I agree that alarm clocks that are easy to figure out, showers that are obvious to work, etc. are high on my list. Bathroom doors you can close without becoming a contortionist are nice as well.

How about airplane trays that are flat all the way 'down'? Some of us have long legs or big bellies - and a tray that isn't flat is about useless. If it is on a pivot, it can be flat without being all the way in my belly.

Another vote for the armrest near the window going up. Come on, folks - we want to rest and lean on the side - that armrest is just painful.

And can we not make the bathrooms on airplanes big enough to stand in??? Is that such a terrible thing?

Especially if that floating doorstop is a couple of inches from the bathtub, midlength. It gets covered when you put down the bathmat and when you step out and onto it -- youch! (instead, how about a bumper on that precious hollow-core bathroom door?)

I hate not having a place to hang things in the bathroom -- how about double hooks on the door, hooks next to the sink for handtowel and toiletry bag.

On the rare occasion that I actually want to use the toiletries it's frustrating to find slow-running lotions in nicely designed bottles that are too stiff to squeeze product from the container.

And really, what's with those precious little paper coasters for the water glass, the toiletries carefully arranged on a pedestal (and rearranged every morning after I've moved them to make way for my stuff)? I suppose it provides some assurance that housekeeping has been through but it's pointless form over function.

The 'don't steal me' hangers in many hotels followed by the 'dont steal me' hair dryer previously mentioned, especially those w/short cords.

I don't want to steal the $&*#@)$ hangers-I just want to be able to hang something over the curtain rod in the bathroom to steam the wrinkles out (see previous posts re: difficulty ironing in a hotel due to poor design of wall outlets to plug in the irons) or just while I'm getting dressed!!

Here's another design element that reminded me of a "funny, but kinda sad too" story. My Mom has Alzheimer's and I took her on a flight to my nephew's college graduation a couple weeks ago. Longish couple flights, BHM to MSP, via ORD. I'll leave out all of her confusion about why we were in Chicago when we wanted to be in Minneapolis, but on one of the flights home, she needed to go to the rest room. Seatbelt lights are on, and it's a little regional jet from ORD to BHM. We went back to the little bathroom in the back, with the pocket door. I slid it shut and guarded it, since she didn't have enough faculties to know to lock the door. She did her business and we went back to our seats. It's sometimes hard for her to manage her clothes, as well as standing up from a seated position, so I told her what a good job she did! She said, "Yes, but it sure was dark in there." It was at that moment that I remembered that the light doesn't come on til you lock the door. Well that burst my bubble. So I would classify that as a design issue for the traveling elderly.

Or maybe IND?

I actually carry a small plastic hanger in the flat back pocket of my roll-aboard for this exact reason.

I'm sure one of the FA's who frequent this site can chime in, but I'm pretty sure those doors can both be locked & unlocked from the outside, so if you're traveling w/Mom in the future, ask the FAs about that before she goes in so she can, hopefully, have an illuminating experience next time.

Another pet peeve of mine when it comes to hotel TV remotes is the lack of a "last" button. When you happen to find 2 things on at the same time that you want to watch and want to go back to the previous channel a "last" button is incredibly helpful when in a place where you don't know the channels.

Personally, I kinda like the "drive in the country" feeling you get on the way to that runway. A chance to see the countryside, sort of.

As for MY all-time biggest pet peeve, what I REALLY can't stand is the way that Airbus aircraft have the row numbers displayed down low where anyone over about 5' 10" has to stoop to read them.

Not really a pet peeve but an idea:

For rental cars, they should put a little arrow on the left or right side of the rear-view mirror telling you which side the gas tank is on.

Most newly manufactured cars now have such an arrow next to the gas-pump icon labeling the gas gauge.

Zip code, try time zone at NRT. Landed there once and the "Altitude-Airspeed-Temperture" info screen was still on the displays. Turning off the runway at the farrr end out in the farmland, and the display is reading "Miles to Destination: 5". It's a loooong taxi. And stay off the new south 5th runway at ATL, it's down near Macon.

Actually, one real reason is if parallel runways are not far enough apart, then both cannot be used for landings in real instrument weather, which really slows traffic down during snow and thunderstorms, thus there is not one convienient close runway on each side of the terminal.

As for "I also have never understood why a boarding pass has to be so big." Either you are showing your age or I will show mine if I know the answer. You mean a card 3.25 inches wide by 7.375 inches long by 0.007 inches thick? Well back in the day when pistons still moved planes, the airlines and the ticket agents first computerized and due to a monopoly by a certain computer company, that computer company made printers that only printed on one size card which they were the sole supplier of. $$$$ All these years later, it would be unbelieveably expensive to scrap every ticket printer and reader in the world and replace them using something other than an IBM punch card. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card if you are under 40.

How about TV remotes that don't seem to have a closed captioning function, be it a specific button or a menu option. Every US hotel has accessible rooms but not every place has a TV with closed captioning easily enabled by the LodgeNet or other system remote. I can do just fine with my hearing aids but with TV I really need the captions for it to be of any use.

Great thread topic. All my peeves are about hotel design...

** Incomprehensible thermostats / HVAC controls.

** Mystery temp / flow controls on the shower.

** Insoluble alarm clock controls. I like the Hilton standard alarm clock / radio, I've figured it out and it's the only one I try to use any more.

** Overdesigned shampoo / conditioner / lotion mini-bottles that defy opening when your hands are wet and slippery. Caps should be ridged so you can get a purchase! And thick, viscous lotions can be impossible to extract from slim, small-necked bottles.

** Stylish lamps that you can't figure out how to turn on or off. I was just in a London hotel for three nights; spent two of them reading in semi-darkness before I figured out that my stupid bedside lamp had two different bulbs and switches, one almost completely concealed from view by its chic design.

** Weird light switch placement or function. Wall switches control lamps or lights that you don't expect... or not. I hate havng to hunt by feel for the bathroom light toggle in the middle of the night.

In short a hotel room, like a rental car, is no place for mysterious design that has to be deciphered.

The Polderbaan is one of them, but you may or may not use that one. There's still a chance. For CDG, ALL the runways seem to be in Belgium. Taxi time is never less than 15 minutes. JFK is also pretty bad.


I second that! ^

I actually enjoyed watching the news from my tiny bathroom mirror, as I had little time to sit by the tele to see what happened to the 2nd Time Climber.