Victim of poor airplane etiquette? Share your horror stories here

Is the person sitting in the middle seat taking up both armrests? Is Seat 34C in the aisle with bags in hand before the plane connects to the jetway? Is the redeye talker giving you his life story while you try to sleep? We feel your pain and have found that ranting about it helps ease the tension. Don’t let it eat you alive, share your horror stories and pet peeves here.

If nothing else, you can help educate the “window-seat sitter” that she really should have an aisle seat if she is going to drink five cups of coffee on a three-hour flight.

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Remember, you may have to put up with some inconsiderate people, but at least you can take comfort that you didn’t pay premium prices for that plane ticket. You didn’t, did you?

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Comments

[Nancy]

I was flying from Fort Lauderdale to Virginia several years ago. The seating configuration had two seats by either side window and several seats in the center. I was by one of the windows and a female passenger plopped down beside me, placed her bags in front of her, not tucked safely under the seat as they were way too big, or overhead. That was not really the issue as a flight attendant could have asked her to store them properly. She then proceeded to open up a huge salad, pour some incredibly smelly dressing on it. This was exacerbated by the fact that we were stuck on the runway for about an hour and the cabin didn't cool down. Still this wasn't the worst part. She then proceeded to dilligently floss, sending leftover salad and plaque shrapnel flying. At this point I buried my face in my reading material to avoid being splattered and basically stayed there the rest of the flight. Still I'm not done. As we were exiting, she made a snide comment on how much she enjoyed talking to me during the flight.

My philosophy in flying is to be as invisible and unobtrusive to other passengers as possible. Certainly I have had many enjoyable and long conversations with seat mates, even gave them my book I had just finished reading. Offered to share gum, even held small children to assist if necessary. This woman belonged in the category of completely clueless.

[Dan]

Airplane etiquette is key to a comfortable flight. But there are many idiots who just don't get it. What bothers me the most are the people who choose a window seat, but get up two to three times during a short flight. A close second are the inconsiderate chumps who stand up as soon as the flight lands, standing in the aisle with their butts in your face. Chill out, people. It's at least five minutes before you unload.

[Anne]

This summer I was flying from LAX-Boston with my friend for our 26-year High School Reunion when halfway through the flight, someone very close to us had awfully bad gas! Even the flight attendent was quietly choking as he walked by and smiled to us as we were gasping for air with our noses in our shirts. This went on for so long that we even (loudly) asked the attendent "Will you please make an announcement: 'No farting in the cabin'"... Another sympathetic smile from the flight attendant. Well, I guess as long as you can laugh about it. But seriously, that is what the bathrooms are for!

[kiersten]

How can anyone have just ONE bad story? I have flown countless flights and have a list of pet peeves with crazy stories to go along with them ... I'd have to say that international flights tend to be the worst ...

- when you buy perfume midflight it should be totally forbidden to then open it and spray it on yourself and your stuffed animal!

- if you are a nervous traveller and you can feel your stomach flip-flopping during the turbulent descent, get your puke bag ready instead of waiting to projectile vomit onto the seat in front of you, thus spattering everyone in your vicinity especially if you only have one napkin with which to feebly wipe the dripping mess.

- airlines should dedicate aisles to travellers with small children/babies or have to have the consent of the adjacent passengers.

- why is it possible for the person in front of you to recline their chair to the point that no one in your aisle can pass by, or you can't get up out of your seat?

I could go on, really, but what's the point? ;-)

[Ilyse]

So what I want to know is what in someone's right mind makes it so they think it is okay to not shower for days and sit right next to you? Hello! Put on some deodorant for God's sake! I don't want to have to smell you and neither does anyone else!

[george]

I once sat next to a man with a hand held DVD player in which he was watching bestiality pornographic material right next to me. Even worse, a young boy was to the left of us both!

[Julia]

I was flying from Washington State back to my home in Boston, Massachusetts, two years ago. Why is it that I have to get stuck in the middle seat when the two people to my left and right are both on laptops at the same time? If you've ever flown economy class, you know very well that you have about three inches max. amount of personal space when the people around you are not doing anything. I didn't even have enough room to listen to my iPod. I couldn't even drink the free can of soda they gave me, not to mention the fact that the woman on my left was a buisiness woman actually DOING SOMETHING, and the jerk on my right is watching a movie on his laptop, even though he can see that I am straining just trying to sit up perfectly straight without leaning on one of them and trying not to fall asleep. And flying from Spokane to Boston? That's like the longest flight you could possibly take!

Eight hours into the flight and the guy does this huge sneeze, and was virtually blowing his nose in his hands after I insisted that I DID NOT have any Kleenex in my purse (Can you blame me? I had to sit up perfectly straight for three hours because he just HAD to watch his movie, and got up about four times after drinking like three beers, some of which he spilled on me). He did manage to get some (a lot) of mucus on my sweater, though.

Finally when we landed, I got up after the lady on my left went into the aisle, and the guy pushes his way right by me, which nearly crushed me, and proceeded to knock me down, ONTO THE FLOOR, and I was almost trampled by everyone else trying to get off the plane. And then he had the nerve to pretend to appologize to me when he saw my mother coming to help me up.

Take a lesson from this story and find it in your hearts to be a little more courteous and considerate when you fly, everyone. Bring your video iPods and some Kleenex the next time you fly to whereever you are going.

[Elias]

These days international flights have become worse than ever. Terrorism has really spoiled everything in flying. I bought a bottle of scotch whiskey at Kenya Airport and my big brother bought two bottles of African "Amarula" and a bottle of 18-year-old whiskey. There they said that if we are going to the European Union (EU) we have to put them in sealed bags. No harm done here, but in Amsterdam Schiphol airport, the security told us that no liquid can be brought outside the EU. They were bought at an airport for crying out loud! Doesn't anyone trust anyone anymore.

Well, it isn't the loss of the drinks which bugs me and my brother but it is the damned janitor who comes at the evening to empty the trash bin and finds all this and takes it home with him!

[Linda]

It's not so much the actual flights that bug me as the insufferable attitude of the security personnel in the airports! Yes, 9/11 was a horrifc thing and we should take reasonable steps to ensure safety in the skies. But, guess what? Airport security are not cops! Judging by the actions of some of these idiot savants, you'd think they were all five-star generals! It sometimes seems that the people doing this job simply couldn't get hired anywhere else. You are not superheroes. You are not the "thin blue line" between civilization and chaos. You're minimum-wage-earning, minimally trained people with one job to do. So stop ordering people around arrogantly and just do what you're supposed to do: quickly and competently check my belongings for explosives and let me be on my way. That's it. That's all. That's not too much to ask.

[Julia]

Oh, the security has become almost intolerable. At the airport before we left Spokane, I had to take off my metal necklace that spelled out my name to get through the metal detector. No biggie, but the guy who took it out of the plastic bin at the end looked at it before giving it back to me and said in an extremely rude and mocking voice while notioning to my necklace: "In case you forget who you are?"

I just stood there in shock for a few seconds before I pointed to his nametag and said: "What's that?" When he responded that it was his I.D., I duplicated his tone and said: "In case you forget what your job is?"

His expression dropped like a dead fly as I grabbed my necklace and walked away. I have taken to calling them "Air-Nazis," and apparently that guy should have stopped and looked at his I.D. before he came in to work.

[elise]

This was a few years ago, on a flight from Hong Kong to London. A middle-aged lady was sitting in front of me. She had her meal served before anyone else (special meal). She ate it while in full recline so in front of me. I was ok, as the regular meals had not been served yet.
So after 20 minutes or so, our meals were being served. When it came to my meal being handed to me, I asked the flight attendant if she could kindly ask the lady in front to move her seat back up, but the lady threw a fit and refused, saying she had a back problem, etc etc. This is while she had finished her meal! I was so mad, I refused to eat my meal!

I thought the flight attendant was being too weak, in not insisting the lady move her seat back up. Then to make matters worse, she kept her seat back the whole 12 hours! Worse flight of my life though I did constantly kick her seat to annoy her!

[Steve - LAX]

All the horror stories I've read appear to be from people who paid for an Economy-Class seat. It's really no different from a seat on a bus or subway. The airplane is just a big metal tube in the sky providing public transportation. For business and pleasure, I have taken literally hundreds of flights over the past three years. Never have any of the discomforts previously mentioned happened to me while in Business or First Class.

You usually only get the middle seat if you book a flight last minute. That's usually not the fault of the person sitting next to you. I've had the middle seat many times. On the few occasions the person next to me had the armrest, a simple "Do you mind if I use that armrest" has worked 100 percent of the time.

Don't be invisible! I always greet the person to either side of me right as I take my seat and as they get seated if they sit after I do. From their response I can gauge whether they have the potential to be a problem or not. It also lets them know that a real person is next to them, willing to engage. The psychological effect of the person verbally acknowledging you is disarming. How many flights have you been on where not a single word was said to the person next to you?

For the person who snores seated next to me, I just innocently bump them. If they don't wake, I shake them and wake them up. Ask them if they're ok. I tell them they were snoring so loud it sounded like they were choking. They're always apologetic and somewhat embarassed.

While it's against airline rules to use them, there are ruler-sized devices you can stick in the armrest to prevent the seat in front of you from reclining.

The only person to blame for an inconvenience is yourself if you're not assertive and firm with your fellow passengers. If you are polite yet firm in your desires you can just about get anyone to accommodate your requests.

[Michael Marciano]

One time, I was on a plane to Germany and this guy next to me was a PIG! The first thing he ate was a really big salad. Then like right after, he threw up and a chunk of tomato landed right in my hair! And when he was drinking his soda, it kept shaking in his hand. It spilled all over me! At this point I was pretty mad! I stood up and attempted to walk away. He purpously put out his foot and I had to get seven stiches! I could barely make it to Germany. When the man finally got off, he fought his way out first. Then when he opened the thing up top to get his luggage out, it all fell on me and my sister! That was what my plane ride was like.

[Marv - FL]

Great stories. Mine pales, but here goes: I have nothing against large people - coach seats are too small for normal humans anyway. Before departure I waited with an empty seat next to me, praying my usual "not him please ... no, not her please..." as people walked by my free space. Eventually a rather large person targeted the seat and began to squeeze into it. The compression process nearly complete, she proceeded to raise the armrest and spill over into my seat while saying "let's give us both some more room!" When I said I'd prefer it to stay down, she slammed it down and gave me an attitude for the entire flight. I'm sympathetic with the size issue, but you are not entitled to part of my seat to make up for it.

[Travis Sheppard]

Wow! My story is nowhere near as bad as the ones above me but I feel that people should hear my story anyways. I was on a flight from BWI to LAX ... an 8 1/2 hour ride! Now as everyone prayed for no delays and stuff, I was praying for no one to be seated beside me ... but the chance of that happening was very rare. I only fly with window seats. This is because if the plane I'm on decides to go down... I'm the person who likes to see where. But overall, I had a 30-year-old lady sit next to me, but I was pleased to have the window. We got off the runway fine, but I noticed that none of the flight attendents did their usual seatbelt routine although anyone with common sense could buckle a seat belt, you still would be curious as to why they didn't do it. I just disregarded this fact and the entire middle gap of the ride went fine until we were only an hour from LAX.

Major turbulence hit the plane, I bumped my head SO hard against the window, I swore I had a concussion! Don't the pilots have warning when stuff like this happens? Anyway, I just looked around and some people like me either hit their head or fell in the aisle. The pilot came over the speaker and stated that we were going to be going through some bit of turbulence and asked us all to apply our seatbelts on. I said as loud as I could without yelling: "a little late isn't he?" Some laughed at this comment and some took me seriously and agreed. But at the same time I noticed all the flight attendents huddled together in a group and were whispering together about something serious because none were laughing. This made me a bit worried.

I then just plugged my iPod in my ears for a half-an-hour and tried to block off all conversations around me because I had a throbbing migrane from when I had hit my head. The pilot came back on the speaker and stated that there were servere tornado warnings in the area of LAX and they had to decrease thier altitude to 5000 feet. All I remember really was the worst turbulence I've ever experienced in my life. I had thankfully turned my head away from the window as it started or else I would have hit my head for the second time! Every lady on that airplane was either screaming in terror or weeping thier eyes out. I hope I will never have a flight like that again!

[Ryan Rosensweig]

I don't hate kids or anything, but these two girls sitting behind me I hated. The little girl sitting behind me kept kicking the back of my seat constantly, but I didn't want to ask her to stop because I didn't want to hurt her feelings or start a riot on the plane. So I did the next best things, I lowered my seat back hoping that it would give her a hint, and it didn't. And if that wasn't enough near landing, these two girls were playing with some toy or some pop-up book or something and they kept saying "Press a button...get a mommy!!" over and over again.

Whatever happened to kids playing video games on the flights with headphones on? When I was little, I was terrified of the people sitting in front of me who I didn't know so that must mean that these girls might end up being terrorists when they grow up.

[Lola]

Some stories here had me falling out of my chair laughing! And the rest of you made me wonder what kind of person you are. What's with all the self-victimization? You're sitting in a metal vehicle flying at average of 500 mph, and the possibility of turbulence is always there. If you're a seasoned flyer, you'd keep your your seatbelt on as long as you're in your seat. And I can't believe this "ruler-sized devices you can stick in the armrest to prevent the seat in front of you from reclining." How would you like it if someone behind you used this device? That's completely ridiculous.

I've had the pleasure of having a jerk who decided that he wanted the window seat. So when I had reached my seat, I saw him sitting in MY window seat. It's a short flight, mister, but seriously.

There is also a lot of good advice here... I'm definitely planning on using "Do you mind if I use the armrest" bit next time I fly. And Julia, your answer to the airline checker is spot on... "in case you forget what your job is?" I love it!

[debby brown]

Does anyone out there have any suggestions on how you get your luggage back? How you can get to a live person, get some respect because I can't even begin to get anywhere with these people. HEEELLLLLPPPPP!

[JP Peterson]

To Debby Brown - Fly United Airlines as it scans all the bags as they are loaded and unloaded. At least if you don't have your bag when you arrive, the airline can instantly tell you where it is and when it will arrive. I believe this is the only airline that scans luggage.

[Susan]

To Travis Sheppard. BWI-LAX is not an eight-and-a-half-hour flight. I wish passengers would get the facts straight. Also, there is nothing against the law if a passenger has their seat reclined while the person behind them is eating. That's just the way it is! Stop complaining. There's always Greyhound....

[Robert]

Julia said: Oh, the security has become almost intolerable. At the airport before we left Spokane, I had to take off my metal necklace that spelled out my name to get through the metal detector. No biggie, but the guy who took it out of the plastic bin at the end looked at it before giving it back to me and said in an extremely rude and mocking voice while notioning to my necklace: "In case you forget who you are?"

Now was he being rude or was he just trying to make conversation and be friendly. I know it was a dumb joke but from your tone, it seems that you are being condescending to these people who have lower income jobs.

Security people have joked with me before and there can be a lot of good natured banting which lightens everyone's day.

Let's not presume this person was trying to be rude or officious.

[robert]

Lola writes: I've had the pleasure of having a jerk who decided that he wanted the window seat. So when I had reached my seat, I saw him sitting in MY window seat. It's a short flight, mister, but seriously.

There is also a lot of good advice here... I'm definitely planning on using "Do you mind if I use the armrest" bit next time I fly.

------

Regarding taking someone else's seat, I remember a time when someone was sitting in my window bulkhead seat and asked if I would be willing to switch with them (he was way in back) because he wanted to sit next to his girlfriend. I said I wanted my seat and they got all huffy. I then told him that he could get the person sitting next to him to switch, that they would probably love to move up to the front of the plane and he got livid. It turned out that these two had been seated together but that she switched to the seat next to me hoping to convince the person sitting in the prize window bulkhead seat to move to a seat in the back.

Regarding armrests, I do usually allow the person sitting in the middle access to the armrest.

Which brings up another issue. In some planes there is a row of seats in front that has plenty of leg room and is only two across (the "window" seat is removed). This is prize seating and I found one open so I switched. The guy next to me had anticipated that he would be the only one in the row and asked me how I got the seat. He fought with me all flight for the armrest and was being extremely rude.

[Joss]

My worst experience is 95 percent the fault of a fellow passenger and 5 percent the fault of an inept flight attendant who was more interested in finding a gross tubby guy than in customer service.

While on a flight from London to Vancouver, I was informed that the airline did not receive my request for a vegetarian meal, which was on my e-ticket. The flight attendant slammed a chicken dish onto the pull-out table, and told me to learn to book a flight online properly. ( I did. Even confirmed it over the phone.)

The guy seat next to me then launched into a tirade about why he hated vegetarians; said we were a bunch of proselytizing hippies and that the bible clearly stated that animals were created for humans to eat so therefore vegetarians like myself were anti-christian and hell-bound. He proceeded to jab his fork into his chunk of steak and wave it into my face, taunting me to bite it.

Throughout this, I did not say anything to this offensive and sorry excuse of a human. I did, however, notice the same flight attendant nearby watching. I asked politely if I could switch seats, as the flight was half-empty, and she said no.

This guy spent the rest of the flight preaching the bible to me, taking the time to rant about his hate not just for vegetarians and communists, but Muslims, feminists, homosexuals, Hillary Clinton, the Kyoto accord and environmental groups. The flight attendant joined in on his ridiculous banter to say she agreed with him. They swapped phone numbers and e-mail addresses with each other.

When it was snack time, said flight attendant ignored me but gave Mr. Jackass extra servings of nuts and beer. She didn't even clear up my garbage so I stuck the wet and greasy food containers into the seat pocket.

[ken]

Additions:

- Please leave those decks of cards at home. There is nothing more annoying than hearing a deck of cards get cut four or five times each deal in your ear. If you have play cards, please play Solitaire on your laptop.

- Please watch your kids if you let them play on the tray on the seat back in front of them. Remember that this tray is connected to the seat in front and actions upon it are amplified.

- Please keep your talking to a whisper to take other people’s courtesy into consideration.

[erica]

Each annoying child/adult that insists on playing with their seatback tray while you are only interested in peace - wait until their "meal", or preferably, hot beverage is served; then push your own recline button and slam your seat back as violently as possible!

To note: when you scream in a library everyone will shush you in an embarrased manner, scream on an aeroplane and everyone will join in.