It makes me go insane when people act like jerks on airplanes and at airports and treat crew members like trash.
Just keep your opinions to yourself, go along with the program, and you’ll be at your destination before you know it…and everyone wins!
It’s really as easy as that! But you know some people have to cause problems wherever they go…
So, what annoys people who work on airplanes for a living?
Here’s what folks had to say on AskReddit.
1. This isn’t a restaurant.
“Act like it’s a restaurant and you’re the only customer in it.
If you don’t get your choice of meal, just take whatever is available, meals are loaded by a specific percentage.
If your seat is at the row where the food cart will finish, then there’s a chance you won’t get your choice of meal”
2. Ugh!
“Passenger painting her nails during the flight – noxious fumes for everyone!
Passengers who have the volume so high on their headphones that everyone in the surrounding five rows can hear it and won’t lower the volume no matter how many times they’re politely asked to do so.”
3. No leeway.
“As a flight attendant, it’s expecting leeway.
We aren’t given leeway by our bosses and the FAA about enforcing rules so if you want to do something against the FAA federal regulations or company procedures, we can’t give leeway either.
The idea that “it depends on the flight attendant” if your child has to wear a mask, if they will upgrade you, if you can keep your bag/laptop out, and anything that evokes the phrase “they let me do it on the last flight”., etc.
We can be fined a personal large monetary fine for allowing passengers to break rules or easily lose our jobs. Please just follow the rules that are set (that we have 0% decision on) or choose to travel a different method.”
4. Not gonna happen.
“Telling me it is your honeymoon so you can get bumped up to 1st Class for free on this flight to the Caribbean.
Look at the back of the plane – EVERYONE is on their honeymoon!”
5. Who would do that?
“Passengers taking safety equipment home.
It may seem innocent, but we have to have a minimum amount of safety cards, life jackets on board etc. Every time one goes missing or we fall below the minimum amount, it’s a phone call to maintenance.
One time a pax inflated the life jacket on board… caused an hour delay once we landed after getting the police involved for damage and phone calls to maintenance and company.”
6. Don’t even think about it.
“Don’t touch my crew!
It happens, and if you touch my crew inappropriately I’ll make sure the police are waiting for you as we park on stand. When it happens it’s usually because the person is intoxicated, but the alcohol effects are increased in an aircraft due to the reduced pressure!
Also for extra effect, I’ll make sure all the other passengers are still seated when we park, so you walk down the the aisle with the police so everyone can look at you.”
7. Oh, great…
“Back when you could bring aerosols on a plane, a woman on my flight started spraying hairspray on her hair.
For the entire duration of the flight, the cabin smelled like Aquanet.”
8. Where to begin…?
“I’d say one of the most irritating and annoying thing is when people ignore or fight our instructions concerning safety regulations.
I do not enjoy telling you that you can’t have your bag in an exit row, that you need to put your important laptop away for takeoff and landing and that you should stay seated when the seatbelt sign is on. And no it is not negotiable. No reason to get insulting or treat us like s**t.
Drunken behaviour. When you start getting aggressive for not getting anymore booze, we know it’s the right call. It is neither fun for us or the people sitting in you vicinity. From harassment, cussing, aggressive behaviour, throwing up or loud terrible singing/howling on a long haul night flight. Same for medications taken with alcohol.
If you are nice I am happy to walk the extra mile for you. Having a free seat next to you, a drink i don’t have in my cart ATM, extra snacks etc. But being an a** for things I can’t change won’t help anyone. Yes I do see you are flying with an infant and I would love to give you a whole seat row but the flight is fully booked.
You have a certain allergy and can’t eat any of the foods offered and have not ordered a special meal before flight? We have only the foods on board which were loaded and i can’t create or order any mid-flight.
The bar carts are heavy and the airplane has basically always an incline angle. Please move out of the way and go use the restroom before we are blocking your way.
Feet in the isles during night flights. The cabin lights are dimmed and i do understand your need for stretching your legs but it is a trip hazard for us. There have been colleagues which broke bones for tripping over feet and legs in the dark.
Parents which let their kids do whatever they want. I almost had to cancel a takeoff once because a toddler was crawling in the isle just because mom said he won’t sit still shortly before takeoff. Disregarding that on takeoff roll he could have gotten severely injured.
And please bring everything you need for your kids. Diapers, food, milk. We have some items to help you out when you run out but not to supply everything for infants for the entire flight. And tray tables and seats are no changing tables. Gross. Please use the ones in the restrooms.
And yes i cringe seeing ppl run around barefoot especially near/in restrooms. I sometimes can’t understand what happened in there but its gross. And well i bet in almost every aircraft are restrooms where someone couldn’t make it to it in time and vomited right in front of it.
You are a guest on board. A very valued guest. But please behave as such. You have passenger bins and your seat area. Don’t open other cabinets or lockers. Don’t help yourself to anything which isn’t obviously on display for you. And if in doubt ask first. We had passengers eating the homemade lunch of a colleague in Tupperware. Someone took a bite from a piece of cheese which my colleague already had a bite from and placed it back, etc
All that said I have had as well super amazing passengers. A lot of laughs, people who forgave me for drenching them with sprite or red wine, offering help to me in certain situations, etc.
Flying since 2012.”
9. Just don’t use ’em.
“Don’t use the seat-back pockets.
The number of people that leave phones, books, iPads, laptops, wallets, etc. in those things and forget to pick them up is ridiculous. Put all important objects in a pocket, or part of a purse or backpack, in the same place every time.
The number of freak outs and radio or phone calls to the gate to search for a phone we deal with because someone can’t find a phone, passport, wallet, ticket or whatever is way too high. 90% of the time it’s just drifted to the bottom of a bag or in a different pocket. Same place every time will save you some serious panic.”
10. That’s your fault.
“If you are booking a connecting flight and the connection times are 30min or 2 hours. Pick the 2 hour connection.
I can’t stand passengers who get all upset when they miss their connecting flight because they booked themselves a 30min connection. Your stressful travel day will be a little less stressful knowing you have a buffer.
If you happen to land on time or even early, sit down at a restaurant, go for a walk, people watch, find your next flights gate and watch a movie there, etc.”
11. No free drinks.
“Stop expecting free al**hol because you handed me a three dollar bag of candy you bought in the airport. I’m a grown man.
You didn’t make my day by giving me a Hershey’s kiss. Slip me a twenty instead. I’ll give you an open bar the rest of the flight.”
12. I said no!
“No, you do not fly more than I do.
No, you cannot have a free upgrade because your friends cousins knows someone who works for the airline.
That’s not water on the bathroom floor, wear your shoes.
Believe it or not, there is a flush button on the toilet, you can do it yourself.
When the seatbelt sign comes on, you do have to take your sleeping baby out of the bassinet. If we hit bad turbulence your baby can and will hit the ceiling, then the floor, then the ceiling again. Your little darling won’t be sleeping then.
Yes, you do have to pay attention to the safety demonstration. I don’t care that you’re on a very important business call, if you block up an aisle in an emergency because you don’t know where to go you will probably k**l us all.
No, I won’t tell you what hotel we stay at.”
13. Ugh.
“Poking or grabbing at me to get my attention!!
And it’s usually on my as** as it’s eye level with most people haha. But for real DON’T poke people! Especially if I am speaking to another passenger. I can see you waving at me I’m not going to interrupt my assisting someone else because you want me to take your trash, just give me a second and I’ll come to you next.
I promise can hear you if you say “excuse me!” Or “Miss!” Or even wave a little in my direction. There’s just no need to touch people or grab at them.
Once I was so irritated at someone’s incessant poking, I turned, looked them in the eye and poke poke poked them right back and said, “what do you need.””
14. Not my fault.
“Check-in Agent here.
When the plane is delayed or there’s a cancellation and passengers blame us! Honestly there’s nothing more we want than getting you on the plane to your holiday or back home but if there’s something physically wrong with the plane we will not risk everyone’s lives.
Shouting, screaming and cursing at us won’t change the fact that the plane is still broken!”
15. So rude.
“Leaving a ridiculous amount of garbage behind.
Last week I had a couple spit huge globs of gum onto the floor and then step on it to try to rub it in.
Like seriously? Why?”
16. Gross.
“Don’t try to join the Mile High Club.
Just, stop.
No, you aren’t being very quiet and yes we will know and depending on the airline policy we’ll also have to politely ask you to knock it off and keep it in your pants.
Not to mention the obvious – airplane restrooms are ridiculously tiny, to the point where once on one long haul we had to make an emergency landing because a large couple couldn’t get out of the restroom they had shoved themselves into once they were done.
I’ll add that this is THE grossest place to possibly want to do the deed, as restrooms NEVER GET DEEP-CLEANED, EVER (between same-day legs)
Ugh, and please don’t jerk your partner off while you’re both in your seats, with OUR COMPLEMENTARY BLANKET(!!!).
I know what your hand motions mean and I will have to come over and shut it down, especially because in most cases there are families with kids sitting behind or near you.”
17. I’m pretty sure that’s on you.
“The stories I have….which honestly anyone who’s worked any type of customer service knows what’s up.
My personal favorite. College athlete showed up late to flight, told couldn’t board, yelling, screaming and cursing all employees. Bringing her race up as reason they aren’t letting her on….you know the works.
The competition she missed the flight to was Olympic tryouts. How late was she you ask? She showed up two hours after the flight left…”
18. Jeez…
“The mayor of LA was coming though so they shut the gate down for security reasons.
Jay Leno was there for some reason and was screaming at my mom because he was not getting the same treatment as the mayor.”
19. No touching.
“After a flight I usually stand by the flight deck and say good bye to the passengers as they exit.
I get a lot of people that ask how old I am. That doesn’t really bother me (I’ll probably be sad when it stops), but please don’t touch me as you are saying it. Seriously, strangers trying to pinch cheeks and pat my head.
Lady, I’m not your grandchild, I’m your captain.”
20. LOL.
“Used to fly 50 seat jets for a regional. Flew with some captains who hated hearing “wow this plane is really small” as passengers boarded.
“It would look pretty big parked in your driveway” was my favorite response I heard. The plane was 100′ long and weighed 50,000 lbs so yeah I bet it would.”
21. Follow the rules…
“Ex EK cabin crew here. Honestly the most annoying thing is when passenger don’t follow safety protocols as we get ready for landing. Things such as…
Not putting on seat belts for whatever reason Not putting seats upright Taking your time in the toilet Standing up to grab things from overhead bin
…Among other thingsThere are a lot to do to prep a long haul flight for landing and once we start decent, there is a limited time to get everything done. Passengers who don’t cooperate definitely are the most annoying. There were times where I got to my jump seat right before landing on the runway.
I saw a reply above on running out of food choices. One time on a flight to New Delhi, in economy we ran out of vegetarian meals 2/3 way through because catering underestimated the demand.
We then ran through the crew meals to gather all the vegetarian options and gave those out to passengers. While planes aren’t restaurants, we definitely did our best to accommodate the passengers as best as we can.”
22. Out of our hands.
“Blaming us for: ATC delays, missed connections, baggage issues, etc.
We have no control over that…we just fly planes and keep you safe aboard.
We understand we’re the face of the company you see at the time, but really it’s out of our hands.”
23. From a pilot.
“Pilot here.
My worst experiences with customers is when the weather is bad and we have to either wait or make a no go decision. My personal favorite is the guy who screamed at me while I was in the terminal getting coffee because his flight wasn’t leaving on time.
The whole northeast was shut down for thunderstorms and low ceilings, but his iPhone said it was ok for us to go so he had to tell me how bad I am at my job.
As a passenger don’t say “thanks for finally showing up”. One it’s incredibly rude, two you may only have one flight that day but I probably had four. Chances are I was delayed because of a another flight or maintenance on some other plane.
Added to that we often only get 45 mins to an hour between flights which ends to requiring us to literally get off one right onto another. We have to grab food or maybe use a real bathroom in that time also.
Don’t ask if we were out late last night drinking. You may say it as a joke and think it’s funny but we have to take those comments seriously. There is a chance that comment will force the pilots to go take a breathalyzer and your flight may be delayed or canceled. If you honestly smell booze speak up. If not it’s not funny and keep your mouth shut.
Not an annoyance but I do love the look on peoples faces when I tell them “sorry I don’t know where the nearest X is, this is my first time at this airport”. We don’t pre plan and memorize the layouts of the terminals at every airport in the world.”
24. The straight dope.
“Former flight attendant here… 15 years I’ve seen it all! (and sorry for formatting, on mobile)
Walking throughout the aircraft barefoot. Especially into the toilets… Those floors are not as clean as you think they are!
People who talk to us and treat us like scum. And yes, we’ll provide better service to the ones who are nice, or think of them first when a whole row is free and they need to lie down and sleep during an 11hr flight.
Parents that don’t watch their kids during the flight. The aircraft isn’t childproof and there’s a surprising amount of things they can injure themselves on.
Passengers who do aircraft yoga during the service. By all means if lights are off and it’s quiet go ahead, but if there’s a buzz of activity near the galley then maybe wait a while.
Speaking of which, assuming the galley is a free for all. Sometimes we don’t get provided crew food for work and bring our own. If we’re busy attending to a call bell and can’t finish out snack or whatever… Its not for you to just grab and eat… At least ask first!
Complaining about how rough the flight was. I’ve had some cuss out the flight deck about their abilities because the aircraft hit wake turbulence… If you can magically see wake turbulence on a tiny monitor and think you can do a better job then join a flight academy, pay several thousand dollars for the training and certification and do it yourself…”
Now we want to hear from you.
What annoys you when you fly?
Talk to us in the comments and let us know!
