Lastminute.com has done a survey to identify air passengers’ most irritating in-flight habits. Rather predictably, screaming children is up there, but it’s not the highest one on the list. So what are the things that annoy us most of all? Below is a list of your 10 biggest frustrations. My greatest irritations – people getting up from their seats before the seat belt sign has gone out – or using their mobile phones when not permitted – don’t even make the top 10.
1. Neighbours using too much space
2. Screaming children
3. Drunken passengers
4. Loud conversations
5. Passengers listening to loud music
6. Passengers eating noisily/messily
7. Snoring passengers
8. Applauding after landing
9. Chatty neighbours
10. Flirtatious neighbours
What irritates you the most?
Paul Johnson is Editor of A Luxury Travel Blog and has worked in the travel industry for more than 30 years. He is Winner of the Innovations in Travel ‘Best Travel Influencer’ Award from WIRED magazine. In addition to other awards, the blog has also been voted “one of the world’s best travel blogs” and “best for luxury” by The Daily Telegraph.
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11 Comments
Well, these are actually a good list. What I also don’t like are passengers that are complaining on their seats and keep on calling the in-flight attendants for a lot of concerns.
Passengers that jump out of their seat wanting to get off as soon as the plane hits the runway.
Passengers that seem to have 6 bags of hand luggage and stand in the gangways so no one to get past.
What about those annoying people who use the seat in front of them to jerk themselves out of their seat every time they get up?
Surely I’m not the only person who is hyper-annoyed by this….
Lack of tolerance. Give me a cigarette, a glass of wine and a good book and I’ll be content and quiet as a lamb.
However, if I’m denied tolerance of what I’d like then I don’t see why I should have to sit next to a fat person taking up all the space or a screaming kid or a baby with smelly nappies, or some idiot using my seat back to pull himself up, etc. Tolerance should be mutual.
Another thing is the weight allowance. If I weigh 50kg (which I do), I don’t see why they can sometimes be so strict about whether my bag is 5kg or 10kg, when there’s a person sitting next to me who weighs 100kg with the same baggage allowance.
Good point Kay about the weight allowance. But imagine the fuss people would put up if they started trying to implement that?!
Yep, that would be sizeist or some other weird thing justified in the name of not discriminating against people.
I feel like I’m being discriminated against for being small. Why do I pay the same price for 55kg (me plus a 5kg bag) as a much larger person who gets twice the allowance? I should get it half price or get a bigger luggage allowance.
(Or just make a little smoke chamber for me to kill myself with noxious substances, keep me contented, and I’ll not complain about what other people do.)
Another pet hate of flying is the choice of meals when it’s chicken or chicken. I know that when you’re flying between countries with different religions and norms it’s easier. (Muslims don’t eat pork, Hindus don’t eat beef, etc.) Chicken is the easy option so as not to offend people.
But I don’t like chicken – not since it’s been so horribly factory farmed and tasteless. So, I don’t like being given the “choice” of chicken this or chicken that. I am being discriminated against because I don’t like chicken.
Where will it ever end? ;-)
To be honest I hate travelling by plane in general. Know it’s ridiculous, but I still have a fear of flying. It’s not so long I experienced my worst flight. Screaming children, screaming teenagers (the worst thing you can imagine in a plane, trust me), teenagers taking a LOT of photos of themselves, teenagers calling on stewardess… and all what you mentioned in your post and comments. So… the worst passengers ever? A big group of teenagers. If you see them in a queue for check-in, run!
I don’t understand how “applauding after landing” made the list. Seriously, what is wrong with that? In my early days of flying, the passengers would regularly applaud upon landing at the conclusion of an international flight; I thought that was great. Anyone who voted for that as a problem with flying is a little uptight.
Not so much annoying as amusing, but watching everyone rushing to stand in the aisle as soon as the fasten seatbelt comes off – it’s like a stampede for the luggage belts!
Pilots who speak a foreign language with such a bad accent that you can’t understand a word. They might as well not bother.
Cabin crew who hand out alcohol to passengers who have clearly had more than enough. They’re the first to complain when passengers are drunk and unruly.
I am bothered by people standing in the aisle talking to their friend and those people who move around during meal service so the flight service team have to keep moving the trolley to let them through. A Qatar Airlines flight recently was an absurd example of that.
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1. Neighbours using too much space
2. Screaming children
3. Drunken passengers
4. Loud conversations
5. Passengers listening to loud music
6. Passengers eating noisily/messily
7. Snoring passengers
8. Applauding after landing
9. Chatty neighbours
10. Flirtatious neighbours
What irritates you the most?
1. Neighbours using too much space
2. Screaming children
3. Drunken passengers
4. Loud conversations
5. Passengers listening to loud music
6. Passengers eating noisily/messily
7. Snoring passengers
8. Applauding after landing
9. Chatty neighbours
10. Flirtatious neighbours
What irritates you the most?
Well, these are actually a good list. What I also don’t like are passengers that are complaining on their seats and keep on calling the in-flight attendants for a lot of concerns.
Passengers that jump out of their seat wanting to get off as soon as the plane hits the runway.
Passengers that seem to have 6 bags of hand luggage and stand in the gangways so no one to get past.
What about those annoying people who use the seat in front of them to jerk themselves out of their seat every time they get up?
Surely I’m not the only person who is hyper-annoyed by this….
Lack of tolerance. Give me a cigarette, a glass of wine and a good book and I’ll be content and quiet as a lamb.
However, if I’m denied tolerance of what I’d like then I don’t see why I should have to sit next to a fat person taking up all the space or a screaming kid or a baby with smelly nappies, or some idiot using my seat back to pull himself up, etc. Tolerance should be mutual.
Another thing is the weight allowance. If I weigh 50kg (which I do), I don’t see why they can sometimes be so strict about whether my bag is 5kg or 10kg, when there’s a person sitting next to me who weighs 100kg with the same baggage allowance.
Good point Kay about the weight allowance. But imagine the fuss people would put up if they started trying to implement that?!
Yep, that would be sizeist or some other weird thing justified in the name of not discriminating against people.
I feel like I’m being discriminated against for being small. Why do I pay the same price for 55kg (me plus a 5kg bag) as a much larger person who gets twice the allowance? I should get it half price or get a bigger luggage allowance.
(Or just make a little smoke chamber for me to kill myself with noxious substances, keep me contented, and I’ll not complain about what other people do.)
Another pet hate of flying is the choice of meals when it’s chicken or chicken. I know that when you’re flying between countries with different religions and norms it’s easier. (Muslims don’t eat pork, Hindus don’t eat beef, etc.) Chicken is the easy option so as not to offend people.
But I don’t like chicken – not since it’s been so horribly factory farmed and tasteless. So, I don’t like being given the “choice” of chicken this or chicken that. I am being discriminated against because I don’t like chicken.
Where will it ever end? ;-)
To be honest I hate travelling by plane in general. Know it’s ridiculous, but I still have a fear of flying. It’s not so long I experienced my worst flight. Screaming children, screaming teenagers (the worst thing you can imagine in a plane, trust me), teenagers taking a LOT of photos of themselves, teenagers calling on stewardess… and all what you mentioned in your post and comments. So… the worst passengers ever? A big group of teenagers. If you see them in a queue for check-in, run!
I don’t understand how “applauding after landing” made the list. Seriously, what is wrong with that? In my early days of flying, the passengers would regularly applaud upon landing at the conclusion of an international flight; I thought that was great. Anyone who voted for that as a problem with flying is a little uptight.
Not so much annoying as amusing, but watching everyone rushing to stand in the aisle as soon as the fasten seatbelt comes off – it’s like a stampede for the luggage belts!
Pilots who speak a foreign language with such a bad accent that you can’t understand a word. They might as well not bother.
Cabin crew who hand out alcohol to passengers who have clearly had more than enough. They’re the first to complain when passengers are drunk and unruly.
I am bothered by people standing in the aisle talking to their friend and those people who move around during meal service so the flight service team have to keep moving the trolley to let them through. A Qatar Airlines flight recently was an absurd example of that.