[QUOTE=brendog;7739909]
3. Children. Nothing much to say here. Leave them home until they're 30 (Years, not months).

Not all children are unruly, IF they are raised right.


QUOTE]

Perhaps YOU should upgrade. Seats are made to recline. If you have special needs then upgrade.

And my pet peeve is those who feel they're entitled to prevent me from using the features of the seat I was sold. Until the airlines remove the recline buttons, the "problem" is not mine to deal with - YOU deal with it or upgrade (or buy a bulkhead seat or an exit row seat, or drive, or take a train, or sail, or swim).

^ I'm also 6'3" and while I don't like when the person in front of me reclines, I accept that it's their right to recline. I do however jam my knees there when I'm using my laptop, not to be a jerk, but to prevent my laptop from being crushed if they recline unexpectedly. If they try I move my laptop and me knees.

I suppose you don't recline at all then seeing as you deny that right to the person in front of you.

1-100. Self-important people who refuse to end cell-phone calls even when the F/A is demanding them to do so and the captain is on the PA saying "We won't be leaving until the gentleman in 2B turns off his cell phone."

101. High school sports teams who think the gate area is a good place to hold practice.

102. Old FFs who cut in front of me just because I'm in my 20s and don't appear old/important enough to be flying J.

103. People in Y who kick J seats.

104. People who play their iPods so that we can all hear them...if I can hear it through my Bose noise-reducing headphones, we have a problem.

105. I'm 6'7. If I'm in Y, I will not be happy to let you have my aisle seat, while I take your middle. Nor will I take your window. In J, I'll take the window. In Y, absolutely not. And yes, my feet will stick out in the aisle, though I take great care to always move when someone is in the aisle and try to sit near the back of the plane in this case.

106. People talking very loudly in general (and especially in foreign languages on domestic flights)

A vignette I'd like to share about a one time annoyance was when I recently flew JetBlue IAD-MCO-IAD to try it out. On the return leg, the flight was departing at like 9:00 PM. There was a flight to Puerto Rico scheduled later, though departing from the same gate. The gate signs clearly indicated Washington-Dulles as the destination for the boarding flight...all the normal announcements etc. Except the boarding pass scanner is broken, so the GA is quickly taking stubs so he can get the plane turned.

The plane loads and we're ready to push, but the FAs are trying to figure out why there are double sold seats (JetBlue doesn't overbook). Eventually they realize that a bunch of the people on the plane are supposed to be on the flight to Puerto Rico, so they make an announcement in English and then in Spanish that this flight is going to Washington...a couple people get up. We wait...they announce it again and a couple more get up. Then they turn off the IFE and announce it again and finally a few more get up and leave. Damn. I don't have anything against people that don't speak English, but since JetBlue's GA never made an annoucement about Aguadilla and kept saying Washington, perhaps you're on the wrong plane?? Unbelievable.

That would be correct. Since I am well aware of how annoyed I get by chatters, recliners, and slowpokes, I avoid these things. I just did a redeye from LAS-IAD Sunday night and managed to sleep for 4 hours without reclining, so I expect the same from others.

We should probably hope to never be on the same plane as unpleasantries would be sure to occur. However, I am sticking by my guns, recline and pay the price...

Unprepared parents..........When I travel with my kid I travel with (quiet) games, books, pencils, paper etc to keep him occupied (usually wasted as he often sleeps)-bored kids fidget and whine-occupied kids don't. As my son behaves better than most adults on flights despite having Aspergers Syndrome I won't make excuses for other parents. Teach 'em to behave in public-it makes everyone's life nicer -theirs and yours included.

Seat stealers-I'll always start with a smile and "I think you may be in my seat" (actually I know you're in my seat and you know it too. If I get any reistance at all I simply grab an FA to sort it out. If I wanted 96 D I'd have booked it thanks. The FA can either give me my seat or move me up a cabin-I don't care just don't assume I want a window or middle seat simply because you can't bear to be seperated from your travelling companion and don't have the manners to ask. I've offered to move to a vacant slightly lesser seat before now when a POS has been squeezed into the middle seat ......Maybe that is peeve number 3-why put a POS into the most unsuitable seat in the first place ? Are they blind at check in or is it a POS ploy to get moved up in some cases ?

my two pet peaves are conceptual:

1) I think much of flying is stuck in some Titanic-era styled mentality whereas the "class system" is still too important in their business model. This model really does not work in today's Western cultures in my opinion. Too many people out there, and too many of them have money, status, and the potential to get that. Class systems work on the principle of "us better than them" thought processes and today, you never know who is who, who will make it big, or whether that person even cares about money as THE best depictor of self worth and status. But the airlines totally rely on it to compartmentalize people and personnel. take United for example: If you don't have status, you are crap on that airline. And yet, who are they to know what I may own, do, have or whatever in other worlds. Plus, while we all enjoy having first and business class available, why is it that there are STILl some people out there who think they are better than me because they sit there and I do not.

This is not a blast on people here with FF status or on anyone who regularly sits in FC, etc, but I am saying that the airlines seem to promote and adhere to the old ways of thinking about class instead of today's ways. Today, most people I know--and most people in FT that I have read posts from are getting into those seats upfront because they fly a lot, have learned how to make the system work for them, desire comfort and are willing to pay for it and have earned the status with the airline they choose. most people I know who choose these seats are doing it not because they think they are "better" than everyone else, but the airlines seem to still want us all to think that way. This attitude coming from their style of dealing with customers must stop. Even if someone IS better than someone else in any given instant, it need not be rubbed in, in my opinion.

2) I think airlines have a huge problem with how they administrate. The processes of paper tickets and FAA regulations are archiac and in need of a whole make over. I rarely have any problems actually FLYING. It's all the stuff surrounding it. All that typing at the desk by some open-mouthed gum chewing desk agent gal with too much lipstick, make up and a thick local accent who glares at you while you wait, the policies and policies that always seem to slow things down because everything is a "no sir you cannot do that," and all the mistakes being made with flights, rerouting, missing miles and luggage. I think the whole system needs a total rebuild. When, how? Well, we had one chance around 9/11 to try a new way. Now we need to do it while business is usual.

:)MM

Doesn't always work out. A colleague told me that he was sitting next to a POS in a middle seat who started complaining to the FA that he had no space and should be moved to business class. The FA came back after some discussion and moved both passengers sitting next to the POS to business class telling him that he'd now have enough space.

HTB.

I dont like surley people but just because someone has special needs does not automatically give them the funds needed to upgrade.

My pet peave is that I wish people were a bit more willing to turn on the "I will compromise more while I'm on a public flight" mode than they do these days. It's all about ME ME ME out there, and frankly, when you are blasting thru the air at 500MPH for 6hrs seated in a thin metal tube with bad air and worse food over the Atlantic or across the country, it has to be about US--if ONLY for that short while, people--I don't care where yer seated or who ya are!!

:DMM

My time is valuable but yours is worthless

So you worthless pax can:

Call and spend hours talking to a snail-paced incompetent geographically-unaware agent who doesn't really speak English
Line up at the airport for hours for security and then again for check-in, even longer for rebooking at irrops
Wait hours, after a flight goes mech, to be given a hotel voucher and half the night to be bussed to the hotel and get checked in
..and be roused at dawn to be bussed back only to wait half a day for the replacement plane

Even when things are going well we'll waste your time, you will ...
Be deceived by the flashing "Boarding" light so you rush to the gate only to be cooped up for another hour in the departure-pen
Be herded in to the aircraft "on time" even though it has no hope of departing for hours
Be kept waiting before and/or after landing, even though the airport must have known for hours that your plane was on the way
Be delayed on arrival thanks to a ridiculously small number of immigration agents even though one of the fearsome "taxes" on your ticket is supposed to imporove this
And then there's the lottery of waiting for checked baggage.

While you're at the airport, saving your time is what it's NOT about
When airports like LHR are privatized, no-one seemed to realize that the airport-owner has exactly opposite objectives to the airlines & pax. The airport benefits when planes are delayed, the longer the better, more takings in the car park, more business for the concessions. For an airport business, it's sheer madness to waste money keeping the place clean or smoothing the passage of the passengers.

Why do you suppose so many escalators and travelators are always out of order? Why are there no seats and every last square foot of space used for retail?

^ ^ ^ harryhv ^ ^ ^
genius post mate! I love it! You are sooo right!
don't forget, after all this, they forget to post your miles you earned.
:DMM

[QUOTE=CitrusMCO;7741782]1-100. Self-important people who refuse to end cell-phone calls even when the F/A is demanding them to do so and the captain is on the PA saying "We won't be leaving until the gentleman in 2B turns off his cell phone."

QUOTE]

I'm guilty of feeling angry at these people, too. I sit for a bit trying to decide whether to say something to them since the FA has asked several times to shut off the phones. But the guy is still talking. I finally decide to say something to him and turn around all self-important....only to find that he long ago shut off the phone and is now talking to the person next to him...

Wow. I've had plenty of challenging travel days, but harryhv isn't describing anything remotely close to my typical travel experience. I'll set aside the first examples, as none of us would ever travel if this happened with any regularity to us (Yes, we all face the occasional delay, but I've had 1 overnight delay in the past 10 years. It's not common).

But as for the privatization of airports, exactly what control does the airport have over whether or not aircraft are delayed? ATC is not under private control, and they don't control crews, aircraft maintenance, nor weather. I suppose they control fueling in some cases, but who's ever heard of someone describing an airport as a source of constant fueling delays?

Of course they are focused on the concessions; airport management is a real estate business. They are running a large mall, leasing out both retail space and gates. Why on earth would anyone care who runs the mall? :confused: