Agreed. There are very few reasons to grab a seatback at any time. Even if it's bumpy in the air, I just put my hand on the overhead bins (just like a number of FA's do) as I walk down the aisle. Problem solved.

In response to the complaints of babies in First Class, I took my babies in first class on Pan Am transatlantic back in the 1980's.

They were well behaved, and the cabin crew was enthused with them (they didn't see babies in F very often).

My son particularly liked crawling between the seat I was in and the seat in front.

Overall, the other passengers were quite friendly, and occasionally I would pick up one of the kids and walk around the cabin with them. My son crawled down the aisle a couple of times too. He had quite a lot of fun.

This reminds me of a story: I was in the upper deck of a NW 747-200 on a flight to Japan. The upper deck had awesome seats (former first class) with 70 inches of pitch (reserved only for elite members) and of course it was way, way removed from coach. During boarding some clueless (or sneaky) pax comes up the stairs. The FA somehow noticed and took a look at his boarding pass and then said very loudly, "You are in seat 63K" (which is, of course, waaaay near the very back of coach). Several of the pax in the upper deck snickered.

I have on several occasions asked someone to move so I could be with my wife. But I only do this when I can offer the person an equal or better seat than the one s/he has already. I even once offered someone my C class seat if I could have his Y seat next to my wife! (This was domestic Japanese C class, so obviously nothing to write home about. But still better than Y...)

(sorry if someone posted this already, as I don't have time to read all 15 pages...)

I hate when the pilots leave the seat belt sign on for hours and hours on a long-haul flight. I was on a CO flight from NRT to EWR once where the pilot left the seat belt sign on for ten hours continuously. Of course after a few hours everyone just started ignoring it and going to the lavs, getting up to stretch their legs, etc.

This seems to happen most often on US airlines. If there is even the slightest turbulence for a few seconds, the seat belt sign goes on immediately and then stays on for the next several hours of perfectly smooth flight.

Worse still is when on a long overwater night flight they keep turning it on and off continuously and feel the need to annouce it loudly in every language spoken on that flight, especially when everyone is sleeping!

LOL, this just reminded me of another story. NW used to have this infuriating habit (maybe still do, I don't know as I haven't flown them for almost 3 years) of not pausing the movie in coach when they made announcements. I was on a NRT-MSP flight once where they were showing "The Insider," and during the crucial last 10 minutes of the movie (the climax of the whole story), the FA suddenly came onto the PA and started giving a long, rambling spiel about the Worldperks mileage program, how to apply, etc. etc. After about 2 or 3 minutes of this nonsense her explanation ended and I thought "Finally, I can enjoy the rest of this movie again." But then, all of a sudden the PA comes on and the Japanese FA (or interpreter) then gives the whole spiel all over again in Japanese, with the movie still running the whole time!! So all 300 of us in coach missed the most important scene of the movie because of some idiotic announcement about Worldperks that could have been made at any other time during the flight.

One of my pet peeves is the person that elbows their way off the plane under the premise that they are late for a connection etc. They act like they can't wait until it is their turn to disembark. Then the thing that is the real kicker is standing next to them at the baggage carousel while we both wait for baggage. The bag claim is the great "equalizer" when it comes to being somewhere in a hurry.

I disagree. Car seats block the row from passengers getting in and out. I was on a flight from EWR-LAX about 2 years ago and there was a car seat in the aisle seat with the mother in the middle and a random woman in the window. This car seat was so big that the woman had to always CLIMB over the car seat because it blocked the row entirely. It also allowed the child's feet to reach the seat in front of him where the child proceeded to KICK the seat the entire way to LAX.

Car seats are called car seats BECAUSE they are necessary IN THE CAR. The reason for this is that the biggest danger to a child in a car is lateral motion; therefore they need a car seat with the 4 point harness...

In a plane...the forces that are in danger are much different. Lateral motion doesn't matter that much because a plane barreling down anywhere from 200-600 MPH if it's hits something like THE GROUND...a car seat really is not going to matter.

The danger to people on planes is air pockets and VERTICAL movement; movement that would cause people to get picked up and SMASHED into the ceiling. A lap belt protects against this vertical motion just fine.

So, IMHO, car seats pose more of a danger to surrounding passengers in an evacuation than the "protection" it gives an infant in flight.

- HF

I use to travel with a business associate that had a simple solution to this problem. He had a nice powerpoint slide with an image of 'the finger' with the words 'If you can read this, Mind your own F*#@ing business' overlayed in very large type. I saw him use this more than once and it worked every time. However, I'm sure there are people who are immune to this technique.

Speaking of the baggage carousel, why is it that people seem to feel the need to cozy up to the carousel like it was their neighborhood bar? "Maybe my bag will be _next_... Nope. Maybe _next_... Nope. Maybe _next_..." If we all stand back a few feet, we can all see the bags and walk forward to pick ours up when it arrives! Easy! It always seems like it's the tallest guys who have to be leaning over the carousel blocking everyone else's view and who then act offended when I politely ask them to move so I can actually pick up my bag.

I hadn't thought of that, must give it a try next time the opportunity arises. I love this forum, it's so educational.

5. And the one that I've seen cause more arguments: the people who board and begin moving other people's belongings around in the overhead bins and sometimes transferring them to other bins to make room for their own bags. And they do this without asking, "whose bag is this?" before they begin moving the baggage/coats, etc. to other bins.


How about the people that don't even bother to move your belongings and just smash your stuff (a laptop in my case!) with their 75 pound backpack?! :mad:

1) When the FAs pick up trash just before I finish my soda, and then don't come by for another hour. (Though I've pretty well dealt with this by hitting the FA call if they haven't been past in a few minutes and aren't obviously busy; they always react as though that's appropriate, especialy since I'm usually at the window.)

2) Once in 1998 on a flight from Miami to Santo Domingo, I had a carry-on -- usually I don't but in this case I changed airlines in Miami and was arriving at an airport where I didn't speak the language. Got on the plane and found a group of about 10-15 people had pre-boarded, for no obvious reason, and had filled all the overhead space, leaving me to sit cramped with my carrion (whatever) under the seat in front. I'd have forgotten the incident by now, except that during the course of the flight I overheard that they were FAs in training! I hope that they eventually learned to treat their passengers better. Too bad too, the one sitting next to me was a good-looking personable young lady -- if they had shown any interest in talking to me then I'd also have long ago forgotten the cramped legs, but they were both selfish in the use of stowage space and completely bound up in their own group.

3) People who think it's their absolute right to bring all their luggage on board. Mostly I just decide to get over it ... let them fight out the overhead space; I check luggage and pack so I don't need the overhead. I figure I'm happier than most of them, and certainly more relaxed on board.

I must say that a few of the gripes I've read here amount to not allowing for the fact that some people have physical limitations that make moving about on an airplane difficult, or that even today many people in the airport and airplane are inexperienced travelers. This doesn't excuse outright lack of consideration for others, but some who've been through the routine thousands of times seem to forget that it's confusing and not immediately obvious to those who haven't been there before, or not in the last ten or twenty years.

Edward

Pet peeve? It would have to be people who can't chew gum with their mouths closed! Why do we have to listen to the snapping and popping, and watch them chomp away!!!