Cupart

How many times (if not on every single flight) have I seen people lost because they can't find their seat! I can't help myself peeking at other peoples BP's just so I can prepare myself for the "2 seater" occupying person to eventually sit next to me, and on every single flight someone with a BP showing seat 11D is lost because they can't for the world of them figure out why their seat is not anywhere near seat 32F.

Oh, these are also amongst the first to board the plane as they have been queueing for 2 hours before boarding and have asked the Ground Crew 25 times about boarding and if this is where the plane leaves from amongst other irrelevant stupid questions (yes there is such things as stupid questions).

I also love when people find seat 1A empty and decides this is a good place to sit, even though their BP clearly shows 29B and makes a fuss when the CC asks to see their BP telling them that this is not their seat. Preferably they need a couple of kids with them as well and so much extra carry on that it takes up more room than the actual person takes!

Now, who said flying isn't fun?

Irelandflyer

Yes it happens. Some people fly more often than others. Some people find the experience stressful, so fairly basic thinks like numeracy go out the window. Frankly, I get more annoyed by people who can't park properly or that behave badly in supermarkets. But if you let stuff like that bother you, you're going to spend a lot of time bothered. Private jets are very expensive.


There is a great quote from Noel Coward who was asked in 1920s what his flight had been like. He replied that aeronautically it had been fine, but socially, it left a lot to be desired.

FWIW, I think that sometimes there is an element of trying to create a little bit of a flying elite and an flying underclass. Personally, I don't really care for it that much.

Henry III

It seems to me that a fair proportion of occasional air travellers mostly use 'boarding scrum' airlines like EZ & FR, where you just grab the first seat you can find. These folks just aren't use to sophisticated airlines like KL & AF, where seats are assigned at check-in.

Still, it is amusing and/or frustrating sometimes, Cupart, but I think IrelandFlyer has made a good point that we should not be too condescending towards those who fly less than 50 trips per annum!

What gets my goat the most is those 150+ pax on a 737 flight that simply don't get what "we now invite Business Class passengers and SkyTeam Elite Plus cardholders to board..." Or those who think 1 laptop plus 1 rucsac plus 1 handbag plus 1 roller-case plus 1 large bag of duty-free plus 1 bag of golf clubs plus 1 inflatable (and inflated) dinosaur plus 1 wooden elephant is ... 1 item!

-- Henry

justcallmedoc

Not only occasional flyers have this kind of behaviour. What about those in the fourth row who feel they are entitled to the overhead compartment over the first row, and those in the first row who keep their bag with them and then act surprised when the FA tells them thay can't ?

Ah, the joys of social relations...

GenevaFlyer

Hi Cupart,

In their defense, they are probably used to Sleazyjet with no seat assignments ... and thus 1A is indeed a prime seat (although they probably wonder why no-one else grabbed it before them).

OT, thanks to Easyjet's latest fee, my wife won't fly with them anymore. After I told her they charge CHF 16 for the privilege to pay with a credit card (what choice do you have?), she will only fly them if there really is no other option (including driving 7 hours )

Cheers,

GenevaFlyer

johan rebel

. . . the two gentlemen in expensive suits and ditto roller bags at security who have to be talked through the entire process like little children, greeting each request and instruction with utter surprise and amazement: what liquids? remove my laptop? empty my pockets? take my jacket off? AND my belt?

Geez . . .

Johan

orbitmic

See, I actually quite like a bit of ranting on FT! To me, it's what makes this site real - people are not claiming to be impartial judges or Michelin inspectors, we're just human beings with a certain experience and ad hoc expertise, of course, but also with our lot of irrational feelings and the little things that make us absurdly happy or absurdly unhappy!

Absurdly happy: spending 10 minutes with the captain of my AF flight to Heathrow chatting about how beautiful it was to see SQ's A380 land next to us while we were taxiing to the gate

Absurdly unhappy/ranting/it can't be that difficult-ing: earlier on the same trip, the passenger seating a couple of rows behind me in C on our way from Paris to Seoul who was still talking on his mobile phone while we were lining up on the runway with what I (irrationally?) thought to be a 'I'm flying C so I can do whatever I want' attitude, and disrespecting the stewardesses who came to tell him to switch the thing off for the third time since we left the gate and was finally becoming more urgent about it (who could blame her, we were less than 1 minute away from take of for goodness sake!)

So keep the ranting on. It is not meant to achieve anything but just to make us feel a bit better, a bit like what we do when we explain to our wives/husbands/boyfriends/girlfriends or just friends how colleague/boss/employee x badly got on our nerves today at work! That's what makes FT a bit of a flyers 'family'!

mattk

I blame the school system. When I was at school we learnt how to count, you know, 1,2,3,4 etc. It's amazing when people walk on a flight (okay when the door's by aisle 1) that with a ticket in the 20s and 30s they start counting from aisle 1 at look at the aisle indicators and count back from there, one aisle at a time. What were they expecting? 1, 7, 23, 15, 6...

Two other annoyances on the same theme:

1) When you board early, make yourself comfortable, start drifting off and someone comes along and sternly tells you that you're in his/her seat. After much fumbling, waking up, getting your BP out of your bag to confirm you're right, you realize that the idiot can't even read his BP and match it up to the seat he's meant to be sitting in. Never an apology!

2) When you get the middle seat blocked due to status and a couple who haven't mastered OLCI or at check-in haven't been able to get two seats together assume they are actually sat together and the seat numbers they've been allocated are just for guidance... I've read other threads in other forums about telling people to move but I just don't have the heart.

MichielR

Ok, I admit, it happened to me too, a long time ago. I remember looking for seat 71A down the aisle of a KLM B747 without realizing that I had been given my first ever upgrade.

easte

Well, if this is meant to share funny anedoctes, I have at least 2 stories from two FT. A colleague of mine once fought in Milan for a seat as some other passenger was arguing that was HIS seat. This colleague of mine was sitting on the right seat... on the wrong flight... he was supposed to go to AMS and was on a flight to Athens... KL personnel were looking for him, as he went missing after boarding... it came out he took the wrong bus from the terminal... people on his flight were mad at him...
As to me, I once went to the wrong airport... I used to fly from DCA when I had domestic legs, and did not pay attention to the ticket... that time the domestic connection was from IAD... I spent half an hour trying to explain to DL personnel that I was on the 7.30am flight to ATL, but there was not such a flight.

On the contrary, I do not feel bothered by people only because they are not FT and, thus, not familiar with the whole airport/airplanes thing. For people who are not that used to travel, flights may provoke a level of anxiety that other forms of traveling do not create. I am on the contrary bothered by the attitude of unpolite flight attendants, disfunctions of airlines, I am bothered by FB april fool.

Cupart

So, when people get all stressed out, its ok for them to behave like there's no other people in the world around then, and all focus should be on them?

I'm not only talking about people who looses the ability to count or use logic basic intelligence when it comes to find your seat, but also people who don't remove their over sized rucksack when walking down the aisle turning left and right so every single passenger sitting in their way gets bruised.

There is no excuse for stupidity and a little respect for your fellow passengers (or Supermarket shoppers) must be one of the basic social skills most of us learn as kids...

johan rebel

If they were accustomed to traveling on certain Danish and Swedish trains, they would have been expecting just that.

OK, I've got a large store of those, so here is one for starters.

Some 50 years ago my late father was asked to meet a KL AMS-WAW flight on arrival, as it was bringing Mr & Mrs X, proprietors of a travel agency in Chicago (second biggest Polish city in the world) and important business relations of KL. What they forgot to tell him was that whereas Mrs X was traveling RoyalClass, Mr X would be arriving in the luggage hold, in a coffin. This caused a certain amount of confusion and embarrassment when Mrs X descended the stairs dressed in mourning, her husband nowhere to be seen.

Johan

orbitmic

Then you may like that one: a couple of times in fact when I used to fly AZ a lot, both times on LHR-FCO-NCE, we managed to get the two seats on the left part (looking forward) of the first row of economy (7A and C) on the first flight. Took our time to board and arrive to find two people sitting in our seats. We tell them, show them our boarding cards, they don't even look and stay where they are. We go find the steward (has anyone noticed AZ seems to have a much higher proportion of male FAs as compared to most airlines?) who look at us with contempt and as if we were somewhat retarded and explains: 'some people sat in the wrong seat so we are doing free sitting today'. Grrrr....

Henry III

OK, so how about this scenario, in which it is to be assumed that, far from the sophisticated, intelligent FT that I actually am (), I am temporarily representative of the once-a-year Glaswegian holidaymaker.

I know I have a flight to GLA around 3 pm. I arrive at Schiphol with only a little spare time and, miraculously, I manage to print by BP from one of the blue robots. As well as a whole load of confusing, unnecessary details, my BP has on it three alphanumeric codes in big friendly bold letters: KL1477, D04 and 06D (reading from left to right).

I make the assumption that the first is my flight number, and I check the departure screen to see what gate I'm supposed to be at, but the only flight to Glasgow around about the correct time is shown as CO8536, so maybe my flight's not up yet. Still, nay bother!

I get through immigration and assume that 06D is my gate (). I follow the signs and get on the conveyor belt, which drops me right outside gate D4, but I don't see the gate number - just a line of what are clearly Glaswegian tourists (suitably corpulent and badly dressed). I check with one: "Eh, is this the Glasgow flight?" "Aye, nay bovver, pal." So I queue up, get through security and onto the plane. So I am blissfully unaware that I have boarded in D4, not D6!

Now, in the old days, the part of my BP with the D04 on it would have been eaten by the check-in machine and my stub would just have the 06D remaining, but not with the new BPs. So, I get to seat 04D and find that there is a lightly-built, sophisticated English gent sitting there (whose name may or may not be Cupart ) who cannot properly understand my alcohol-fuelled Glaswegian dialect ... you can imagine the confusion/furore/fracas that would ensue!

-- Henry

PS: Only a little artistic licence separates this story from truth: the numbers on my BP were KL1477, D04 & 05A!

jsfr

The Non-FT in the middle seat...

Three regular possibilities:

1) Excuse me, please, please, would you mind swapping seats with my Husband/Wife/Fiancee/Child who is sitting in set 32B so we could be together, please, sir.... - YES I would mind (although I end up feeling guilty for the rest of the flight).

2) You stand to let them get themselves into their seat, they get comfortably installed, and then remember their crossword in the overhead bin, up again, just after take-off they figure that a pen might be useful... then they need their diary.... and of course when the descent starts back up again to stow it all, not forgetting getting the passport in the middle to fill in the landing card...

Worst of all

3) Mr/s Middle Seat has no book or newspaper or anything else and wants to talk...