Frequent Flyer HATES bad manners!

[FWOF]

I'm sure I'm not alone in experiencing what I am about to describe, but I'm also sure that some of you on here may be guilty of the things I've noticed recently on my four flights a week! This is a way of me letting off steam in a funny sort of way!

OK, so first of all. Is it just us Brits that know how to queue? I note that even at ABZ but mostly at AMS I can be patiently standing in line to board, only to have men and women alike walk to the front of the line without so much as an excuse me or a do you mind, who then turn to glare at you if you so much as grumble.

How many screens/posters does it take to remind people with hand luggage that when they get to security they have to get out toilettries/laptops, take off coats, be prepared to remove shoes/belts? I am fed up of being behind the numpty that gets to security, plonks their bag on the belt and is asked, "Do you have a laptop"? ... "errrr, yeah" ... "Can you remove it please" ... "Do you have any liquids/gels"? .... "errrrr, yeah" ... "Can you remove them please" ... etc etc etc

WHY does everyone RUSH to go through the gate when it opens. We are all getting on the same plane. We all have allocated seats (unless it's EZY and then you HAVE to be on your toes!), the plane won't leave without you (within reason). Do you HAVE to stand on my toes, elbow me in the ribs and bosom, run my feet over with your trolley case? Is it a RACE?

When there is a bus that takes us to the plane, why do you insist on putting your case on the seat next to you and looking into space when I ask if you can please move it? Or sitting in the first seat of four and blocking the other three seats? Why do men not give up their seats for the more elderly passengers? I don't expect the old fashioned way of giving your seat for a lady, but for the elderly or infirm I do.

When we finally get ON the plane, do you HAVE to stand in the aisle taking off your coat, jumpers and ties, getting stuff out the overhead lockers, generally rumaging in your bags. Can't you sort yourself out BEFORE we get on, so it doesn't take an hour to seat everyone.

As you're walking up the aisle to your seat, do consider those of us already seated in the aisle seats. I don't really want your ar5e wiped across my face as you jostle along, neither do I want another black eye from having your bag/case/rucksack smacked into my face.

When we're sat down and it's a bit 'cosy' do you HAVE to put both your arms on the armrests? Wouldn't it be more courteous if we had one each?

Who's idea was it to offer BROADSHEET papers on board? I'm fed up with having the pre-flight demo obscured, or half a sheet and an arm across my face, or the top of it bouncing on my head, or the person across the aisle leaning into the aisle and poking me in the arm with the corner!

When we land, do you HAVE to get up the minute we're even close to stopping? And when you take your case from the overhead, do try NOT to swing it into the side of my head. And if you do, an "OOps, sorry" would be nice.

Just how drunk is TOO drunk to be allowed on a plane? I have asked this before. Last week, the guy in front of me was THAT pi**ed he could barely stand up. But he could stand up when trampling on my feet. He STANK of booze. But he was allowed on! Actually I have noted that the flight home to ABZ is full of people who have had more than just a quick one to calm te nerves. The lounge/plane reeks of stale liquor. I've yet to see anyone refused entry to a flight because they were drunk.

And lastly, to Cabin Crew, who do such a stirling job but I have one complaint. I'm not the only person who sometimes has to lean slightly into the aisle, or nods off and whose head rolls that way, but is there any need to smash the trolley into the passenger? I've seen mostly courteous and funny ways of dealing with the arm/leg/head that's in the way, but I've also seen outright awful people charging down the aisle and bumping passengers!

Anyway, that get's it off my chest for now ... it'll all start again tomorrow when I go home!

[obgraham]

You hit most all of them, FWOF!

I think most people travel in a little cocoon around themselves, oblivious to everyone else. It's all about "what I need" now.

Not helped by the airlines complete lack of any semblance of customer service now, fostering that attitude of "everyone for himself".

Sigh.

[tezzer]

Sounds like KLM cityhopper to me !!

Add, the first couple of rows of seats on the RHS held open for cabin crew, either having a holiday, or positioning, then chatting away (girlie talk) for the duration of the flight, asking for bottles of water, and or magazines to read, and genreally slowing things down, because we have to wait for them to disembark last, whilst waiting for their "crew" bags to be left a tht front of the steps so that THEY don't have to wait at the carousel !

[The Real Slim Shady]

Only 4 flights a week??

Some of us do 20, 24 short haul sectors: now you know how we feel.

The process of entering an airport renders certain individuals incapable of remembering the basic courtesy they were taught as children.

Hence when we get ANY aggravation the simple solution is " Get off". Pas de problem.

[VS-LHRCSA]

I think many parents stopped teaching their children 'basic courtesy' around about the mid-to-late seventies.

[Rush2112]

I always thought Buster Bloodvessel was great, why do you have such a downer on the band??

[boardingpass]

Your description of passengers alone probably helps explain why cabin crew will arm themselves with a trolley...

[FWOF]

It is indeed the KLM flights I talk of!

And I'm sure as passengers are often a pain to the CC!!

[tezzer]

Not me, I am the model passenger, get on early and sit right down. Watch the briefing, then promptly fall asleep for the 40 minute hop from HUY to AMS.

Now, on the long haul flight's I'm good too, in case they gift me a little blue and white house, as a reward for being a good boy.

Waddya mean, everyone up front / upstairs gets one ???

[Skipness One Echo]

I never have problems with people jumping the queue or leaving bags on a seat. I find a Glasgow accent works wonders as does asking politely once to shift the ofending bag. I ask once and then I move it for you......

British people are rubbish in these situations as they just make faces and do squat.

Disclaimer : If it was the midnight Ibiza or there was a pack of chavs then I would slink away but one on one on a sensbile airline.....

Och aye....

[boardingpass]

I find a Glasgow accent works wonders...
British people are rubbish in these situations as they just make faces and do squat.Perhaps it's because they don't understand you. When we do Scottish flights none of my colleagues understand and I find "a Carlsberg please" completely incomprehensible.

[CornishFlyer]

And lastly, to Cabin Crew, who do such a stirling job but I have one complaint. I'm not the only person who sometimes has to lean slightly into the aisle, or nods off and whose head rolls that way, but is there any need to smash the trolley into the passenger? I've seen mostly courteous and funny ways of dealing with the arm/leg/head that's in the way, but I've also seen outright awful people charging down the aisle and bumping passengers!Yesterday, I had a bloke on the back row, right aisle seath deciding he was going to cross his legs, his right over his left for the whole sector, with his offending leg almost all the way across the aisle. Having to CONSTANTLY ask him politely to move it, it gets tedious when he can see the trolley is coming towards him or we're walking back to the galley to the galley till fill a tea pot and he can see you quite clearly, being in an aisle seat and all. After a dozen or so times, you just lose patience and barge past. Leaving it there when you know we need access (hell, that's the purpose of a sodding aisle in the first place, a route for access not extra legroom) is just downright rude. Come the end of the sector, I was surpised one of the pax hadn't swiped his foot off, let alone any of us crew. Arrogant man

[Michael SWS]

If your airline provided a little more legroom then passengers would not have to put their legs in the aisle.

[CornishFlyer]

There's plenty of room there. He wasn't even an overly tall man. If he had been, fair enough but that's till no excuse to obstruct the aisle and be blatantly rude and ignorant

[Wyle E Coyote]

I had a woman ask me to help her lift her enormous trolley case into the overhead bins a while ago. I said no :E

If you can't lift it, why are you towing it onboard for?

I sadly, I'm not blessed with patience

[rotornut]

Is it just us Brits that know how to queue?
Have you ever been to India. It's standard practice there for people to butt in front of you in a queue. I have physically pushed people out of the way who did that - they don't seem to mind, it'a all a game to them.

[Sober Lark]

The unpleasantness of persons who practice the bodily function of passing intestinal flatus via the anus whilst at 37,000 feet is the one that gets me. But, I could consider myself lucky as I haven't yet had the experience of sitting beside a methane spewing mobile phone junkie.

[AMEandPPL]

the bodily function of passing intestinal flatus via the anus whilst at 37,000 feet

If only they would ! Do it at 37,000 feet, I mean - on most passenger flights the rest of us are at more like 7000 feet.

Oh yes - and via just what else COULD it be passed ?

I, too, just dread the coming of mobile phones to flights. Will there be an aviation equivalent of the train's "quiet coach", I wonder ?

[obgraham]

The unpleasantness of persons who practice the bodily function of passing intestinal flatus Simple physics, Larky. What might be simply a well digested burrito at ground level turns into a fully inflated methane balloon at 7000 feet! It's got to be let out.

The trick is to pin the blame on your seatmate.

[barry lloyd]

Interesting comments, with which I wholly agree. However, consider for a moment the airport/airline staff who have to put up with this every hour of every day.
My pet hate is people who cannot remember what colour/shape/size their bag is, and picking up almost every bag that comes down the carousel.
Some years ago, when I was working as a dispatcher, a bloke who had checked in a bag decided that he wasn't going to travel after all. Of course we had to retrieve his bag from the aircraft, so to try to expedite the process, and avoid a delay, I asked him what colour it was. "Err I'm not sure," he replied. "Any distinguishing marks, tags etc., on the bag?" "Err no, not really." We eventually found it by the tag number. It was a large green bag with 'Jaguar' on the side in large letters. He had only checked it in 30 mins before.:ugh:
After the aircraft took off, I spent some minutes wondering how he would fare if there was an emergency on board.
My personal view is that all potential airline passengers should spend a week or two working at an airport before they are allowed to fly. Impractical but illuminating for all concerned. 'Airline' doesn't even begin to tell the story...

[loungee]

I agree wholeheartedly with most of the comments about manners in the thread. It is amazing how many premium card holders seem to believe that holding one of these cards allows them to forget even basic manners and be as rude as they like to both staff and other passengers.

[loungee]

To counter that, I should also say that there are the passengers who are so grateful for what you do for them, that it makes it all worthwhile.

[radeng]

Sober lark,

I sat next to the Duchess at tea
It was as I knew it would be,
Her rumblings abdominal
Were simply phenomenal
And everyone thought it was me!

[tezzer]

had one yesterday, AMS to MEX. A British woman, from Birmingham, or thereabouts, dragged her holdall up rthe stairs, and what a suprise it wouldn't go / she couldn't lift it into the locker. Cabin crew, kindly offered to put it in the wardrobe / luggage locker at the top of the stairs. A big hoo ha about being separated from her bag, as it had her laptop in it.

Cabin crew took it way, and stored it. immediately after seatbelts off, she pinged the crew, and insisted it was returned to her. It then sat in front of her, for 11 hours, untouched until landing time, when cabin crew had to drag it back again.

Same pax refused to give back her headphones or stow her screen, as she wanted to catch the end of her film, which she just about managed, before the cabin crew took their seats on short finals, and insisted the screen went away.

Oooh, it makes my blood boil sometimes.

[radeng]

It's interesting if you consider that froma normal sample of society, there should be a certain ratio of awkward sods to reasonable people. This ratio should apply to CC as well, and it doesn't. CC are nearly always helpful reasonable friendly people. I know they're paid to be, but even so, you could expect a num,ber of them to be awkward. In nearly 30 tears of flying and well over a million miles, (and 56 flights os far this year) I can count on one hand the number of CC who have been downright rude, awkward and/or incompetent. It must take a special kind of person to be CC and put up with the SLF.

[Final 3 Greens]

It must take a special kind of person to be CC and put up with the SLF.

It's about putting round pegs in round holes, the airline recruiters know what they are doing and the performance management work.

[chrisbl]

The one I find most irritating is the passenger who thinks the seat rows are arranged at random.

You see then, going down the aisle, they start looking at row 7 row 8 row 9 row 10 and get well down the aircraft before the penny drops that row 5 is not between rows 15 and row 16 or row 17 and they then try and go back to the front of the aircraft pushing their way past people coming on board.

What sis they expect, row 5 would magically appear in the middle of the aircraft?

[Final 3 Greens]

The one I find most irritating is the passenger who thinks the seat rows are arranged at random.

This is usually because they are infrequent flyers.

I have the same trouble when I travel on some UK inter city trains, where the seat numbers are pretty strange.

[TheWestCoast]

Pax trying to figure out the seating arrangement on the plane is something I find hysterical (as long as I am already seated)....it's as if they forget how to count as soon as they step on board. The concept of row 9 being in front of row 10, which is in front of row 11, etc. doesn't seem to compute with a lot of people.:confused:

What bothers me the most are pax stood in line, staring at banks of fully functioning, ready to be used self check in screens, refusing to step up and check-in until an airline agent calls them forward. :ugh:

These are usually the same folks who will somehow be preboarded (shouldn't people who "need a little extra time" be put on last?) and then spend an eternity sorting out all the crap they've brought with them into the overhead, under the seat and seat back, standing in the aisle blissfully unaware of a couple hundred people lining up behind them waiting for them to get their backsides into their seats?:mad: The carry-on that they did take 8 minutes to stow in the overhead is usually stuck in sideways with a jacket jammed in on top of it.

Can we make these people take a course in airline etiquette before they are given a ticket?

[PAXboy]

then spend an eternity sorting out all the crap they've brought with the I think the problem, TheWestCoast, is my old 'hobby horse' of the carriers not implementing their own regulations.

The staff have learnt that, if they challenge someone with too much hand baggage, they may very well be verbally abused or worse. The restriction on hand luggage in the UK (single item) has helped to some degree as the Security staff regulate it and the carriers like it, so I do not see this changing. However, post security, people unpack their one case and have the laptop separate and then go shopping - so we are back to square one.

If the carriers enforced their own rules, we would not have the problem but they are not going to as they fear they will lose customers and get an undeserved bad reputation.

[christep]

The restriction on hand luggage in the UK (single item) has helped to some degree as the Security staff regulate it and the carriers like it, so I do not see this changing.You will be surprised to know then that this rule was relaxed several months ago. See, for example, British Airways - Hand baggage (http://www.britishairways.com/travel/bagcabin/public/en_gb)

[marcopolosnap]

RE: "If the carriers enforced their own rules, we would not have the problem but they are not going to as they fear they will lose customers and get an undeserved bad reputation."

I understand what you're saying and agree completely. The problem is that the carriers should fear losing PAX and getting a deserved bad reputation for not enforcing their own rules.

[Der absolute Hammer]

Ja..and then there are passengers who are rude and out of considerate for other passengers.
The Americans (realy I do love them,) are worst for this. Most time on US domestic.
They yodel on to aircraft, groaning with carry bags and stuff them into first available overhead. Then walk all way down to seat far far away on aircraft.
Passenger in forward seat may always take these bags out and replace with theres but admit freely this is not nice situation for cabin crew. Because these bags are often way too big or heavy.
Mostly cabin crew point out position of seats to passengers when boarding - perhaps they could also say, as example, with sweet smile:
'Your seat is down the back, take your bleeding hand bags with you.'

[Wibblemonster]

Most annoying things for me are:

Being hit by the trolley or by the crewmember's backside when I'm sitting in the isle. This wouldn't be so bad but I never get an appology :=

Other passengers that have to hog the arm rests - no need

Passengers that have to get up & get thier bags out of the lockers before the seatbelt sign is switched off - I want off of this thing just as much as you do mate, but sit down and wait like the rest of us! :rolleyes:

Passengers that drink too much & are football fans - yes, being pissed is funny sometimes, but chanting 'Mackems are scum!' at the top of your voice in an aluminium tube = Epic Fail!

There are many more, but I have lost the will to type. :hmm:

[Der absolute Hammer]

loungee

Many times every year I sit quitely in business of first class lounges, usualy I read a book. I pack away the computer since I do not have to work as I fly.
There are two sort of peoples who irritate these places.
One who tries to impress someone else.
Two is he/she who has to impress themselfs.
Most of the idiots should be as a fly on the wall and see the face of the girls at receptions desks when they leave for the flight.
All these colored cards should be gone away with. If you pay the extra for the class you get the treatment and most in first have the class. If you do not, well, you still get to Xanadu any old how.