Originally Posted by
andrewstahl
I am always amazed that people who board near the end think that they should space in the overhead bins for their bag. I guess they didn’t pay attention to the 125 people who boarded before them.
I'm with ya!
But I'm also often reminded that a ton of people don't travel often. I wonder if there's data on this....I suspect some % of people on every flight have never flown before. I think about my peers and friends and while we are at similar professional levels, we live very different lives. I fly all the time and don't think twice about booking a last minute trip, and for them it's a special occasion to fly 2x a year. I suspect most people boarding a plane aren't pros at it.
I remember....and trust me, I cringe at this memory and if FT had a town square, I'd sign up to be in the shackles on my own volition.... super early in my career, I was like 22 and flying for work...I'd traveled more than the average person with my parents growing up, but wasn't a pro. I was in the middle seat, because, let's face it, who knew one could pick something else? And there was a guy in the window seat and it looked neater. So I asked him "would you be interested in trading seats, I love the window!?" (my current pose style notwithstanding, I think I actually said it like that). He looked at me like I was asking him to commit a crime and said "are you kidding? My window for your middle? No way!" and he went back to his view. No joke, I felt like I'd committed a huge sin and literally 20 years later I still remember that feeling.
I think my point is: duh! woah! now that I fly all the time, would I give up my window? no way (Aisle only pls, kthankxbye)... and why wouldn't someone else know that?
You want *my* window seat? You know how much I traveled/paid/pre-planned/thought-ahead to get this? Unless, this isn't your normal thing.
Anyway, I assume 90% of other travelers are amateurs and I've started imagining that they are on some
first trip - like the first family vacation, or the first trip to see grandma, or something else hard like going to visit grandad in the hospital, or something interesting like just
got honored by home town high school... and when someone in sweatpants doesn't know how boarding works, I just smile and think they must be going to the beach for the first time.
I dunno... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ... people gonna people, amiright? Glad you all got to where you were going
(But still, if it were my only bag, I think I'd want to keep it up top too)