MovieChat Forums > Airplane! (1980) Discussion > The 'Gate-rushing' scene makes no sense

The 'Gate-rushing' scene makes no sense



Yeah, comedy and all, it's 'funny', but still.

First of all, that's not how gates work. The passengers do not have to catch any gate in a realtime manner - the landings and takeoffs are planned way in advance, the gates are announced sometimes even hours before the plane is actually at the gate, and regardless of what happens in the airfield / runways, the gate assignment doesn't change or switch, especially in real time.

Secondly, even if gates worked that way (which would ensure pure chaos and incredibly long, constant delays, massive injuries and probably riots), THAT plane isn't going to take off any time soon! Its landing gear is destroyed, causing it to slam onto the runway, causing who knows HOW massive structural damage, requiring probably weeks of not only repairs, but also damage assesment before it can be cleared safe, even if it was completely undamaged (which it logically can't be).

Not to mention the control panel is damaged among so many other things. THAT plane isn't going anywhere, so why would anyone be rushing to the 'same gate' that the plane is going to 'arrive at'?

Thirdly, that's not how RUNWAYS work, either - the plane lands WHEREVER, then taxiis from the runway to the gate, or wherever it's supposed to go, then it's going to be refueled, it's going to be rechecked, etc.

So even if the plane did land safely and completely without any damage, it would still have to be refueled, checked, cleared to be safe and so on. New pilots would have to be assigned and there would probably be many other planes way more ready to take off than THAT one. Why would anyone rush to a gate for a LANDING plane anyway, when there should be other, pre-assigned options?

Furthermore, this plane, even if everything went 100% perfectly, would STILL have to unload the current passengers before it can take any new ones, which would take a long time, so why would anyone rush from gate to another?

Then there's the whole 'this plane will be hijacked by the automatic pilot even though it has no landing gear and shouldn't be able to take off and shouldn't have enough fuel for much of a trip'-factor, which would make all the 'gate-rushing' unnecessary and nonsensical ANYWAY. If the automatic pilot in this plane can just hijack it that easily, this plane out of commission anyway until the problem is fixed.

No matter HOW you look at it, the whole 'gate-rushing' thing makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever. Gates are not determined by the touchdown, landing or stopping point of the plane on the RUNWAY (a completely separate place for taking off and landing, has nothing to do with gates, and a plane can taxi from any point of the runway to any gate anyway), so even though it's mildly funny, it's mostly frustrating as to how it makes no sense.

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I dunno , the last few times I've flown that number of the gate seems to be a last minute decision only announced about 30 mins before takeoff.

I dont know why that would be , possibly they made it a flexible / fluid thing so that if one plane is delayed it doesent hold another up.

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it is a satire movie. Nothing is to be taken seriously. Period.

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Surely, you can't be serious.

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