Air passengers are endangering lives by retrieving bags and filming during emergencies instead of evacuating. The Iata has launched a campaign urging travelers to prioritize safety over luggage.
Air passengers are increasingly putting lives at risk by filming emergencies and retrieving bags instead of evacuating planes, industry experts have said, with some suggesting fines could be needed.
Passenger aircraft are designed to be fully evacuated in 90 seconds in an emergency – but people reaching for hand luggage can significantly increase that time, blocking exits and aisles as well as damaging slides or causing injury.
The global airlines body Iata has launched a safety campaign urging customers to “save a life, not a bag”after a number of evacuations have appeared on social media, filmed by passengers, some showing people carrying luggage from burning planes.
Nick Careen, the Iata senior vice-president for operations and security, said the first priority was to educate passengers that it was “most important to leave hand baggage behind. We need to drive the message home.”
Research on travellers in the UK, US, Singapore and UAE found that only 61% were aware of the rules.
“Four in 10 passengers don’t even realise it’s an expectation to leave their shit behind,” Careen said, speaking at the Iata annual meeting in Rio de Janeiro.
Asked if he favoured fines, Careen said: “Yes, if we could implement them. It could progress because there are regulators who favour it.”
He said airlines and manufacturers were not yet considering potential technical fixes such as automatically locking luggage bins. But Careen said: “Let’s start with education – then we’ll have to be a little bit more draconian, whether it be penalties or a lock on the overhead bin.”
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was seeing an increasing number of passengers not following flight crew instructions during emergencies. FAA administrator Bryan Bedford said: “In those moments, compliance is critical. Passengers must act quickly, follow instructions without hesitation, and leave all belongings behind.”
Ryanair passengers were evacuated from a plane at Palma airport in Mallorca. Photograph: Twitter X
Evacuations are rare in aviation, with only an estimated 30 annually. Last year at least two-UK bound flights were evacuated on the tarmac before departure after suspicions of fire, with 18 passengers suffering minor injuries leaving a Ryanair plane at Palma airport last July. The evacuation was described as “utter carnage” by passengers.
Passengers retrieving bags during emergencies can block exits and aisles, significantly delaying evacuations and increasing the risk of injury.
The Iata's campaign, titled 'save a life, not a bag,' aims to educate passengers on the importance of leaving hand baggage behind during emergencies.
Passenger aircraft are designed to be fully evacuated in 90 seconds during an emergency.
Research found that only 61% of travelers in the UK, US, Singapore, and UAE were aware of the rules about leaving hand baggage behind during emergencies.
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Videos of similar events have provoked consternation, both at those stopping to film potentially disastrous events on smartphones and those seen carrying luggage off emergency slides.
Some aviation safety experts, however, suggested the response was understandable.
Brett Molesworth, the professor of human factors and aviation safety at the University of New South Wales, said that unfamiliar emergencies led to a “fight or flight” stress response, when only a minority of people act rationally. For about 75%, he said: “Their ability to process information is restricted. In those circumstances if they’ve got their bag in the overhead lockers they want to take it with them.”
Dr Levi Breeding, a senior auditor at United Airlines, said that while there might be “some disbelief and disconnection from the situation” in an emergency, too many in the TikTok generation “had an instinct to pull the phone out”, some potentially looking to make money from footage of a newsworthy event.
He added: “Every day is a struggle getting the message across … Our passengers don’t live in aviation safety every day like we do.”
Rachel Loudermilk, the managing director of inflight safety at Southwest Airlines, said cabin crew were having to learn to make passengers comply. She said: “Getting that mindset shift to flip the switch and now yell at them very directly in their face is tough, but that’s what we’re working on.”
She added: “There’s an inherent risk in aircraft – but nobody thinks that will happen to them. Or they think that they’ll be OK, even if they take a bag.”
Molesworth said Iata’s campaign featuring cartoon animals might struggle to cut through, as research showed that only about half of passengers who even watched safety videos took the information in.
Loudermilk concurred, but added: “We can’t lose customers, so we’ve got to figure out a way to show them reality without showing dead bodies.”
Willie Walsh, the outgoing director general of Iata, said he did not favour fines. But said he still vividly remembered the Manchester airport disaster in 1985, when 55 people died, mainly of toxic smoke inhalation after a botched evacuation. He said: “We don’t take decisions to evacuate aircraft lightly – so if does happen, get off.”
Flights to the Iata summit were provided by Iata and Latam airline