Getting off a 737 takes about a minute and a half, plus 20 seconds a row

From the door opening, row 25 of a 737-800 usually steps off about 9.5 minutes later. The old rule of 30 seconds a row says 12.5.

A better rule for a full narrowbody is about a minute and a half, plus 20 seconds a row. That’s modelled, and tested against 30 timed flights.

The rule of thumb runs long at the back

Those are minutes from door open, on a 737-800 about 82% full. The two lines cross near row 8. In front of that the old rule is a little short. Behind it, the rule runs long, by 3 minutes at row 25.

An A320 lands in the same place, at 3.0, 6.3 and 9.6 minutes for those rows.

Count rows from the front

What matters is the number of seats ahead of you, and ticket row numbers can skip. On one flight in the test set, row 27 on the ticket was the 15th row of the cabin.

The cabin layout moves it as well. At row 25, Southwest’s all-economy 737 runs about 10.1 minutes against 9.5 on a 737 with first class. JetBlue’s A320 runs about 10.3 against 9.6.

Your seat matters less than your row

At row 25, an aisle seat saves about a minute over a window. At row 5 it saves about half a minute. A middle seat is almost the same as a window.

Your own overhead bag comes out near zero, because you’re in a queue anyway. Treat that as a floor. The simulation puts every bag right at your row, and in practice some sit several rows behind.

A fuller flight costs more. At row 25, a flight 90% full adds about 0.9 minutes over 82%, and one 70% full saves about 1.4. Southwest flew about 75% full over the past year and Delta about 83%, so the same seat can differ by a minute from load alone.

A second open door would save about 5.7 minutes at the back of a narrowbody, but US flights rarely use one at a jet bridge.

How this was made

The model is a simulation of a cabin, one passenger at a time: who stands, who waits, who blocks the aisle. It runs on public timing studies and yearly load figures by airline. A short formula fitted to the simulation gives the numbers here.

I tested it on 30 real flights timed by one traveller. It missed by 0.88 minutes on average, against 1.13 for 30 seconds a row, and 83% of flights fell inside its early-to-late range.

What this can’t tell you

A straight line through those 30 flights does about as well as the simulation, so the test doesn’t prove the extra machinery is right. What the simulation adds is the effects of load and seat, and those rest on the simulation being sound.

One traveller timed all 30 flights, in 2016 to 2018, mostly from a middle seat. Nothing in the set is forward of row 7, so row 5 is an extrapolation.

Widebody and regional numbers aren’t tested at all, so they aren’t on this page.

American and United cabin maps aren’t available row by row, so on those airlines the row-to-seats step is rougher.

It doesn’t cover wheelchair assistance, gate-checked bags, stairs or buses at a remote stand. Behaviour since 2020 is unknown, and nothing here measures who stands up early.

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