Why not to be the first person off the plane in Nigeria

by | Nov 6, 2008


Fantastic:

This morning, at the airport in Brussels, I was chatting with a retired Scottish aid worker.  He told about his friend who got on a flight in Lagos to find it completely full…plus one.  One person was standing in the aisle with no seat.  The flight attendants went through and checked that everyone had a boarding pass, which they did.  (Apparently someone had a forged pass; welcome to Lagos.)  The staff then made an announcement that everyone was going to de-plane and that they were going to check everyone’s boarding pass carefully. 

As soon as the first person stepped off the plane, the staff slammed and locked the airplane door, despite the person’s cries and banging on the door.  Problem solved.

Via Chris Blattman.

Author

  • Alex Evans is founder of Larger Us, which explores how we can use psychology to reduce political tribalism and polarisation, a senior fellow at New York University, and author of The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough? (Penguin, 2017). He is a former Campaign Director of the 50 million member global citizen’s movement Avaaz, special adviser to two UK Cabinet Ministers, climate expert in the UN Secretary-General’s office, and was Research Director for the Business Commission on Sustainable Development. Alex lives with his wife and two children in Yorkshire.


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