I hadn't flown in several years and was recently surprised at how lackadaisical passengers were in exiting the aircraft. This applied to four segments, at both a hub and leaf airports.

What I expected: The seat belt sign would ding off, aisle passengers would jump up and retrieve their bags, and wait in the aisle. If a gap opened up, they'd move forward, possibly past middle and window pax that are slow to get their stuff together. It was a 33 row single aisle aircraft so I did expect some portion of the rear to remain seated for a little bit.

What happened: I watched a wave slowly move back through the aircraft. As row N is starting to make their way out the aisle, row N+1 would be standing and getting their bags down. Row N+2 and back would remain seated - even the aisle pax in N+2! This ultimately created plenty of gaps in the people exiting the aircraft.

I was a "window" nearly in the last row. I expected my "aisle" to get up immediately upon the ding, allowing the "middle" to move over to the aisle seat. This would give me space to get my bag out from under the seat and take care of a few tasks. In the end, because there was more gap than passengers, I got to walk off the aircraft so fast I was concerned I might trip on an errant object.