If you want the high prices, crappy reheated food, and scratchy pillow from the golden age of flying, you can buy a first class ticket on most routes.
I see it getting better in that many of the irritating mistakes are clearly from people who don’t fly often.
And a lot of the time I get the cheapo because it’s the airline which flies that route without a detour via Bamako, Mumbay and Lima.
My mayor annoyances are with the airlines themselves, rather than the passengers. But I’ll take kids over drunk adults any day, in terms of annoyance.
I second or third or whatever the people who put their second carry-on (the purse or backpack) and/or their jackets/blankets in the overhead space, just because they want their feet area clear.
No, just no. The ride is full, people will need that overhead space. Then it is full and those people who are left without space (because the idiots accomodated all their stuff overhead) are going to have their stuff tagged as checked to pick up later. And if they didn’t want it that way (say, hey, they have a tight connection), that screws up their schedule.
- I like to cross my legs. Can’t do that if you recline. (2) I like to read. That’s harder if you recline, too. And (3) maybe I just sit wring, but when you recline, the seat-back hits my knee cap.
Once I took a bus trip with $%^& reclining seats and I had a lap-baby with me. She was a lot less quiet when the person in front reclined and shoved her into my belly.
There are few views as stunning as mountains, as seen from an airplane. And if the ground looks like a blur to you, you might want to get new glasses. Watching the world roll by is a joy. I hate it when they show a movie and I have to close the shutter. I can see that movie in my living room, in much greater comfort. There is no place else I can see the alps from above.
Bolding mine.
I agree completely with your overall point. But as to the bolded part …
If your would-be carry-on bags are gate-checked due to lack of overhead space, they’ll be checked through to your final destination. So you’re not being saddled with the need to retrieve them at an intermediate stop.
With the advent in the last few years of total tagging, scanning, and tracking of each individual bag, the system knows which bags have tight connections at intermediate stops. They’ll be loaded and unloaded accordingly 99+% of the time.
To be sure, forced checking does add some marginal risk to your overall journey and adds a need to wait at bag claim at your final destination.
OTOH, on the very few times I’ve checked all my luggage it’s been remarkable how much freer (sp?) I feel wandering around the terminal at intermediate stop(s) without dragging that infernal tail everywhere I go. Just make sure to not check your only book or device charger.
My pet peeve as a passenger? Hard to say. I agree with all of what’s been posted.
Almost all of this stuff flows from a single common cause: spoiled individuals not understanding that this is a group effort. And as a civilized participant in any group, your goal ought not be to grab the biggest possible hunk of communal property you can wrest away from the others.
Your goal ought to be to take your fair share, and with an attitude of awareness that your interests are no more important than that of your fellows.
Acting civilized: in a free society it’s a choice. But it’s a darn good idea.
Sorry for triple-post. :o
My pet peeve as an airline worker?
Anything involving drunk or drugged passengers. No matter what, it adds massive stupidity and disproportionality on top of all the selfish behaviors everybody already called out up-thread.
Whether they’re falling asleep drunk or amped up on cocaine they can really put the “fun” in “fundamentally not understanding you’re not going flying on my jet today.”
Many times I have sat in the middle of two men and they both took over my arm rests, leaving me no arm rest.
I’ve sat next to a man who farted the whole way, I thought I was going to suffocate.
I’ve sat next to babies who screamed in pain from the pressure in their ears, as the plain ascended and descended, very disturbing, makes me feel like its inhumane to even put babies on plains.
I sat next to someone that kept spritzing themselves with some kind of perfumed water to hydrate their skin from dry air… it smelled so strong and horrible- I should have told them to stop.
I really dread flying.
Oh, thanks to know about the checking and connections, but I’m guessing that would work only if it is within the same airline. The time it happened to me, I was in a different airline on my second leg, so I had to go to the belt, pick up my luggage, and get back into security. If I had my carry-on the whole time, I could just have gone to the next gate.
I do like being able sometimes to put most of my stuff in my checked luggage and go around with less stuff to carry. But I also like travelling on the cheap and backpacking, hence many times I opt for carry-on.
The dim-bulb with the backpack on while boarding and hitting every aisle passenger as they walk by, or when they turn. Take it off and carry it in front of you. Oh, your hands are full, well you have too much stuff so give something to the flight attendant to check for you, idiot.
And flight attendants, while it is ok to board that little old lady with the walker early so she can sit down and not get trampled during boarding, please to not make her the first person off the flight, either, unless you want 150 people cussing at her as they rush by in the gangway.
If we are flying over land and it’s clear, I am going to be looking out the window and will not close my shade. Having a window seat and not watching the world from altitude would be a waste of money.
Sometimes (not always, I hasten to add so everyone doesn’t jump on me) this is because parents don’t know how to prevent this.
Give the baby a bottle. Get them to swallow. Pressure fixed.
Or, put a little sugar on a pacifier, and get them to suck it.
Older kids can use a lollipop.
I’ve mentioned this to a mom with a baby sitting next to me. She honestly didn’t know.
Unfortunately, through no fault of mine, I am tall (6’ 3") and I fly a fair bit. In my experience the “medium” setting does not impact me too much but if the person in front reclines all the way then that is a major impact, to the extent that I have to twist my legs around so that they are perpendicular to the length of the airplane. Fortunately, most people only seem to go to the medium recline.
On another note, I can’t stand the excessive carry-on practice. For me, my aim has always been to minimize what I carry; I don’t want to be lugging, towing, packing piles of crap through an airport and on and off a plane. The best I can get away with is my work laptop, a book, and my iPod.
I actually know people who deliberately try to fly without check-in luggage. They are Satan and they’ve done vacations from Canada to Europe with carry-on only.
I feel your pain, but given the lack of room in most seats and myt size (6’2", 260lbs), standing up without holding onto something is not an option, and the seat rests seldom give me the necessary leverage.
In my defense, I try to get my hand on top of the seat and push down, not side to side or backward, so that the seat stays put, but as long as we humans need a lever to move things, I’m afraid seat grabbing is here to stay.
That’s me. I only check a bag if a really really need to. I have missed international connections because my bag was slow to appear, and I just don’t trust the airlines to not lose it. (Yes, I and my family have often had to wait a day or two for a lost bag to re-appear.) I think it is frankly stupid to travel without a day or two of stuff with you on the airplane. You are just setting yourself up to have no clean underwear tomorrow morning.
If I need to check a bag, I will do so, but it always makes me nervous. And I hate waiting for the bag to arrive at the other end, too. That can easily add 20 minutes to my trip.
I think that’s really my greatest pet peeve. And no the flight attendants don’t cause the deboarding issues; the little old ladies do by choosing not to wait.
If I was King anyone who accepted pre-boarding would also also required to accept waiting in their seat until all the ordinary passengers are off the aircraft and up the jet bridge. Then, and only then, will any wheelchairs, strollers, walkers, assistance, etc. be provided. And any pre-boarder who tries to get up early gets loudly shamed.
As it is now we often have the jet bridge completely clogged with extra-wide wheelchairs & attendants and strollers and crap before the very first passenger gets off. Everybody else is significantly slowed by trying to wend through the pile-up.
Pre-boarding is nice and all, but it needs to be explained and recognized for what it is, a courtesy done for the efficiency of the able-bodied community, not as a special privilege for the disabled and child-burdened.
In the industry we have a saying about the Special Miracle of Flight.
It’s simply miraculous how many people who totally needed a wheelchair and attendant to get on the plane or transit the hub are suddenly and miraculously completely able-bodied when they get to their destination. About half the wheelchairs ordered for a flight arriving at a non-hub station are wasted as the person for whom it was ordered and paid for (by the airline; they’re gratis to the customer) simply vanishes into the fast-walking crowd with nary a trace.
This will not get better over the next 20+ years as the Baby Boomers enter their dotage en masse.
LSLGuy - Miraculously healing the halt and lame for 25+ years 
I’d like to ask the airline people, what flight destinations tend to be the worse?
My aunt who just retired said it was the New York to LA flights.
I just traveled from Honolulu to Cincinnati on the red eye. Mid-flight, a teenage girl walked up to the woman in front of me, and had a friendly conversation that lasted about 15 minutes. It actually woke me up. They chatted and chatted on, in normal voices, like it was high noon. It was 3am. I had to turn up the thunderstorm soundtrack I was listening to on my noise-reduction headphones to drown them out. Rude.
Around 2am on the same flight, I’d gotten up to pee. Both stalls were occupied. And they remained occupied. I’m talking at least 10 minutes, which is a liftetime when you have to pee. I finally gave up and walked to another set of restrooms in the back. I suspect that these passengers were uncomfortable, and using the loo as a place to catch some zzz’s more comfortably.
If you are sitting behind me and using these, I will get on my knees backwards in my seat, reach over and remove them, and toss them under the seats in front of me. Hope you can find them while trying to debark.
Fortunately, most major airlines have banned, or at least strongly discourage them by now.
Interesting combination of user name and post.
I actually mostly love flying. I’m 40 years old and have literally been flying since I was four, and still get a childish thrill every time the plane lifts off. How could you not? We just lifted a huge hunk of metal into the air! Whee! But its other people that make the flight annoying. Especially people that can’t be efficient and that carry everything onto the plane. Any of those rolling monstrosities should be forcefully gate checked.