That's one way to beat the crowds.
The holidays are obviously a stressful time and travel can be one of the biggest challenges facing so many of us.
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Over 55 million people were expected to travel 50 miles or more from during the Thanksgiving holiday travel period, the American Automobile Association said, and not all these stories can have a happy ending.
Take the case of a man onboard a Southwest Airlines (LUV) -) flight at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on Nov. 26.
At least, he was onboard the flight until things reportedly went south on Southwest.
Officials said the man opened the over-wing emergency exit door, jumped down off the plane, and ran across the tarmac in an attempt to drive away in a service truck before being stopped by authorities.
The plane was still parked at the terminal and had yet to push back from the gate for takeoff at the time of the incident.
Video footage posted on X, formerly Twitter, shows confused and concerned passengers getting off the plane.
'They got him!'
"What happened?" one passenger asks.
"He jumped off the plane," is the response.
The footage continues as passengers enter the terminal where a man can been seen through a window entering the truck before being pulled out of the vehicle and restrained on the ground.
"There he is, there he is," a passenger says. "They got him. Thank God."
A Southwest spokesperson told Newsweek that "we commend our flight and ground crews for their swift action and apologize to our customers for their inconvenience."
"There was an incident yesterday evening involving a Southwest Airlines passenger's unauthorized deplaning of the aircraft," airport officials said. "Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office responded to the incident."
The man, who has not been identified, was later escorted to a hospital for evaluation, according to WWL in New Orleans. The sheriff's department referred the case to federal authorities.
While these incidents are rare – we hope – this is not the only case of people taking extreme measures to deplane.
In July 2021 an American Airlines (AAL) -) passenger jumped out of a plane's emergency exit while it was still at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, N.C.
The flight to Baltimore had been cancelled due to severe weather after 172 passengers and six crew members boarded the plane.
Image source: Tim Boyle/Getty Images
Flight attendant incident
Instead of waiting for the jet bridge to be repositioned, a passenger opened the over-wing emergency exit and jumped onto the ramp, airline officials said. The passenger was "immediately detained" by airline employees.
And then there was the famous 2010 incident when Steven Slater, a former JetBlue (JBLU) -) attendant, quit his job in extremely dramatic style by sliding down his plane’s emergency-escape chute while the aircraft is stopped near the terminal gate at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Slater claimed his actions were prompted by the behavior of a rude passenger, although his account of the event was not corroborated by others who claimed he hip-checked the passenger.
The flight attendant got on the plane’s public address system, cursed at the passenger and said, “I’ve been in this business for twenty years. And that’s it. I’ve had it. I’m done.”
Afterward, he took two beers from the beverage cart, deployed the emergency exit and started down the slide.
Newspaper accounts said Slater had become a folk hero in some circles following his rather unique departure and one TV production company reportedly offered him a reality show.
Slater, who was facing charges of reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and criminal trespassing, agreed to plead guilty to two counts of attempted criminal mischief and was spared jail time.
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