The Seven Habits of Highly Annoying Travelers
Do you want to be as annoying as possible on your next flight? Here’s what to do!
Photo by David Farley
Why does it seem that people automatically lose 25 IQ points the second they step on an airplane? That, combined with the fact that some people’s feelings of entitlement elevate to the stratosphere when it comes to flying. Dumb and entitled: It’s a marriage made in disaster. No matter how often the flight attendant asks us to please stand in your row when putting your bag in the overhead compartment so as to speed up the boarding process, we still dawdle there like a stalled Ford Taurus in the middle of the 101 freeway in LA traffic at rush hour. That is among a legion of lapses that occur on flights. Once we’re 35,000 feet in the sky, we relinquish decorum and decency, letting the most barbaric instincts of human nature take over the control wheel.
We like to lament that flying isn’t what it used to be. We’re nostalgic for that so-called “golden age” of flight, a time when only elitists were able to fly. But now that flying is accessible to a huge swath of the human population, the experience feels vaguely inhumane. And it might not be an accident: I suspect airlines have rigged the flying experience to bring out the worst in us, pitting passenger against passenger instead of uniting against the airlines themselves. We’ve managed to learn how to fly; we could easily manage how to solve the seat-reclining issue. In the last two years, flight rage has become commonplace. A recent episode in which a man was captured on camera punching the seat in front of him because the female passenger had reclined her seat underscores our need for civility in the air. The airlines aren’t doing us any favors, so let’s try to resist the urge to punch other passengers. Here are seven annoying habits on flights that we should be more mindful of in the future.
1) Lift Off!
Let’s say you’re on a long-haul flight. And let’s also say you finally achieved dreamland in your basic economy/peasant-class seat. And then suddenly you’re jarred awake by a violent rocking of your headrest. Is the plane spiraling downward, about to burst into a fiery miasma of death and destruction? Nope, it’s just the guy behind you deciding to use the back of your seat to achieve his own personal liftoff. When we’re sitting on our couches and armchairs at home, we don’t have something in front of us in which to help lift our bodies. So why do it when you’re on an airplane? Do everyone a favor: the only way you should be touching the seatback in front of you is to use the touchscreen to turn off that bad rom-com you’ve been watching.
2) Up For Grabs
On a related note, is it really necessary to latch on to the top of every seat as you’re walking down the aisle? Apparently, for some people it is. For the rest of us, sleeping and awake, we get an unwelcome and unnecessary jolt. Pro tip: if you need balance, use the closed overhead bins for support as you waddle down the aisle to the bathroom.
3) Space Invaders
This is a passionate in-air topic. There seem to be two types of fliers: those who unforgivably recline and those who hate them. I’ve had a drink spill on my lap because the person in front of me reclined so abruptly that the glass flew off my tray into my lap. I’m squarely in the anti-reclining camp. It doesn’t help that I’m over six feet tall and so any space in my economy seat is precious. Fights have broken out on planes because of this issue. Airlines could probably do us all a favor and seriously limit the amount passengers can recline.
4) Ride and Groom
In April 2018 on a United flight from Mexico City to New York City, a woman across the aisle from me spent the better part of the flight picking dried skin off of her bare feet. Worse, she would then cluelessly and carelessly flick the flake of skin in any and every direction. A few times, a flake of dried skin landed on my lap. Most of the time, though, the skin flakes fell on the floor in the aisle. By the time we were beginning our descent into JFK, there was a small pile of snowflake-looking skin between us. I can’t believe I have to say this, but … if you take your shoes off on a flight, please wear socks and don’t pick off the peeling skin.
5) Buh-Bye
The person who thinks up a better, quicker, more efficient strategy for getting on and getting off an airplane should get a Nobel prize. After a long-haul flight, the plane lands, the jetway is connected, and the door is pried open. Everyone wants to get off the plane as soon as possible. Well, not everyone. There are always a few people who take their sweet time getting their over-sized bag from the overhead compartment, slowly bend down to pull up the handle, and then slowly turn around to start slowly ambling down the aisle. To these people: know that everyone you’re delaying is quietly cursing you. Here’s something that may help the herd of slow-deplaning people: I once met someone who works for Qantas Airlines and he said when a flight lands in Sydney from, say, Los Angeles or San Francisco, the gate crew draw straws about who gets the dirty deed of opening up the jet door and stepping onto the aircraft to make the “welcome to Sydney” announcement to the passengers, only to be hit by a wave of putrid stench—the result of 15 infested hours of farts swirling in the cabin, being recirculated through our own respiratory systems. The plane cabin becomes a traveling airborne barn. If that doesn’t make you want to get off the plane faster, nothing will.
6) The Clap
In a 2013 Saturday Night Live skit, Tina Fey is playing an airport gate agent announcing the boarding categories of passengers. They first call boarding for parents traveling with small children, first-class passengers, and “all foreign passengers who have not yet been called to ignore us and try boarding anyway.” (i.e. “once again, we’re asking all Brazilian and Italian passengers to begin pushing and shouting and selectively understanding English to board now”). And then it was time to board the next group: "people who clap when then the plane has landed." Fey then adds, "We will not board you because what you do is stupid." She’s right. People who clap, I have some questions: Why? Who are you clapping for? The pilot? Your mortality? Do you also clap when you arrive at your destination via car and train?
7) High on the Hog
Because space in economy is so precious—see number three, above—people who are not mindful of said space are annoying travelers. This means allowing the person next to you to have some armrests (especially for the person in the dreaded middle seat). It also means not taking someone’s space in the overhead bin in the front of the plane when you’re sitting near the back.