I've been spending a lot of time in airports and airplanes a lot recently (making round trips every weekend) and I encounter a lot of people on those trips, as well as being on Amtrak trains which have approximately the same kind of people. I used to fantasize about being a business traveler, being in different parts of the world and being busy all the time, those adults always seemed so professional and driven when I was a child. Now.......not so much. I usually want to just get in and out of the plane and the airport as soon as possible. But I usually have to encounter some of these people while doing so.
1.) Candy Crush Guy: this is not exclusively for airplane travelers, but I've noticed it on various modes of transportation.....what is so great about this game? From what I've gathered of watching people's screens while they mindlessly swipe their phones to get the colorful balls to shift the rows and "crush the candy" I can't help but think how mindless the human species has become with these no-thinking games. Candy Crush doesn't involve any outside knowledge, not much logical thinking, no benefit to society......it is just purely a time-waster that leaves you worse off and your mind number than you did when you started it. (I guess I also do fantasy sports, so maybe I'm being hypocritical?) There will be people I sit next to who play the game for all 4 hours I'm on a flight with them. No breaks.
2.) Armrest Hog, aka Aisle/Window Seat guy who encroaches on the middle seat. I'm a middle seat person, not by choice but by necessity: I book last-minute and don't care where I sit because I can sleep anywhere, so I resign myself to the middle seat (usually, sometimes a plane isn't totally full or I just get randomly assigned something else). Middle seaters don't have much rights, but if there's one golden rule middle seaters fight for, it's the right to the 2 armrest spaces. Those are NOT for you, people on the side! So don't be jutting your elbows in there or crossing the line.
3.) Mountain of Luggage Guy/Girl: I'm lucky enough that I have places to stay on both coasts in the U.S., so I travel light (see previous post), but I'd like to have an intervention for the people who seem to bring their entire life as a carry-on onto the flight with them. It's a pain and you're holding up the line. Airplanes can actually get to a destination faster if people take less time to put up luggage at the beginning so that everybody can get seated quickly and the plane can pull out of the gate faster..... doubly true for getting to the destination and getting out of the plane......if everyone can take 10 less seconds to get all their stuff and get out, we could save 10 minutes or so to get out of the airport ASAP and on with our lives (always a top priority), but conversely if Mountain of Luggage Guy/Girl is fumbling with the overhead compartment, need help pulling down their oversized luggage, almost knock someone out swinging their luggage around to the ground, get caught in the aisle while trying to navigate their way off the plane, then it becomes a traffic jam with just one lane available, and everyone is delayed.
4.) Need to Pee Guy/Girl: I have been this person one or twice, but I usually am fine for a flight of five hours or less. It's common sense: use the restroom before taking off. I got on a flight a few weeks ago ready to sleep and drifted off as soon as the plane got into the air but then was rudely and horribly awakened by Neighbor Guy in Window Seat who tapped me on the shoulder to wake me up so he could go pee. Like an hour into the flight. Seriously man, you can't wait to see if I would wake up on my own a little later to go pee? I had a hard time sleeping after that.
5.) Feet on the Footprints Martinet- A strict observer of the rules, the TSA person (like rising from the dead, they appear again in my blog) who tells me my feet are not perfectly on the set of footprints on the ground. Even though I've gone through so many airports with so many sets of footprints and never got yelled at about it before and the metal detector works fine........still.
6.) Bad Gas Passenger: An unidentified culprit, but you know it and dread it if you sit near him or her: they just let out silent bombs the whole flight and my nose is permeated with what they had for dinner last night in the form of heavy gas attacks.......but I can't accuse any one directly because there's so many other people around. Hiding in plain sight, a cowardly but effective strategy
7.) Squeeze-through Bandit: guy who jumps out of his seat when the fasten seat belt sign is turned off upon landing to try to get off the plane sooner. I've never seen this work for anybody to gain more than 3 rows before being stopped by the blockage of people. So basically you just cut like 15 people, gained like 2 minutes........but you're still stuck behind everyone else who all just watched you do this and are now upset at you. I know the back of the plane sucks but unless you have a pregnant spouse or similar emergency, just stay where you are and wait your turn.
8.) The Talker- insists on spilling his entire story to their neighbors and letting the entire plane hear them.
9.) Premature reclining seat guy: I personally never recline my seat (push it back) because I just don't want to shove my whole body at the passenger behind me...but I get why people do it. Just don't do it before the flight takes off. Slow your roll. Closely related: Guy tapping his TV screen (which also happens to be connected to the back of my seat) so hard that I can feel it thumping into my skull. Please recognize that there's a whole live human being sitting in front of you who has to bear the brunt of your browsing of all the available movies the flight has to offer.
10.) The guy pushing your stuff away at the security check to get to his own stuff. I usually take my laptop with me, and it is NOT OK for someone to push away my stuff to get to their stuff; it might damage my laptop or other things. And while you're at it, pick up the empty luggage cartons off the conveyor belt....it's not like the TSA agents are going to do it like it's their job or anything. TSA Agents who are just sitting around chatting with other TSA Agents acting like passengers aren't there or yelling at passengers.........while luggage cartons are causing a traffic jam in the conveyor belt. C'mon guys.
-Robert Yan
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