Originally Posted by chrischris

I recently was on a packed flight from PHL through US Airways. I was flying by myself and seated in an aisle seat at row 15. I was exhausted from a week of meetings (and running off of 3 hours of sleep the night before) and was looking forward to relaxing on my flight.

My seat was located smack dab in the middle of a group of 20 from a transfer flight who didn't speak English. I believe there may have been some different cultural views of how to act on airplane, because this large group spent the entire flight (plus our 3 hour in plane delay on the tarmac...) standing up in the aisle, sitting on one each other's laps and non-stop chatting amongst each other.

I was caught in between the passengers on my right talking loudly with the group on my left. Several large men would stand in the aisle and place their arm on my headrest causing my back to repeatedly shake as these men would bust up laughing at each joke. I was also repeatedly woken up from sleep after getting whacked in the head with an elbow. I asked nicely for the men to not rest their arms on my headrest. I also noticed one man step back after he could sense my frustration at him invading my personal space when he would rest his elbow and shoulder on the seat in front of me above my tray table, just inches from my face.

Later in the flight I had had enough when my headrest was being shaken by a nearby standing man. I tapped him on the arm and told him sternly "No more" and shook my own headrest to show him what he was doing to my backrest and how uncomfortable it made me. He must have understood a little bit of English, because he told me twice to "settle down" before moving away from me.

Later on nothing changed and I had the worst flight of my career. I felt that I couldn't speak to a crew member because I had politely asked some questions about our 3 hour delay and received some very cold remarks. The crew was also very stressed out from our 3 our delay.

What should I have done to have made my flight more comfortable? The language barrier made this conflict tough to deal with and I have never actually had any conflict on an airplane before. Any advice for the next time this happens?