Air passengers behaving badly

[jalapeno_pretzel]

I've seen so many recent stories about planes being diverted to take off a disruptive passenger. I wondered how many have witnessed bad behavior, and how recently?

We saw an instance on a domestic flight Jan. 2021. A woman came on that was having a phone conversation with just ear buds on, and the flight attendant thought she was asking her something, so pursued her to ask what was needed. The woman on the phone was pretty rude and snapped at her saying I'm not talking to you! The flight attendant asked that the woman end her phone call so she could focus on the task of boarding and getting situated. Then, another passenger unrelated to the situation decided to chime in and start going after the flight attendant for being rude. It got pretty heated and at one point the flight attendant said "are you threatening me? It's a federal offense to threaten a flight attendant and we can have you deplaned." Things settled down after that, no one was taken off the flight, but I was halfway expecting we were going to be delayed because of it. I just felt so bad for the flight attendant having to put up with that, and all the other entitled disruptive passengers they must encounter regularly.

 

[Moliphino]

I haven't seen it on a plane, but I was getting pretty nervous in the customs line in Madrid in fall 2021. There was a long line, not a lot of lanes open, and a lot of people worried they were going to miss connections. Some people started jumping the line and others started yelling at them for it and I was a bit worried it was going to erupt into violence.

 

[Rogue1677x]

Not towards flight crew. However, coming back from Iceland there was a school group that was in front of me and a bunch of high school students were bragging about taking rocks and moss that they weren't supposed to out of Iceland. Then one boy was scribbling in his passport pages, not where you'd write address or anything. So obnoxious.

 

[RoseGold]

I flew a lot before Covid. I'm pretty sure I was a few rows behind a guy who got handsy. The young woman was reseated, and we had to stay seated for police to board and take him off first.

The biggest confrontation I saw was an Orthodox traveler who refused to take his seat next to a woman. They were both screaming, other people were screaming, it was an absolute mess. She was yelling it was about her race. I can't even remember if the flight attendant was involved. Seemed like everybody else was, which I haven't seen before or since. Other people shuffled their seats around to fix it. I still think about that one, and how I would have reacted if it were me.

 

[Smugpugmug]

I have never seen fighting (as in physically) on a plane but have witnessed plenty of bad behavior.

There's always at least 1 person per flight that blasts music or a movie/show from their device at max volume without headphones. When I flew last May a guy sitting next to my sister and I was watching a sports game without headphones. We kindly asked him to put on headphones. He looked up at us, told us that he didn't speak English (in perfect English) and then continued watching the game. It didn't help that it was 10 pm....

A few years ago I flew to Japan and the woman sitting next to me asked if I could share some of my snacks with her daughter (who looked to be 16-17 years old). I said no and plugged in my headphones to try to ignore her for the rest of the flight. She gave me attitude whenever I had to go to the bathroom (was sitting in the aisle) and kept huffing and puffing like a toddler who didn't get what they wanted.

I've also seen people get into pretty heated verbal arguments about seat saving on Southwest which is one of the annoying things about that airline.

 

[Kennywood]

Except for a very egregious act, passengers should be given one warning. If they continue to misbehave, the passenger is permanently banned from flying on that airline

If a passenger causes 2 incidents, they are put on the "Do Not Fly" list for 1 year.

If they misbehave again, they are permanently banned from all air travel.

Enough is enough.

 

[bennifer]

We were coming home from WDW I think it was Nov 2019. We were seated pretty far back on the plane and once we landed we continued to sit in our seats, as you do while waiting for our turn to deplane. A woman and her husband who were seated behind us were standing in the aisle waiting. All of a sudden, the woman ran about 4 rows ahead and pushed a woman down yelling at her for being rude because she was getting her young daughter's carry on out of the overhead compartment. Then she ran off the plane, leaving her husband alone while he quietly and patiently waited. It was one of the strangest things.

 

[Kennywood]

 

[goofyernmost]

I've only witness one disruption but it dates all the way back to the late 1990's. On a flight from Miami to Philly a woman was caught smoking in one of the restrooms and she was greeted by just about the entire crew when she headed back to her seat. They banned her from any future flights with that airline after that flight. She was supposed to have a connecting flight to Chicago but was left trying to figure out how to get back home. When she asked how she was supposed to get home the response was I don't know and do not care.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

Not just on airlines but everywhere in recent years. I just have noticed many people being much less hospitable and gracious towards one another in the last few years. Curent trend that drives me bonkers is loud personal conversations with their phone on speakerphone in a public place. I was waiting for surgical consult at a Dr office waiting room a while back and was subjected to a 12 minute personal phone call at max volume. Seems like common courtesy would be to step outside.

 

[White Cat]

Not selling alcohol in the airport or on the plane would most likely reduce these incidents.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

Not selling alcohol in the airport or on the plane would most likely reduce these incidents.

However, it would make those long international flights so much less bearable!

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

Not selling alcohol in the airport or on the plane would most likely reduce these incidents.

I don't think the incident I saw was fueled by alcohol, but it does seem like some of them reported in the news were situations like that. It would be unfortunate to ruin that for everyone just because of a few bad apples! I would definitely miss a glass of wine with dinner on the international overnight flights. I try and look at the air travel as part of the vacation, and a drink to relax and celebrate that we're on our way is part of that. On the flip side though, I think I could give that up if it meant less chance we'd have to divert in-flight to a random city for them to kick someone off!

 

[darnheather]

In 2012 I was leaving Turkey from Istanbul with my children. A woman started going off about Americans and calling me names in particular. She didn't know that I speak Turkish. I wasn't very pleasant when I turned and spoke to her.

 

[Kennywood]

The bad behavior I'm noticing nowadays is people stealing or demanding another passenger's assigned seat. Then they have a meltdown when the rightful passenger wants to sit in their seat.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

Yep, I have had that before in China leaving Shanghai. Pretty shocking to them when you can reply in Mandarin, although I will admit my Mandarin is pretty terrible but functional. I am a pretty big guy like 6'1" and 215 lbs and they hate me on the Asian airlines where the seats are sized for the average person in Asia.......which I most certainly am not! They see me coming and everyone starts praying that I am not sitting next to them.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

The bad behavior I'm noticing nowadays is people stealing or demanding another passenger's assigned seat. Then they have a meltdown when the rightful passenger wants to sit in their seat.

Yep, I have experienced this also. Someone mad at me because I was unwilling to take their middle seat on a packed row at the back of the plane instead of my assigned seat near the front on an aisle. Like I said earlier people don't care anymore, it is simply what they want.

 

[dvcgirl67]

On a flight to France in 2011 we witnessed a woman and the man seated in front of her nearly come to blows. He apparently reclined his seat during the meal service and so her tray table was jammed into her lap. So instead of asking him to put his seat back up until she was finished, she pushed his seat....hard. He yelled at her, and then things settled down for a bit. Then she started literally kicking the back of his seat....and then he got up, she got up and I thought they were going to come to blows. The flight attendants intervened and moved her....had to ask another passenger to switch as it was a full flight. I just remember looking at how close they were to the doors....etc. It was very nerve wracking to have a shouting match break out over the Atlantic at 35K feet.

 

[BrianL]

On a flight to France in 2011 we witnessed a woman and the man seated in front of her nearly come to blows. He apparently reclined his seat during the meal service and so her tray table was jammed into her lap. So instead of asking him to put his seat back up until she was finished, she pushed his seat....hard. He yelled at her, and then things settled down for a bit. Then she started literally kicking the back of his seat....and then he got up, she got up and I thought they were going to come to blows. The flight attendants intervened and moved her....had to ask another passenger to switch as it was a full flight. I just remember looking at how close they were to the doors....etc. It was very nerve wracking to have a shouting match break out over the Atlantic at 35K feet.

Well, no worries, they couldn't have opened the doors.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

On a flight to France in 2011 we witnessed a woman and the man seated in front of her nearly come to blows. He apparently reclined his seat during the meal service and so her tray table was jammed into her lap. So instead of asking him to put his seat back up until she was finished, she pushed his seat....hard. He yelled at her, and then things settled down for a bit. Then she started literally kicking the back of his seat....and then he got up, she got up and I thought they were going to come to blows. The flight attendants intervened and moved her....had to ask another passenger to switch as it was a full flight. I just remember looking at how close they were to the doors....etc. It was very nerve wracking to have a shouting match break out over the Atlantic at 35K feet.

That's one of those weird unwritten rules where the seats recline, but no-one wants you to actually recline your seat. They should just remove option from all seats, if the person behind you is gonna get ticked every time you recline your seat.