DYKWIA | 2018 edition
 

This thread is a continuation of the ever popular https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...17-thread.html.

Airports are funny places. While they are increasingly designed to both complement and positively influence human behaviour, some of our fellow passengers do on occasion suffer a complete loss of composure and/or self awareness. This thread celebrates those amusing lapses of, well, lets call it social etiquette.

In the lounge at Prague this evening flying PRG-LHR on BA857. Take seats with family at the far corner away from the desk.

About 15 mins in, hear a loud "gentleman" at the entrance desk berating the food on offer. Several minutes pass and he's just not shutting up, talking in such a loud voice that every word is audible to the entire lounge. I go over to ask him (politely) to be quiet. He starts berating me...some line about ooh...the future Chairman/CEO there (sorry mate, C-suite already, so a bit of reverse DYKWIA there 😀 ) but he does quieten off a little.

15 mins later, after clearly deciding that despite his earlier protestations, the lounge isn't beneath accepting some freebies from, he's pouring a drink at the same time as my wife. He starts berating the manner in which the lemons for his g+t have been cut to her, and how you can't get the lounge staff who care nowadays 😄 They are too close to halves rather than slices apparently 😀

A few mins later, he's getting another drink and explaining to the attendant how Willie Walsh is an accountant and how travelling club doesn't meet his expectations (fine, but a Menzies lounge attendant at PRG isn't going to help...)

Anyway an amusing way to start the new year 😄

On the plane now and he has pulled out the middle seat CE table so he can sit there and keep adjacent empty 🙄

As I have no scheduled flights until the end of February, I will not feature here for a while. ;)

Had an entire family of DYKWIAs - inexperienced travellers, it seems, but very loud, sitting above me on the rear, upper deck CW cabin on HKG-LHR last night.

As well as being loud, and the eighteen-year-old son "larging it" and downing PDB Champagne, drawing attention to themselves, they were mostly pretty quiet. Initially they were confused how they had all been allocated seat 58, but eventually figured it out... Mum then complained bitterly that "I can't believe the films are the same as on the way out."

However, the teenage daughter was distraught because "There's a man in the toilet and he's doing a poo. On a plane!" shouting across the cabin to her mother, who was at least silent in her reaction. (I'm not sure if she has a problem with the concept of aeroplanes, or toilets, but ...)

Also, the person who was originally seated next to me was asked to move because "There's a gentleman downstairs and he really wants a window seat, so would you mind swapping for a centre aisle downstairs?" I don't know if that was code for a First middle seat, but he went surprisingly readily. Someone did actually come upstairs then, and he was perfectly nice throughout the flight. No idea why the original occupant went so placidly or why he was chosen - possibly staff travel or an op-up?

Agree , utter plonker. People like him ruin trips for me as my sole attention is fixated on them to watch every move of theirs as i find them volatile and i like to be in control of my surroundings thus not being able to enjoy myself !

I would have been laughing my head off at the poo comment! ;)
Not sure why he needs a window seeing as it's pitch black outside and the blinds will probably be down anyway.....unless he wanted the side bin or more privacy?

Hehe while safety is key , i will sway on that one ! I just would like to eat my chicken panini ( or whatever carb overloaded and tasteless "meal" the CE kitchen rustles up ) in peace then having to think about an outburst from the DKYWIA seated besides me or the row behind that could interrupt or numb my "3 course dinning experience ".

When we book seats, my other half HAS to have the window seat regardless of what is or isn't available to see outside. It's a coping mechanism when he flies. (He hates to fly. I drag him around the world anyway.)

When I travel with my partner, I have to have the window seat because she gets up to pee every 15 minutes!

That is allowed. it is the POOing that is frowned upon, did you not get the memo?

Don't dis the window seats - and the view; it's never pitch black out there at 40,000'! Nothing better than gliding over the land areas and working out where all those lights are, or looking at the intricacies of the roads in New York, etc at night... .

Yup, but if you want the window seat you can either pay for it or reserve it for free through status...I get too many of the "innocent" requests from BA ground staff to swap seats with other passengers who should simply have paid for them...most recently, being asked to switch out of 64K on the Upper Deck 747 (best seat in the house...) for a random aisle downstairs because "two passengers want to sit together". Sorry, not my problem and if they were that fussed they could have paid for the seats they wanted....

My two experiences of being asked to move from 64A or 64K, which the crew are generally quite aware are the best seats, have resulted in my new seat being in F.

For those of us who don't know one aircraft from another, and haven't memorised seat maps, how do we subtly determine whether the seat we're being asked to move to is in First Class? I have two flights coming up in 64K and would like to be prepared.

Perhaps "I appreciate these passengers' desire to sit together, but am a little reluctant to move... is my new seat better than this one?"

That's polite enough. Though generally from the crew's tone and language I can work it out. Usually along the lines of "Mr W, we have a passenger who would really appreciate a window seat. Would you be willing to change to a very comfortable aisle seat downstairs?"

That said, this particular situations has happened to me twice, out of probably 50 UD flights.

I realise we're wandering off topic - but a couple of years (and many many flights) ago I could see the crew were having a nightmare of people who were insisting on being sat together in club. It was a 777 and I was in row 12 or 13 at a window. There were 2-3 families all trying to re-arrange themselves.

I quietly motioned to a crew member and said I would be happy to move as I was on my own and just to let me know if I could help but that I'd prefer not to move to a middle pair. I figured it was better to move than to let the crew spend too much time rearranging people and delaying departure.

After 5 minutes - same crew member came up and said "Mr MPH1980 - thank you for your offer - would you mind moving for me?". I simply said "yes" - I had no preconceptions about where I was moving to. As I was led away - the crew member said "I've found you a seat in the first row - it's a nice seat". This raised my hopes. Sadly - the crew member meant a aisle seat in the first row of club.

Somethings are not meant to be.

To be fair, on that last occasion the ground staff did try to call down to the gate to get me moved into F, but F was already totally full.

Back on topic...I have not yet flown in 2018 to have any DYKWIA behaviour to report...I will happily conclude with my late December "reverse DYKWIA" at Amsterdam, gate staff calling for Club & Gold when the lady in front of me catches sight of the yellow boarding pass on my phone and tries to jump out of the way on the basis 'but you're Gold and they might not let me through' - to which I could only insist she went ahead since I doubted the gate staff were being all that strict (they were not) and we would all arrive in London at the exact same time (which of course we did!).

I remember my brother-in-law being irritable because he wanted the window seat on an EZY flight. I relinquished my 'window' seat, which turned out to be one of those seats that have the wall not the window. I got daggers when I asked him if he was enjoying the view...

That's exactly my attitude. The worst is when you fly first in the USA, where 95% of the cabin are op-up's then pester you to swap so they can sit together. Erm, no, I've paid to sit in this cabin, if you wanted to sit together, stay in Y.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: when you have window seat at night don't look down, look up. It doesn't quite compare to lying back on a mountain top at midnight,, but you'll rarely see a better display of the stars...

I do know the arrested man’s name but I didn’t see the incident in question. Tonight’s BA427 AMS-LHR was held at the gate after landing while a passenger was detained for threatening and/or drunken behaviour.

Waiting too long to get off? - just open the exit door! :o)
 

Just saw this. Not BA but Ryanair and apparently the passenger just didn't want to wait to get off! Here is some context to the story.

An impatient passenger forced his way out of the emergency exit of a Ryanair plane after he became fed up of waiting to alight. The man, a 57-year-old Polish national, was left perching on the wing of flight FR8164 as it sat on the tarmac at Malaga airport.He took his hand luggage with him, but was eventually talked into getting back inside the plane by ground staff worried he was going to jump off the wing.

The man, who was arrested by local police, had allegedly become frustrated when the plane was delayed by almost an hour leaving Stansted Airport on New Year's Day.

Probably misunderstood when his friend said he wanted him to be his wingman :-)

Regarding that particular story - someone on the same flight has since suggested that the passenger in question was asthmatic and having breathing difficulties. Possibly more a case of "don't you know what I am" - and it certainly underlines the importance of attentiveness and communication from the crew, both of which appear to have been unsurprisingly absent on the part of Ryanair.

MoL wants them to sell food, drinks and duty-free. Can't have passengers interfere with that. ;)

Wonderful toys out of the pram moment in the T5 Flounge just now. Gentleman complaining very loudly at the CS counter about the selection of newspapers available on a Sunday afternoon. "Just the Sun? Why do you even bother? This isn't an airline, it's a joke". He nearly started crying. I've seen people less upset about losing a parent.

Fate probably decrees I'll be sitting next to him for the next 7 hours......

I had some goon on a JFK-LHR last week blabbering on to the CC about availability of the The Economist - "this is business class, you should have the Economist", "even when I fly First you don't have the Economist". This was on the upperdeck, so needless to say the whole cabin shared his ramblings.

Even the CC knew he was an idiot.

my thoughts are if you want to read something buy it...
John

Even idiots can be right. The Economist should be available on board. Perhaps the Economist Group wants paying for its magazine :)

I have nothing against the Economist, but in this day and age I prefer all things digital. Anyway, there is a way to go about these things, and this passenger certainly made a bit of a fool of himself, even if he was right about loading the aforementioned publication or not.

Can we settle on a newspaper in magazine format :) ?