Have you become a frequent flyer? I do love a good road trip, but driving can be a lot more taxing as we get older. Although traveling via air is preferable for many people, it does have it’s disadvantages. Most of us have experienced at least some of the obvious ones - flight delays, cost, lost baggage - but what about dealing with other travelers who break the unwritten rules of flying?
Want to really know a person? Pay attention to how they treat other people - especially on an airplane with a hundred people packed into a small space having the potential of triggering total chaos. Fortunately, nearly everyone does manage to observe the social, unspoken code of flight etiquette most of the time. Most people naturally get it. But there are those occasional rule breakers who are clueless of the effect they have on other people's travel experience. If you happen to take a flight in the near future, do some people watching - you will be sure to spot one. Some infractions are pretty obvious while others are in that gray area of “should I or shouldn’t I?”
Here are a few guidelines that will either make you reflect, or make you laugh. Either way, enjoy the reading:
- Be patient while going through security. Allow the traveler in front of you to place their belongings on the rollers before blindly plopping your big bag down in front of them.
- Push your belongings onto the conveyor belt before skipping off to the body scanner. You're stuff is your responsibility - not the traveler’s behind you. Those rollers before the conveyor belt don’t move on their own.
- Board with your proper boarding position, but also don’t get too crazy if you think someone has “cut” you during boarding. The boarding process is not perfect, but it’s the best attempt at establishing order to the process so just go with it.
- If carrying-on, don’t leave your bag sticking out so that the flight attendant has to re-organize all of the bags in the overhead bin because you failed to realize that the bin door has to close before taking off. And by all means, please try your best to use the bin over YOUR seat.
- Quickly put your bag in the overhead bin and take your seat. There are a hundred travelers behind you waiting as you re-organize your life in the aisle.
- If you are a snorer, DO NOT fall asleep. Consume enough caffeine to stay awake through the flight. No one wants to listen to you snore.
- Offer to switch seats so someone can sit next to the child or elderly person in their accompaniment. It’s the right thing to do and just plain decent.
- Do Not Recline if sitting in economy. The quarter of an inch you gain is not worth disrupting the comfort level of the traveler behind you, not to mention forcing them to readjust their laptop, knees, drink and life for the next few hours. News flash: there’s not a lot of room back there.
- You are allowed to say something to parents of obnoxious kids. This does not include babies. Babies are babies and sometimes they cry. If the crying bothers you, put on your headphones. But parents who don’t intervene when their five year old continuously kicks or bangs the seat in front of them should not be offended when the traveler in front of them intervenes on their behalf.
- Let’s agree. The middle seat is the worst - no window, no breathing room. Let the middle seat person have the armrests if they need them. With that in mind, if you are a middle seat traveler, don’t take this opportunity to spill yourself over past that sacred armrest boundary.
- If you need to get up during the flight, don’t grab the back of another seat while getting up or walking. Your fellow passengers don’t want to be yanked around every time you get up or walk past.
- If listening to or watching something with sound on your device, by all means, use headphones. This should be a no-brainer.
- When it’s time to leave the plane, remember what you learned in kindergarten and file out IN ORDER. I don’t know why we forget all of those niceties.
- In case I have forgotten any other “rules” - just be polite to everyone.
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