With strict schedules, crowded security lines, overpriced food and a shortage of places to plug in your phone, air travel tends to be a stressful experience long before you’re squeezed into a seat for hours.
So don’t make it worse for everybody else.
Travel site The Vacationer recently released the results of its 2022 Airplane Etiquette Violations Survey, which asked more than a thousand adults which airplane behaviors irritate them.
Here are the things on flights that people agree are really, really annoying.
10. Listen to music or movies too loudly
Survey respondents who cited this among the most annoying airplane behaviors: 28.96%
Yes, some of us haven’t been on a plane or in a movie theater in a while. No, that doesn’t mean it’s OK to watch this summer’s blockbusters without headphones on.
Simply wearing headphones isn’t courteous by itself either. Make sure the volume isn’t maxed out. Since we’re sitting with our ears maybe 8 inches apart, your neighbor trying to read a book can probably hear every line of dialogue otherwise.
9. Board or deplane out of turn
Survey respondents who cited this among the most annoying airplane behaviors: 29.6%
Some might say all is fair in love and the battle for overhead bin space. But jostling your way toward the front of the line to get on — or trying to pull a fast one on the hurried flight crew by lining up with an earlier boarding group — is uncalled for.
Ditto for the people who practically climb over the seats trying to get off before everybody else.
8. Talk to someone too much
Survey respondents who cited this among the most annoying airplane behaviors: 29.87%
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with being friendly, but not everybody is a social butterfly or in the mood to chat with strangers at 35,000 feet. If someone does not seem enthusiastic about conversation, letting it drop is the polite thing to do — because they don’t have the option of politely finding a way to leave.
7. Fully recline your seat
Survey respondents who cited this among the most annoying airplane behaviors: 38.25%
These days, plane seats usually can’t recline very far. But every inch you gain is one you take from somebody else. And it really makes a difference when you have long legs, especially if you’re a middle-seater besieged on all sides.
6. Hog the armrests
Survey respondents who cited this among the most annoying airplane behaviors: 39.07%
There are usually four (or three, if you’re in an exit row) armrests in each three-seat row on a flight. Assume you get only one, and that it’s the one on the side closest to the aisle.
Treat your armrest as an international border, and assume that crossing it will be taken as a declaration of war.
5. Eat pungent or foul-smelling food
Survey respondents who cited this among the most annoying airplane behaviors: 39.8%
It’s OK to bring your own snacks on a flight. The ones they offer are often lousy or expensive.
But if you’ve ever worked in an office, you’ve probably experienced someone microwaving something stinky in the break room. A plane is a break room you’re locked inside of — for hours.
4. Be inattentive to or poorly parent your child
Survey respondents who cited this among the most annoying airplane behaviors: 46.81%
Parenting isn’t easy. But few people appreciate children sticking things between the seats, bouncing around, crying, screaming or committing the cardinal sin of air travel — which we’ll get to at the end.
3. Smell due to poor hygiene or heavy fragrance
Survey respondents who cited this among the most annoying airplane behaviors: 48%
We don’t want to smell somebody else any more than we want to smell somebody else’s lunch.
1. Get drunk and be disruptive (tie)
Survey respondents who cited this among the most annoying airplane behaviors: 59.11%
While many flights do sell alcohol, nobody should mistake a plane for a bar. It might have been funny when Kristen Wiig’s character had too much to drink and swore at the flight attendant in the film “Bridesmaids,” but it won’t be if anyone does it for real.
1. Kick the back of someone’s seat (tie)
Survey respondents who cited this among the most annoying airplane behaviors: 59.11%
Here it is: the single most annoying thing you can do on a plane without being of legal drinking age. Please keep your feet — and the feet of your progeny — off the seat in front of you.
Brandon Ballenger
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