Remember back in the old days, when flying felt like a luxurious experience? Or, if “luxurious” is a stretch, then at least a more classy one? True, the seats were always too cramped, and the food has always sucked. But still, there was a time when adults on planes behaved like, well, like adults on planes.
But as with everything else our Me First culture touches, plane rides are becoming increasingly unpleasant, as more and more passengers who assume the world revolves around them are making the experience worse for the rest of us.
Take the example of a straight-up Karen who, once the plane landed and stopped, stood up and quickly moved to the front to beat everybody else to the exit. In doing so, she effectively cut in front of everyone else who had remained sitting as they were supposed to. When her fellow passengers called her out on it (calmly and civilly, I might add), she began hurling insults at them, making fun of their accents, and dropping F-bombs within earshot of clearly visible children.
Take the example of a corpulent passenger who bought a window seat and then, once on board, demanded to be given an aisle seat to better accommodate his errant rotundity. The police were called after the man refused to cooperate with the flight crew. Once the police arrived, the man refused to leave the plane and instead lay down in the aisle in protest. A grown adult did this. Police had to drag him off the plane like a petulant child out of a candy store.
Take the example of the guy who delayed a Delta flight take-off by refusing to get off his cell phone despite repeated requests by both crew and other passengers. Take the example of this guy who also refused to get off his phone mid-flight, forcing the airplane to turn around and return to its point of departure. Take the example of this guy who got into a two-hour yelling match with stewardesses, demanding that they sit him next to his girlfriend. That flight also was diverted back to its point of departure.
And what would our Me First culture have to offer if not for wannabe-alpha males getting into physical fights 35,000 feet above the ground? Because nothing screams “tough guy” more than pummeling an innocent person stuck in the middle seat on a plane with no room to maneuver.
If you’re looking to lower your overall opinion of humanity even further, more stories can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. One of these incidents involved an attacker punching a female senior citizen in the face multiple times. Another involved an attacker assaulting female flight attendants. Most of these incidents were fueled by alcohol. And aside from one plane that was already landing when the fight broke out, all of these incidents resulted in either a delayed take-off or an emergency landing.
That’s thousands of people who were delayed by hours, and even days. That means shorter vacations, missed connecting flights, and being diverted hundreds of miles off course. Not to mention having to sit on a plane and witness this nonsense. All because a few selfish overgrown children didn’t get their way.
Related: Adulting 101: Behaving In Restaurants
So how do we, as a society, reverse this? It starts with cleaning up the little things. It always has. Law enforcement refers to this as “broken windows policing.” Nip the smaller infractions in the bud to prevent the bigger infractions from occurring.
And the good news in all of this is that a few of the airlines — finally — are starting to crack down.
A recent policy change at United Airlines allows flight crews authority to remove passengers who play audio or video too loudly without headphones. Passengers who refuse to comply can be permanently banned from United.
The aforementioned incident with the passenger refusing to get off his phone so that the plane could depart resulted in the plane returning to the terminal and the man being removed from the flight. Jet2 has banned for life the two lushes fighting on their plane.
That’s a good start, but this trend needs to continue. I’m of the opinion that anybody initiating violence on an airplane should be banned for life across the board on every airline and from every airport. And whatever rule allows people to bring animals onto planes needs to be reversed. But since nearly half of Congress is too preoccupied with rooting for Iran to win, it falls to the airlines themselves to handle the problem.
It’s a sad testament of the times that corporations need to babysit some adults, but that’s only because some adults need babysitting. At least they’re starting to recognize that their passengers, and certainly their stewardesses, deserve better.
If you can’t behave like an adult on an airplane, then walk.
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