Why Airlines Use the Word ‘Deplane’

Seven hours in this awful seat and the flight is almost over. The airplane’s landed, taxied to the terminal and I’m so close to stretching my legs I can almost feel them.

That’s when the stewardess says, "You are about to Deplane." And the crowd goes wild. None of us have used that word in our entire lives, but at that moment we all know exactly what it means, and we crave it.

Drooling in anticipation, though the aircraft doors are still closed, we claw at each other to cram into the aisle. Magically, we’ve forgotten the egregious personal violations, loudspeakers, posted notices and transportation authorities which have for the past seven hours accustomed us to the rites of airline passage.

Though I had once arrived at an airport a Person, I board this aircraft a Passenger.

If it’s acceptable for someone so official as an airline to make up a word as silly as Deplane to erase our memory of their transgression, I believe it’s necessary to define an antonym that embodies all the stuff they want us to forget about. That word is Implane.

See: Implane on Etymolution.com