Aw, man - you’re kidding me! Watching the clouds go by is one of my favorite distractions! (Although I am willing to negotiate with seatmates on this).
I also don’t like it when the person in front of me puts the seat back, because I’m tall and have long legs, and I think I also subconsciously feel that it’s an invasion of my personal space (but maybe that’s just me being weird again.)
I have never heard the term “roll” for a wheelie suitcase before. Though I’m not sure what the official, or unofficial, name for it is in these parts either.
Pro tip: You don’t climb over people to get up to go to the potty. You politely ask them and they will get up and into the aisle. Then you (thinking about what you are doing) scoot over, using the armrests to steady yourself, exit into the aisle.
I’ve seen this on three flights now between Detroit and Japan, i.e. shortly after takeoff the FA’s publicly ask people to keep the shades down so that everyone can sleep if they choose to. It seems reasonable when the flight is 11+ hours long. OTOH I’ve never heard any such request from the cabin crew during a domestic flight, even a five hour Detroit-to-Seattle flight.
One mixed blessing about airlines beginning to charge a fee for reserving preferred coach seats (front half aisle/window seats, not the actual larger-pitch premium coach seats per se) is the FAs are more driven to enforce rules against seat squatting.
I agree with what has been said RE: If you are an able-bodied person, pack a carry-on you can lift above your head unassisted; if there are things you will need/want to have in your hands, have them in your hands, in the “personal item” handbag that goes at your feet. Don’t stand up to pull your rollaboard half out of the overhead and start rummaging through it just as they’re pushing out.
Babies are babies, I can sympathyze with the beleaguered parents. By the time they reach school age, however, Mom and Dad had better civilize the little heathens.
BTW as to keys/watch/sunglasses/phone/walllet etc, yes, save a bag pocket for those. OR, if you have a jacket/coat with functional pockets, put it all in there and place it on the tray.
Heh. My very first flight was in 1980, for a pre-military-induction jaunt to San Francisco. I was in a window seat over the wing, and I got just a LITTLE nervous when I saw the Rolls Royce logo on the turbines (this was shortly after the scandal when it was revealed that Rolls Royce jet engines were of such poor quality that they had to bribe Lockheed to use them in their planes.
I may be exaggerating the implications of the scandal, just a little).
I just flew home from San Francisco yesterday, and United now does this with monitors at the gate. It seemed to go a bit smoother than usual. United, to their credit, is putting a lot of information on those gate monitors and it seems to work.
In my experience as a very well seasoned air traveller, the most common problem people seem to have is that aren’t thinking ahead by even two minutes. The key to being a good, polite passenger is the same as a lot of things; remember that you are just a supporting character. Smooth and quick is how everything should be done, and smooth and quick requires you think five minutes ahead.
There is no excuse for getting to the point where you’re actually going through security and NOT having your stuff taken off, out of pockets, and ready to go.
There is no reason why you should not be aware of your seating assignment, boarding group, etc.
There is no reason you can’t have your documents ready to show the agent/customs guy/etc.
There is no reason why it should take you longer than ten seconds to get into your seat once you have found it. (I take less than five, but I’ll give old people a break on this one.) Get to seat, bag up top if need be, stuff dumped into seat, get out of aisle, move stuff, your ass is down. If you need anything with you - iPad, iPod, book, etc. - it should be ready to go. If you wait until you get to your seat to remove it from the carry-on you’re stowing in the overhead bin you’re an idiot.
Follow the flight crew’s instructions to the letter. There is literally no in flight rule that a sane, functioning adult can’t follow without prompting. While I know some of the rules are silly or unlikely to matter, they must be enforced. A flight crew is trying to handle 100-300 people, they can’t spend their time making exceptions. If you recline your seat before the plane takes off, the attendant must tell you to put it back, which wastes their time, distracts them, and slows everything down.
When you get off the plane, be prepared to leave. Your shit should be squared away. You know the plane has landed and that people are getting off; there is no reason in the world you should not be ready. Get up, grab overhead bag, grab bag from seat, get out. That’s it.
As picky as this stuff sounds, even on a smaller place like a 737 it makes a world of difference. As with traffic jams the Slinky Effect means your delay is delaying it for everyone. If every person on a 737-900 can save just a few seconds getting off the plane, the person in the back gets off the plane 5, 10 minutes or more sooner than they otherwise would have.
All you have to do is think ahead just a few minutes…
Now, as to subjective calls, honestly, check your fucking suitcase. I realize people don’t like checking bags and it causes a bit of a delay when you get there, and the airlines ain’t helping by charging for even a single bag in some cases, but unless what you are carrying is legitimately, truly a small carry-on bag, you are doing us all a disservice by bringing it on the plane. I am on a run of dozens of consecutive flights now on which the flight was slightly delayed, and many people inconvenienced, because so many people brought bags onto the plane with them that were not by any reasonable definition of the term “carry-on” bags. Because of the sheer volume of them, a bunch of bags (some legitimately small and carry-on-ish) had to be taken off and checked after the fact, stuff had to be stowed far from their owners, the works. That said, my beef here is partially with airlines, who encourage this by charging for checked luggage.
My beef is fully with the airlines on this one. By charging for checked bags they are incenting (incentivizing?) behavior in the passengers. “Oh, $50 to check a bag? Eff that! I’m carrying it on!” Now I’m assuming the airlines internal economists crunched the numbers and concluded that by charging for checked bags: More people would carry on. Thereby reducing baggage handlers (saving money). Thereby delaying boarding (costing money). But that the revenue from charging, added to the payroll savings, would more than make up for the delayed boarding costs.
As for inconveniencing passengers? That is their mission, that’s what they do.
I don’t disagree, but there have been more than a few times I’ve waited 45 to 60 minutes for my bag. Then I have a 1.5 hour drive home. Not happy. One time after a full day of travel we were all waiting and waiting, finally I went to the counter to inquire and found out the bags were still on the plane. Someone “forgot” to unload this flight.
Alaska Air has a 20 minute guarantee, and it usually works. However, in Vegas it’s always longer and there is never anyone to talk to about your free miles or whatever they do for you if they blow the deadline. By the time the bag finally arrives the last thing you want to do is stick around longer to get your reward.
One imagines that you might tend to find blocked-off windows in a plane somewhat – disconcerting.
But one of the reasons they did this in the first place is that the traveling public in the United States made very clear, over an extended period of time, that their main concern when shopping online for airline tickets is seeing the absolute lowest price possible. This drove the airlines themselves to strip the tickets of everything except the bare minimum—getting you a seat on the plane—and, over the past decade, has resulted in airfares that are dramatically cheaper than they have ever been.
But the same public that shops based only on price, and that has been happy to turn flying from a luxury into a mode of transportation available to the broad lower-middle and even working class, also whines like a bunch of mewling pussies whenever the airlines try to claw back some of that revenue in the form of user fees for things like checked baggage, in-flight meals, alcohol, seat assignments, etc.
I can’t believe i’m defending the airlines here, because almost every time i fly i feel like stabbing an airline executive, but to a considerable extent, we the flying public have got the airline experience that we have shown ourselves willing to pay for.
My beef is with both the airlines and the passengers. I pit the passengers for bringing giant carry-on bags, and I pit the airlines for letting them get away with it. FFS, the gauge box is right there at the ticket counter, and there’s another one there at the gate: “YOUR CARRY-ON MUST FIT INSIDE THIS BOX TO BE ALLOWED IN THE CABIN.” And yet nobody - neither the passenger, ticket agent, gate agent, or flight attendant - seems to give a good god-damn that the passengers appear to be hauling a carry-on big enough to smuggle a cape buffalo aboard.
Nope. Caffeine yes, sugar no.
Source: Am parent, have survived many Halloweens and Easters.
Additional source: Does sugar make children hyperactive?
I’ve heard it back when they showed movies on one or a few screens. Open windows make the movie much harder to see.
That happened to airline travel long before bag charges, in fact about the time of People Express with their flying cattle cars.
My beef with the airlines is not so much the fees, but that they are an opportunity to publish a price which has little to do with what people actually pay. Airlines are not alone - hotels which charge resort fees for stuff you will never use are the same.
And while we’re placing blame where it should be due, it’s the airlines that have made the seatbacks encroach on the space you used to have in front of you. Once upon a time there was enough space between the seats that someone could recline and the person behind them didn’t get a seatback in their lap. (You do realize I’m not talking about first class, right?)
Over time the airlines have decreased the pitch (free space between the seats) and decreased the pitch so much that now we have people thinking poorly of their fellow passengers just because they don’t want to spend the flight in the upright and locked position.
Pro tip: if you have to get out of your seat to let some go to the bathroom when you sit back down don’t get all settled in, you are only going to have to get up in 5 minutes.
Bonus pro tip: keep your seat belt on when in your seat.
Well there’s certainly something to it, for sure. I just flew half way round the world, for $1102, fully $100, at least cheaper than I paid, for the exact same journey, over 20 years ago. Didn’t pay anything hidden, beyond that price, didn’t pay for my checked bag, or drinks!
Now the quality of the meals has definitely declined but that could be carrier specific. And there wasn’t the nice perk of being put up, on the airline, overnight in Tokyo, which this carrier used to do on this long haul flight, but that was always a bonus and only this carrier, which is why we always chose it. So one less, very nice, and no doubt costly perk but otherwise just as it was 20 plus years later, for less money!
And yes, I was surprised at how reasonable the flight was.
TSA could easily eliminate the oversized carry-on problem by standardizing the X-ray machine entrance and size it according to the carry-on size limit. If your carry-on cannot easily enter the X-ray machine, it must be checked. No allowances. Don’t like paying a baggage fee, let alone waiting for your bag to arrive? Too bad. Bring less with you so it fits within a standard sized carry-on.
What amazes me is how people get around the baggage fees by deliberately bringing their bags through security and gate-check them with the airline gate people graciously accepting them. I’ve seen (no exaggeration) passengers with as many as five, full bags go through security, only to gate-check three of them.