Badly behaved SLF
 

I missed a connection yesterday at LGW and decided to kill an hour in Gatwick Village. I was amazed at the amount of people that were pouring beer / wine / spirits down their neck prior to going away. Also amazed at the size of the Mcdonalds there!

So question is:- with the growth of Chav culture in Britain (if you don't know what a Chav is look it up on Google) what's the single worst dispay of behaviour you have ever been forced to witness on-board an aircraft?

CherokeeDriver, IMHO that's a bit of a sweeping statement!

Now that pax have to check-in at airports much earlier, due to more robust security checks, what do you expect them to do whilst they wait for their flights, or suffer flight delays? Airport owners would love them to shop, but otherwise what is wrong with having a convivial drink before boarding. As usual in these matters, it is the exception that over-indulges and, if TV programmes are representative, these often seem to be those who are scared of flying(or is that a TV thing?)

MacDonalds? Haven't indulged since my kids left home!:yuk:

Newswatcher. I enjoy a drink as much as the next man. Never felt the need to pour 6 pints down my throat before flying, spit in a bar, use foul langugage in front of families, smoke in the non-smoking area and put my hands down Mrs CherokeeDrivers pants whilst waiting to board a plane. I feel sorry for the CC if this behaviour continues on-board.....

.... perhaps the legacy of cheaper flights?

I hope you were just unlucky, I travel about 2-3 times each month, and have fortunately been spared such behaviour even when I haven't managed to get a cheap "executive" lounge, where I am unable to witness the excessive displays of the "great unwashed" that you describe.

Now as for behaviour at the "other" end, particularly charter flights.................?:yuk:

I don't understand. If pax now have to check in earlier for more robust security checks, why is this additional time not being absorbed by selfsame checks, and why do pax have the time to spend in the bar ?


5 years ago : 1 minute in queue, 2 minutes doing check. Total time 3 minutes.

Nowadays, often : 28 minutes in queue, 2 minutes doing check. Total time 30 minutes.


5 years ago : 5 million pax per year, 3 security stations costing £100,000 each, all 3 staffed.

Nowadays, often : 10 million pax per year, 6 security stations costing £1 million each, 3 of them staffed.


Nothing security-assisting there at all. It's enough to drive you to drink. BTW, just to add the final Anorak point, Gatwick Village is before security.

WHBM I don't think it is the extra time taken on the checks, but the response to advice to turn up earlier.

For example, there was a recent rumour that it would be soon be necessary to check-in three hours prior to a cross Atlantic flight. If no problems, that is a lot of time to wait!

I'm just watching that American show "Airport", i don't think there is any way you could ever get me to work in an American airport or for an American airline, they're just crazy!

Unfortunately, with low cost carriers, flying is now accessible to everyone and anyone. This is good in one respect but also bad in another. I love it when the oldies come onboard all dressed up purely because they're flying. There should be more of it!

I remember being brought to the airport as a child to drop my grandmother off/collect her after her flights and being made put on the best clothes I had - even better than what I was made wear to Church etc :p Going there was an event for the whole family!

Everyone had to dress up, and we weren't even pax. My grandmother, travelling independently well into her 80's, always believed in dressing in her best for the flight. I'd imagine she'd do the same today if she was still flying!

And no, that wasn't all that long ago!

I guess it is the more modern cheap and cheerfulness which rubbed the glamour off flying. Not a totally bad thing in terms of cost, but still, you can help but remember the good old days.

An ex-partner of mine wouldn't even leave the terminal building to board a flight unless she was "three sheets to the wind".

This was caused primaraly because of her fear of flying but exacerbated by the (i.e. 'we sneeringly know more than you do') attitude of the ground staff we came into contact with during our transit through the departure facilities.

My worst memory of this was when flying from Gatwick in 1987. A couple, youngish, fore-runners of chavs, were both so p*ssed that they had to walk along the wall edge to the gate just to stay even slightly vertical. She was slightly less far gone than him, knew that the flight was imminent and had to keep pulling him from the waste bins that he was heaving into.

I still wonder if they were allowed to board - I do hope not.

I was once so short of sleep (but totally sober) on a take-off from Brize that I was asleep before take-off. Luckily I woke up in time to put on my parachute :ok:

I have an old BOAC timetable from the 1950s with some artwork illustrating the cabin interiors. In one an elderly couple (say 65+) are loftily selecting from their seats refreshments from the steward's cart. The man is wearing Full Evening Wear, black bow tie, the lot. The woman is in her diamonds. Steward, serving tongs poised for the choice, is of course in a white jacket.

When you thing they were probably hammering along through the cloudtops at 225 knots groundspeed (if lucky) with 4 Merlin piston engines just outside the cabin windows shaking everything apart, it seems even more bizarre. Of course, it had come from ocean liners. Storms or not you Dressed For Dinner there.

A woman came into the galley a few weeks ago on a 11 hour flight to Joburg and started in a rather muffled drunken splurg shouting at me and my purser for some totally stupid reason....she then sort of stopped and held herself up against the galley top and had moment, she wet herself all over the galley floor and passed out there and then!!! This is perhaps the worst I have ever seen and will ever see....kinda made me laugh though when I saw last weeks first episode of Little Britain 3!!! :}

UK ANO prohibits being drunk on board an aircraft. Regulatory law in most other countries no doubt similar. Why the hell do p*ss heads still get on board? It's down to CC, ground staff and the aircraft's commander to deal with them and, particularly with the charter market, the commercial pressure to let them fly.

I find the use of the word "Chav" derogatory, however its not hard to imagine the lower middle classes jumping on the word, after all we all like to make fun of people somewhat less fortunate than ourselves don't we?

As for the "legacy of cheap flights" why is it that some people equate lower socio-economic class with trouble? What you are trying to say is, to cut a boring explanation short, is that the poorer you are the less well behaved you are likely to be.

The word b*ll!!!!! comes to mind.

Apaddy - Is that behaviour not a good reason for having the person restrained, or even arrested at the end of the flight?

If the airlines, many in this day and age, were to make beer etc. more readily available on board then perhaps they wouldn't drink so much before departure. Compare it to last orders at 11 p.m. thus lets get a few in before it's too late.

Last year I flew Kiev-AMS on KLM (ticketed with Ukraine International). When I asked for a beer they looked at me as if I was from another planet, 'we don't serve alcohol in economy class sir!' There was a roaring party going on the other side of the curtain so I asked the hostie for an empty cup and took from my inside pocket a beer that had fallen into my pocket as I had left Kiev's business class lounge, did I get a telling off or what for daring to drink a beer in KLM economy class!

Austrian Airlines, 3 euro's for a small beer but only one service during the flight, SAS you need to pay for it and so it goes on, the situation of 'binge drinking' before a flight is only going to deteriorate whilst the airlines become meaner and meaner.

The one that pokes his/her head into the galley with a look of terror/panic on their face.

They proceed with, "I think I'm going to......." and then proceed to projectile vomit all over you.

It REALLY f@#ks up your day!

Flash8

As clearly as it is part of our culture (unfortunately) to subconsciosly categorise each and every person we meet into the socio-economic categories you describe as lower-middle etc., it is also part and parcel that within these we have subgroups of people.

Interestingly though, much anthropological research has clearly shown that this categorisation does NOT depends upon the amount of money the person earns (slightly dependant upon our stoic British reluctance to talk about money) but rather on the way that person conducts and presents themself.

Unfortunately, along with the "lower-middle" you mentioned, also come "Chavs". Us British also have a tendency to support the underdog or the hardly-done-by too.. so derogatory or not, accept it exists and that there's nothing you can do about it!

Phileas Fogg Alcohol is restricted on flights due to cost and for the PAX's own comfort and safety. Your suggestion that carriers go back to the 'give them all that they want' is strange. Once you have had a seat neighbour who: Boards fairly sober but already 'started' and then proceeds to get drunk, to the point where they wet the seat in their sleep and then, upon waking, are violently ill all over you and your children ... perhaps you will see the problem. Not to mention the difficulties presented by these people should an emergency occur.

I am not unsympathetic to those that are frightened of flying. However, I am more frightened of my fellow SLF.

Some years ago I travelled from AMS to HUY on a shorts 360 of the late AirUK. We boarded, a full aircraft apart from two seats, i was lucky having an empty seat next to me. We sat for about twenty minutes and then two guys who were almost paryletic fell on to the aircraft. The guy attempting to sit next to me fell in the aisle on his way to his seat, lots of effing and blinding. He sat next to me and smelled as if he had recently thrown up. I advised the flight attendant that I wasn't prepared to sit next to him, she replied that i had to because the flight was full. I said I would not sit next to him and if necessary would get off, after a few words where I seemed to be the baddy and the drunk butting in to ask me what my effing problem was. The two drunks were sat together and i was moved and sat in the other drunks original seat.
How they were allowed to fly that night was amazing and is my worst experience of such problems.