The Ten Commandments of Air Travel: The simple in-flight rules on Knee Defenders, baggage space, queues and arm rests that will stop every other passenger hating you
- Knee Defenders, which stop seats reclining, have been causing in-air fights
- Other classic mid-air rows are caused by armrest hogs and bag allowances
- Queuing and the window blinds also cause unrest on flights
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The Wright Brothers did not know what they were getting us all into. When those dashing pioneers first flew in December 1903, they thought they were ushering in a bright new era of travel, where the world would soar from country to country in a happy and contended manner.
Little did they know that they were cracking open a can of worms. A really very wriggly can, where the worms all have terribly bad tempers, and don’t like each other very much.
A century (and a bit) on from the Wrights’ grand innovation, the modern air journey is a thing fraught with frustrations – where passengers battle for leg space and threaten to go into a sort of meltdown akin to Jack Nicholson in The Shining over who uses the armrest.
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A design for life: Follow these simple rules, and your flight can be more like this (left), and less like Jack (right)
It can all be a thoroughly unpleasant experience – unless you listen to the voice of reason and follow these ten wise, careful rules for more congenial air travel.
Follow a few of them, and your next journey overseas will be a more pleasant scenario for you and your fellow flyers. Follow all of them, and you definitely won’t be the persona non grata who has to be escorted to the terminal as soon as the plane lands because everyone on board hates you. Including the pilot, and all the pilot’s friends.
Shall we get started?
Not playing fairly: Knee Defenders have been causing rows on planes, and have been banned by some airlines
1. Don’t use Knee Defenders…
To be entirely honest, these dastardly gadgets were the main reason for this article. If you are unfamiliar with them, these are the ‘discreet’ locks which can be clipped to the seat in front of you. Once in place, they prevent the passenger in said berth from reclining their chair, thus saving your limbs from being knocked when the inevitable push-back comes.
A good idea? No.
Knee Defenders are snide, invidious devices which invade someone else’s right to a sliver of extra comfort in a not-very-comfortable situation. Airlines like Virgin and Qantas have already banned them. If you use them, you are the sort of mean-spirited person who tells a three-year-old that Father Christmas does not exist, and laughs at the part of Bambi where mummy gets shot.
Do you want to be that person? Do you?
Are you looking at my arm rest? Battles over the central space between seats are a regular cause of friction
2. …but be considerate in your reclining…
The reason that Knee Defenders have been invented is because leg space is an issue. So think before you push your seat back. Is the person behind you the sort of tall gentleman who looks like he could be an NBA basketball player? Then perhaps don’t deprive him of that last centimetre of room. Are you a child who doesn’t need extra space? It’s time your parents told you this.
Do you really need to recline the seat the moment after take-off, and have it wedged down for 11 hours? Are you really so tired? You need to buy a better bed.
3. …and bring the seat back up during meal service
This is really quite simple. If the person behind you is forced to eat their dinner of congealed pasta in a sauce that may or may not include tomato with the tray rammed into their chest because your seat is still down, then you are a thoroughly selfish human being.
4. Do not fight the Arm Rest War
Because in the Arm Rest War, there can be no winners. There are two of you. There is but one arm rest. You are going to have to work out a compromise.
Do – try to accommodate each other’s elbows, and share the space. If you brush arms, turn to your co-traveller and smile politely. Especially if they are handsome/pretty and possibly single.
Do not – keep your arm along the whole length of the rest at all times, and harrumph like a startled and easily-angered racehorse any time your neighbour tries to join the ‘fun’. That is just rude.
Form an orderly line: The rules of queuing are simple. Find the back. Start there. Your turn will come
5. Don’t be a queue jumper
It is one of the true mysteries of modern life.
Airplanes are cramped places where, ideally, you should want to spend as little time as possible. Why are you so determined to be on board the instant the doors are open?
But no, there you are, trying to push your way into a boarding queue that has already formed, and has a distinct and well defined end to it. It is over there. That is where you should be. And don’t think that your ‘method’ of casually loitering by the edge of the line, then gradually trying to filter in, has not been observed. It has been observed. Get to the back, queue-jumper. The plane won’t leave without you. The pilot hasn’t even boarded yet. Look. He’s still over there buying a coffee. Chill out.
6. Obey the hand-luggage rule…
Airlines do not impose the draconian one-cabin-bag rule because they are desperate penny-pinchers worried about fuel costs. Actually, scratch that, yes they are.
But this regulation is in place because there is only so much space on board. If you have somehow side-stepped carry-on lore by stuffing a handbag into a wheely suitcase into a rucksack into a laptop case, you have Too Much Stuff. You are not flying. You are moving house.
Room for a little one? Overly stuffed overhead lockers can be the bane of other passengers' lives
7. …and store bags properly
While we are talking about that wheely suitcase, it will go into the overhead locker head on. If it didn’t, the airline would have made you check it in.
If you store it sideways, you are depriving someone else of the storage space they have paid for.
So don’t get upset and whiny when passengers who board after you start rearranging the locker to maximise the available room because you were too lazy or inconsiderate to do it. You asked for this.
8. Know your body
Are you a person who will sleep for 12 unbroken hours, and barely stir during a hellish bout of turbulence that makes everyone else think they are going to die? Good for you. Let’s hope you chose a window seat, and are not slumped next to the aisle, making your fellow row-members climb over you for the next half a day.
Equally, are you a passenger who needs regular toilet breaks? Fine – but you need the aisle seat. You do not need to be waking me up every 30 minutes with that ‘I’m going to have an accident’ face.
Seriously, when will this guy be done? Nothing feels longer than the wait for the toilet at 36,000ft
9. Do not hog the bathroom
On the subject of toilets, here is a quick mathematical question:
If there are two-hundred-and-something people in an economy-class cabin, but only eight toilets, how long should each passenger dedicate to their bodily functions? The answer – as little as is physically possible without emerging with your trousers/skirt around your ankles.
Keep it quick. Do not do your make-up in the mirror while seven other people are queuing outside. On, and keep it fragrant. There are hotels and homes for that other thing. Everyone can hear you.
10. The blind cannot stay down forever
You have had the window covered while you slept. That is acceptable. But now we are coming into land over the skyscrapers of New York/the golden coast of California/the grand bay of Rio de Janeiro, and I want to see the scenery. That blind goes up. Now
