Originally Posted by DFW DL
Let's see...FA or pax drops glass (happens all the time), glass breaks into hundreds of pieces on floor (not all of which can be located/picked up), idiot in bare feet walks down glass and cuts feet. Sounds pretty clear to me. At least a double layer of socks would minimize the damage from small shards of glass. Not a scientific article, but just plain common sense.
I agree that the main issue of bare feet on an airplane is the gross-out factor. Most people (foot fetishes excepted - not that there's anything wrong with that!), don't find the feet the most attractive part of the human anatomy. I certainly don't want someone's bare feet (even a supermodel's) propped up on a bulkead three feet in front of me at eye/nose level. It just grosses me out...and is usually resolved with a polite request to the offender. I am glad to discover from this thread that there are terms in the CoC to back me up on this.
I used to fly 767 flights all the time. Quite a few times I sat at the jumpseat adjacent to the bulkhead wall in the front of coach facing the back of the plane.
I actually had people, more often than I could believe, who would put their bare feet up on the wall only about an inch or two away from my face and not remove them when I sat down for takeoff. When I told them they needed to put their feet down they actually demanded to know why. I suppose the fact that it was really disgustingly rude to have your feet in my face wasn't obvious and the fact that if the plane stopped short they would most likely kick me in the face wasn't a factor either. It is amazing how uncouth some Americans are. I NEVER had someone on who was barefoot who wasn't an American. We have some of the nicest people in the world in the U.S. and some of the biggest barbarians as well. Unbelievable.
The foot safety factor comes into play all the time when glass breaks in the forward cabins. Glass breaks on almost every flight.a flight. We don't have a dustbuster or shark so the glass is only picked up by hand on the flight. From your experiences at home you all should know that glass breakage is never localized. Somehow the glass you break in one room winds up in another part of the room or in another room entirely. The same thing happens on the plane.