Flying: Things that irk me.

Jalapeno

Roland said:

As an erstwhile frequent flier .......
I also hate being forced to wend my way through that expensive shopping experience known as Duty Free.

I can't stand the rank stench of perfume samplers in Duty Free, dreadful in department stores too.

Emp_Fab

They will never stop not just selling, but actively pushing alcohol onto passengers (in flight special offers etc etc).  It makes too much money. 

Remember, the air travel industry exists for one reason only - to extract as much money as possible from passengers.  The service they provide in exchange for your money is not there to help anyone travel, it's what they have to do to get you to give them money. 

Everything they do has been analysed and tweaked to squeeze every remaining penny out of you and minimise what they have to spend in order to do that. 

When you consider that every component on a plane, from the engines to the toilet seats have been scrutinised for any opportunity to shave a few grams off the weight - Lighter plane = less fuel = more profit, it's an absolute no-brainer to push products with good margins on the trapped passengers. 

The occasional drunk passenger incident is in no danger of them giving up a lucrative revenue stream. 
The only way they'd ever stop selling it would be if it somehow made them more money to do so.

Tannin

WezV

Offset said:

Dominic said:

Alcohol ......why ?

Well... for me and Mrs O the reason is twofold.  It's the start of our holday and we like a couple of glasses of prosecco to celebrate.  We usually book a lounge at the airport (certainly before longhaul) so we can chill in comfort and relative peace so frankly, it's rude not to avail oneself of refreshments available :-).  The other reason is I'm a very nervous flier so a couple of glasses chills me out and usually ensures I sleep for a decent chunk of the flight.

All of that said, I've been on flights where people have been absolutely shitfaced and it isn't nice.  You'd like to think if someone was THAT pissed they'd be prevented from boarding but sadly, that seldom seems to be the case.

Same here, it helps me chill out a bit before I have to get on a plane.  

Although I have recently found the beer will bloat me, and this gets considerably more uncomfortable after a couple of hours at altitude.  If an engine went down I'm confident I could provide the necessary propulsion!!

stickyfiddle

I'll often have a glass of fizz if it's a holiday flight, not least because I usually have lounge access and it's free. I wouldn't want to be drunk walking to the gate though. 

CHRISB50

We flew back from Ibiza a few weeks back. 

Flight called. 

Go to the gate. 

Group of 5 lads in front of us. Late 20s / early 30s. 

One of them spent the entire time at a 90 degree angle, leaning on the handle of his carry on. 

The lads went through the gate. My wife, kids and I were getting our boarding passes and passports checked. 

Mr Right Angle comes back round the corner asking to use the toilet. Gate staff said no. Too late. Use the one on the plane. 

We finished getting our passes checked and went round the corner, to go down the steps to the tarmac. 

Mr Right Angle had coated the entire set of stairs, and the floor below. Luckily mainly water. The volume was impressive. Everything was covered. Apart from one hand rail. 

Once we’d carefully navigated the stairs we got outside, and he was still being sick. Doubled over outside the bus to take us to the plane. 

He had a lot of space to himself on the bus. 

He looked like he actually might die. His mates thought it was hilarious. 

I’m fairly amazed he was allowed on the plane. My wife mentioned what had happened, and that he was still being sick, to one of the airport staff by the bus. He just shrugged. I guess it may be a regular occurrence with flights back from certain places. 

Gassage

AK99 said:

Gassage said:

I am a nervous flyer. 

I am encyclopaedic on flying, how to fly a plane, what can go wrong. I have gone on A300, A320 and &3 Flight sims to overcome and to learn. I am virtually an authority on crashes and their causes.

I have flown on everything going, hundreds of times.

But nothing works- in fact the more I learn the worse it is.

However, airlines blather on about safety, yet they don't make things easy for nervous PAX.

Things crew do that I hate:

1. DO NOT TALK BOLLOCKS when on climb out. I don't wanna know until we reach cruise. If you as attendants are talking, you are not focused on safety since the climb out is a key risk moment.
2, DO NOT TALK BOLLOCKS TRYING TO UPSELL- this again is infuriating. You're there to look after my safety (your words) not upsell mascara.
3. DO NOT TRY AND MAKE SAFETY BRIEFINGS FUNNY OR QUIRKY. They are key briefings which should be concise and professional.
4. DO not overcrowd back galley loo on narrowbody scheduled flight because there's 2 PAX in Club Europe. Use common sense- Safety>Privilege and if you get 10 pax queuing, a) it's dangerous in any case b) you're actually affecting the COG of plane on something like an Embreaer.
5. DO NOT TALK BOLLOCKS until the taxiing has finished- this is a key risk moment. See 11.
6. DO NOT TAXI like a twat because you're on a 30 min turnaround. 10knts is max for a turn and attempting a handbrake turn with a 73 isn't cool.

There's just a few. I'm sure I can think of more.

I have to ask, man.. do you drive ?

Yep.

Gassage

Emp_Fab said:

Jeez.  All this moaning!  Flying is amazing....  The fact you can travel in the sky at 500mph and go places around the world for next to nothing. 

I don't understand nervous fliers at all.  The facts, proveably accurate, show that flying is one of, if not THE safest ways of getting from a to b.

Fear of flying is completely irrational.

Fear of being stuck in an uncomfortable economy class seat on a long haul trip next with a bloke with halitosis on one side and a screaming child on the other - that's very very real indeed.

So- flying is safer by distance travelled.

But, measured by deaths by journeys completed (cycles) it is less safe.

Dominic

Fishboy7 said:

I don't mind a bit of Vodka and Caviar in the morning actually 

Nor do I but I only do it  if I'm in bed  with a film star or celebrity.....usually wash it down with a bottle of Bolly

ICBM

Gassage said:

So- flying is safer by distance travelled.

But, measured by deaths by journeys completed (cycles) it is less safe.

This. The airline industry loves to quote the first statistic, but it's not really relevant - what matters is whether you survive your journey or not, and the 'deaths per per mile' statistic is heavily skewed because almost by definition, flights are longer distance than almost any other mode of transport. Driving is still about three times safer than flying, per passenger journey - the often-repeated claim that you're more likely to die in a road crash on the way to the airport than on the plane is wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_accident

RaymondLin

Erm….

Airport food prices 
People trying to sneak in too much carry on. 
People seat in front goes back soon as the plane takes off.
Loud people.  

Luckily I don’t go to party central places so don’t get many group of lads on the same flight as me.

fretmeister

To be honest as long as the plane gets me where I want to be and manages to land at a speed slower than the point it would be incompatible with life, I'm good.

west

Dominic said:

Fishboy7 said:

I don't mind a bit of Vodka and Caviar in the morning actually 

Nor do I but I only do it  if I'm in bed  with a film star or celebrity.....usually wash it down with a bottle of Bolly

Dont forget a dozen oysters briney with tabasco ....

Timcito

Dominic said:

Alcohol ......why ?

A good friend of mine from the past (English) seemed to consider it somehow traditional to drink at an airport bar before take-off. Even when I drank alcohol, I couldn't have imagined anything more likely to make me feel putrid than drinking a beer or whatever before even getting on the plane.

ICBM

Timcito said:

A good friend of mine from the past (English) seemed to consider it somehow traditional to drink at an airport bar before take-off. Even when I drank alcohol, I couldn't have imagined anything more likely to make me feel putrid than drinking a beer or whatever before even getting on the plane.

I just had to warn a young person who is about to turn 18 and going on holiday on a long flight why it's a very bad idea... lowered air pressure and humidity plus alcohol is a bad combination. I wouldn't want him to ruin his holiday before it's even really started.

Haych

When we landed at Atlanta last year it was a late arrival and three other international flights landed at pretty much the same time. 

To say the immigration desks were short staffed would have been an understatement and with about 1500 people queuing to get through immigration to claim baggage it wasn’t long before people started cutting under the barriers to get ahead in the line of people. 

Security were having none of it and if they spotted anyone queue jumping they were removing them and making them start at the back of the queue again. 

Other people are by far the worst thing about having to fly. Other passengers first and foremost, many who think they are an exception and that they have special dispensation to be selfish and entitled. 

I’ve had occasions when airport staff have been equally horrendous to deal with and I’ve had experiences of them being the most polite and helpful people ever. 

New York will always be at the top of the list for rude airport staff and Phoenix had the best and most laid back staff you could ever wish to meet. 

American passengers are the worst, but not because they are especially rude or anything, get sat next to one and they will try to talk to you the entire flight, whether you’re in the mood for a conversation or not! 

I also can’t stand having messy neighbours. I try to keep the area around me tidy, I hate clutter, not to mention it’s dangerous in an emergency if there’s detritus strewn around the place. So being sat next to someone who chucks everything around the cabin really pisses me off and gives me the ick. 

Speaking of the ick; airport hotels! All designed by the same team of sociopaths and totally soulless. Deliberately created to make you not want to stay a second longer than you absolutely must!

Not quite close enough to the terminal to be as useful as you hope but far enough away from everything else that they can squeeze every patron for as much cash for low quality food and expensive beer all served by staff having the charm of a serial killer. 

No, that’s not right. Even serial killers take pride in their work!

Offset

@Haych - same Atlanta experiences for me on many occasions.  And at JFK last December, there were TWO desks out of c.40 open when we arrived late.  It took three hours to get through passport control and no-one gave a flying fuck.  Absolutely disgraceful.  We lost the entire evening.  

Schnozz

This...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLyUcAUMmMY

topdog91

At least you'll be able to do this from the aircraft:



In all seriousness, of course there's a lot of annoying stuff about flying but generally it's safety-first. The briefings are made more interesting so that there's a vague chance that Johnny Pax will actually pay attention instead of staring at his emails because you know, it will never happen to me syndrome.

I think you assume that every nervous flyer is nervous for the same reasons. You have accumulated a lot more knowledge than the average, and in your case, ignorance might have been bliss because everyone treats knowledge differently.

Your post is well-suited to FlyerTalk, see how it goes down.

UnclePsychosis

@Haych your post reminds me of one of the most ridiculous airport experiences I've ever had:

Its late, like 1am or 2am late. Stansted Airport, international arrivals, specifically customs. Everyone is tired and pissed off, because its 2am and we're in customs in fucking Stansted Airport. 

The queue is maaaaaaaassive. Hundreds of tired, pissed off people who just want to be anywhere else. Imagine the biggest airport queue you can, then make it bigger. 

There's a young woman, late twenties, just ahead of me. She is travelling on her own, with a babe in arms, and also a small toddler - maybe two years old, tops. She also has to manage luggage for the three of them. You can tell it's been a long day for her. 

Toddler is screaming. You know, because its 2am and we're all grumpy and we all want to go home and because being in a queue in Stansted Airport is miserable when you're a grown up and you understand what's happening, nevermind when you're two, and your mum can't give you a cuddle because she's carrying your sibling and a suitcase and a rucksack and fuck knows what else. Mum is doing her best but the only thing that is going to fix this is being anywhere else. 

Then, some kind soul says to her - - - she didn't ask - - - "look love, I've been where you are, it's miserable, you're definitely in more need than me, you go ahead in front". Mum is so grateful she looks like she's going to cry. 

This cascades - passengers start ushering the three of them to the front. This isnt entirely selfless, of course - we all hate screaming children and just want it to stop. But the point is that a queue of British people are voluntarily ushering someone else to the front. Its like a fucking miracle. In Stansted. At 2am.

That is, until the airport worker in the hi-viz vest and the clip board spots whats happening. Literally hi-viz and clipboard. Absolutely perfect accompaniment for what comes out of this person's mouth next. Imagine the snootiest, snidest, I have a hi-viz vest and a clipboard arsehole that you can... 

"excuse me madam, we all have to wait our turn. You'll just need to wait like every body else". 

I genuinely think that was the closest I've ever come to seeing a mob tear someone limb from limb. Seeing the jobsworth suffer the humiliation of an entire queue ignoring them to push the woman forward anyway, then suffering a good half hour of muttering, head shaking, and pointing from almost literally the entire queue, was absolutely fucking fabulous.