Air traveler appalling behavior that has got to stop

Air traveler appalling behavior since the pandemic ended doesn’t seem to be diminishing — in fact, it seems to be getting more bizarre than ever.

In the past, I’ve discussed my air traveler appalling behavior committed by travelers on flights that I’ve made. I have also included problems my friends, family, and readers have discussed. Many of us thought that with the COVID pandemic over, the bad passenger behavior would diminish. Air travelers would become less unruly and commit fewer bad behavioral acts while aloft.

Bad air traveler behavior seems to be getting more insufferable than ever.

Passenger behavior problems on airplanes have not only not diminished in the last couple of years, they’ve gotten more bizarre.

It’s no longer just parents unprepared to try to control their children. Passengers are not kicking seat backs or large people lifting up seat armrests to take up the seat space of other passengers. It’s not just passengers who drenched themselves in perfume or cologne or even passengers who refuse to wear headphones when playing digital games or videos.

I list five outlandish, screwball, egregious air traveler behaviors that any person should know are unreasonable and disrespectful to other passengers and crew.

Special airline seat assignment privileges don’t come from U.S. citizenship.

U.S. Citizenship doesn’t confer seating rights on aircraft:
A reader wrote to me about the widely reported man whose boarding pass listed a seat toward the back of the plane for his flight from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, but who decided to plotz down in a forward bulkhead seat. The passenger assigned to the seat asked the man to move, but he refused. The flight attendants directed him to go to his seat. He refused again, arguing that the bulkhead seat was his by right of his U.S. citizenship.

He was eventually removed by police and unfortunately, all passengers also had to deplane. They left 45 minutes later without the U.S. citizen. One would think that everyone knows citizenship has no bearing on anyone’s seating rights on U.S. scheduled commercial airlines.

Never light a match to cover up flatulence on a plane:

I understand the embarrassment that one can feel when you have an upset stomach resulting in flatulence. There’s a an old tale or joke that’s been going around for years about lighting a match to cover up the “scent of flatulence.” Apparently, a woman on an American Airlines flight to Dallas Fort Worth International believed the tale.

Whether or not passengers and crew smelled her flatulence is unknown. They did smell the burning sulfur-like odor of the matches she lighted and the captain was forced to divert the flight to Nashville. Everyone had to deplane. The FBI questioned passengers and the woman who lighted the matches eventually admitted her guilt. While I’m sorry for her embarrassment, covering her flatulence up by lighting matches was at best brainless. No one on the plane knew what was going on. They didn’t know it was only matches burning to eliminate flatulence odor. It cost the airline time and real money due to the diversion and the passengers a big delay. The woman was left behind. You may bring a book of safety matches on a plane, but using them while aloft is another matter.

Draping your hair, blankets or clothes over the back of your aircraft seat into another passenger’s space is offensive.

Draping hair, blankets and clothes over the back of your seat is blatantly unfair:
Whether it’s covering the tray table or seatback entertainment screens, draping anything over one’s seatback, behind the seat, unfairly takes someone else’s space. Particularly if it’s hair, it’s gross and unnecessary. Passengers should have absolutely no trouble tucking their blankets, clothes or hair between their back and head and their side of the seatback.

Eliminating the use of someone else’s seat space with hair on anything else draped over the seatback is obnoxious and in the case of hair, unhygienic.

I’ve had this occur to me several times. Once I had just opened up my laptop when the waist long hair of the woman in front of me came over the top of her seatback covering my laptop screen and keyboard completely. Another time I was trying to watch a movie on the seatback entertainment system when the hair came up and over, dandruff and all. Ugh, was that ever disgusting.

In each case I immediately asked the person in front of me to please tuck in their hair between them and their seatback. When I was ignored, I wasted no time to ask a flight attendant for help. About ten minutes after the flight attendant got the women who covered up my laptop to cut it out, she threw her hair over the seat again. This time I said to my wife, seated next to me, “Could you please pull out those short scissors you have? I have some hair to trim.” I had no further trouble on the flight.

Polishing one’s nails on a plane is insolent and hazardous.

Polishing one’s nails on a plane is abusive and dangerous to passenger health:
Last year, a friend endured the nail clipping and filing of the person sitting next to her. It wasn’t just her fingernails. She went barefoot and brought her stinky feet up on to her seat to clip her toenails. Then she pulled out nail polish. That was the last straw for my friend who called in the flight attendant to help. The flight attendant told the woman she’d be arrested upon landing if she polished. It was a bluff, but it worked. The airlines don’t have a policy banning the use of nail polish on flights.

Beyond that it’s gross, particularly polishing one’s toe nails while aloft, the noxious fumes from the polish, including formaldehyde, isopropyl acetate and toluene can cause serious allergic reactions, headaches, difficulty breathing and irritated eyes, nose, throat and skin.

Bare feet on a plane at any time are crass and repugnant.

Keep your feet in your stockings/socks and shoes:
The passenger behavior that I can’t stand the most on flights is when passengers take their feet out of stockings/socks and shoes. It’s awful and more often than not, stinky. Then when they put their feet up in the air on other passenger’s armrests, tops of seats, etc., it’s vulgar, boorish and ignorant. Reports of this particular behavior are climbing.

I’ve had passengers put their bare feet on my armrest, blocking my arm from using it. Once, a bare foot even pushed my arm off my armrest to rest there. I’ve been tempted to pour hot tea on them but called in flight attendants to help instead, then disinfected the armrest with an alcohol wipe.

It’s time for adult air travelers to behave like grownups. They should act their age and have a little common courtesy and respect for other flight passengers and crew. It’s time for them to think before they act. It’s time for them to refrain from behaving in ways that would irritate them if others behaved that way toward them. It’s also time for the airlines to ban nail polish on flights.

Ned S. Levi

After many years working in corporate America as a chemical engineer, executive and eventually CFO of a multinational manufacturer, Ned founded a tech consulting company and later restarted NSL Photography, his photography business. Before entering the corporate world, Ned worked as a Public Health Engineer for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. As a well known corporate, travel and wildlife photographer, Ned travels the world writing about travel and photography, as well as running photography workshops, seminars and photowalks. Visit Ned’s Photography Blog and Galleries.