after asking if it was wrong to take his or her backpack and get in line before others after a recent airline flight.
“AITA for getting up and lining up to exit the airplane before the people in front of me got up?” asked the Redditor, who did not specify his or her age, location or gender in the March 15 post on the “Am I the A—–e” (AITA) subreddit.
In the post, the individual explained that his or her Southwest flight — with no assigned seats — had landed, and he or she had been sitting “toward the very back of the plane.”
The Reddit user said, “People at the front got up to get ready, but no one in the middle section got up.”
The poster continued, “I was in the aisle seat and I only had a backpack, so I took the opportunity and walked to the front of the plane to line up behind the people in the very front.”
While waiting to get off the plane, other passengers took notice of the actions, the Redditor said.
“The person sitting in the seat next to where I was standing asked me, ‘Have the rules changed?’ and I pretended not to hear him because I had headphones on and I didn’t say anything to him,” the original Reddit poster wrote.
The passenger then said, “Why don’t you go back … and wait like everyone else” — to which the Reddit user reportedly did not respond.
“There was a lady behind me who said she needed to catch her connecting flight that was already boarding,” wrote the user.
The [passenger] then said, ‘Well, the rules haven’t changed but if you want to be a jerk, go ahead.’”
The Reddit user conceded that “the lady who had the connecting flight definitely had a valid reason to ‘cut’ in line,” but was confused as to whether there was a “rule” about the order of passengers getting off a plane.
“I don’t think I did anything wrong, because everyone who I ‘skipped’ could have gotten up and waited in the aisle, so AITA here?” the user asked others on the Reddit platform.
In an edit to the post, the Reddit user confirmed the plane had stopped at the gate, the seatbelt sign was off and the jet bridge had been connected to the plane.
Fox News Digital reached out to an etiquette expert for comment.
On the AITA subreddit, people on Reddit can reply to posts and indicate the poster is “NTA” (“Not the A—–e”), “YTA” (“You’re the A—–e”), “NAH” (“No A—–e Here”) or “ESH” (“Everyone Sucks Here”).
Users can “upvote” responses they think are helpful and “downvote” ones that are not.
Unlike many AITA posts, where other Reddit users are mostly in agreement on whether the original poster was in the wrong or in the right, there was a heated debate in the nearly 2,500 replies.
The top-upvoted comment declared that the Reddit user was “YTA,” and said that the Reddit user should have waited for others to get off before lining up to deplane.
“What is it with people who stand up the minute the plane comes to a stop. You’re not going anywhere anyway,” wrote “MaggieMae68” in the top comment.
Another user said people who behave like the original poster “are either uneducated or don’t fly often,” or “are just rude.”
Other commenters defended the user, saying there was no established “rule” regarding getting off the plane.
“NTA. If the aisle was clear and you were ready to go, you didn’t prevent anyone from getting off,” said Reddit user “WinginVegas.”
That commenter continued, “If they know there are tight connections, [pilots or staff] will usually make an announcement asking people to remain seated to allow those passengers to deplane first. However, if that isn’t the situation, then unless you are blocking others, [the original poster] was fine.”
“I have over one million air miles and this isn’t a ‘rule’ anywhere,” said WinginVegas.
Another user said it was fine because the original poster was not getting anything from the overhead bin and was ready to get off the plane.
“You absolutely can get up and head on out,” said Glass_Bar_9956.
“The ‘rule’ is an unspoken social order of merging,” that poster wrote.
“But really it’s based on efficiency. And if you can get up and walk out without obstructing anyone, that’s great.”
It would be different, said Glass_Bar_9956, if the original poster had things in the overhead bin ahead of where they were sitting.
“Rule breakers are the ones that have their stuff in the overhead bin ahead of their seat row, and get out and obstruct people ahead of them from being able to exit,” the person wrote.
“What you did [was] not a violation.”