Man Who Spent Two Hours on Tarmac Heroically Attempts to Exit Plane Three People Sooner

In an act of breathtaking bravery and civic selflessness, businessman Skip Rowe, 42, made a bold bid to shave 11 seconds off his deplaning time by squeezing past three other passengers on a United flight that had just completed a two-hour tarmac delay.

“I’m so sorry, just that I’ve got a meeting I’m late for,” said Rowe, as he hovered inches from a woman still bent over and trying to grab her laptop from under seat 17D. “If I could just squeeze by, I’d really appreciate it.” The rest of the plane seemed to have accepted their situation, but Rowe’s insistence told a different story.

Eyewitnesses report that Rowe, seated in 21B, leapt up the moment the plane touched the gate, and immediately began executing a stealthy side-shuffle, muttering non-apologies while brandishing a Bluetooth headset and the urgency of someone whose meeting might one day save a small village.

“You would have thought that maybe he was a trauma surgeon,” said seatmate Elle DePlane. “Then I saw he opened Slack and wrote ‘we’ll have to triage and circle back in Q3,’ so yeah, definitely a hero.”

Other passengers say they could tell Rowe was going to make his attempt by the way he began strategically positioning his carry-on and checking his phone every 30 seconds during the final descent. “He traveled about seven feet before being stonewalled by a grandma in orthopedic sandals who refused to make eye contact,” said one passenger.

Rowe, still confident in his decision, said he “made the best of a tough situation,” and would “totally do it again.” He was later spotted waiting for his gate-checked bag, attempting to time his Uber order to arrive precisely when he exited the terminal.