I've now read so many viral essays by flight attendants critiquing passenger behavior that it's practically its own genre.
They all say variations of the same thing: stop being entitled asshats and making my job even harder!
And as a former flight attendant of twenty years, I get it: passenger behavior can be truly awful. I was sworn at, had punches thrown at me, and had to evacuate a plane filled with passengers who refused to leave behind their goddamned bags.
But I've also spent the last ten years traveling the world as a digital nomad, and I now realize that those articles only tell half the story.
Airplane etiquette is a two-way, er, aisle.
When it comes to air travel, here are all the things I wish more flight attendants would remember:
All those viral articles tell us how hard it is to be a flight attendant. But air travel is stressful for everyone.
Yes, passenger behavior has gotten worse in recent years, especially since COVID. But airlines have been treating customers worse too, so it's not surprising that some customers might respond in kind.
After all, airlines now try to make travel as unbearable as possible, so passengers will pay more for a "premium" experience. That's literally their new business model!
I recently booked a trip to New York to visit a friend, and it involved all the usual hassles. Which one of a zillion flights? Should I pay for baggage? Extra legroom? Do I want a printed boarding pass? If so, that'll be another $25!
But finally, I had my flight, and I made the rest of my travel plans…
…only to have the airline email me a week later to say my flight had been changed, and here are your new details. Which completely messed up the rest of my plans.
Once, as my husband Brent and I were boarding a plane, everything stopped, and we were stuck in a jam-packed, glass-enclosed jetway on a scorching hot day for nearly half an hour — without a word of explanation from the staff.
In other words, by the time many of the passengers finally make it to their seats, it's no wonder they're in bad moods. We just had to endure a new season of Squid Game.
I remember one flight as a flight attendant where a twelve-year-old girl seemed determined to drive everyone on the airplane crazy during boarding. She repeatedly rang the call light, shouted at the top of her lungs, and bounced in her seat until people started complaining — especially the couple in the row ahead, who loudly commented on how terrible some parents are.
Like everyone else, I assumed I was dealing with a bratty kid and an indifferent parent.
But when I investigated, I found a mother in tears. She explained she was taking her autistic daughter to Disney World — the first vacation her family had had in years. And no matter what the mother did, her daughter was overwhelmed with excitement about the trip.
I felt bad for jumping to the wrong conclusion, and it slowly dawned on the other passengers that they were also mistaken.
Except that couple in the row ahead, who kept complaining.
Finally, an older woman turned to the mother and said, loud enough to be overheard by everyone, "You are doing a great job. Unfortunately, some people are too rude and selfish to see that."
I would sometimes come home after a long day of flying and complain to Brent about a particularly difficult passenger. Like the mother who handed me a dirty diaper after changing the baby on her seat — both huge no-nos.
Another time, a drunk woman pinched my butt, and when I glared at her, she laughed and told me to "loosen up."
But after one such story, when I was feeling particularly annoyed, Brent asked me how many passengers I'd dealt with that day.
"I don't know," I said. "Three hundred, I guess."
And I had to admit it had been just the one. And the other 299 passengers I dealt with were just fine.
One of the most stressful aspects of flying is when your flight is delayed or canceled.
But flight attendants only have to call "crew scheduling," and their life is back in order. Plus, they get paid no matter what happens.
But passengers? Not so much. They face potentially huge hassles: missing connecting flights, a cruise ship departure, having vacations shortened, and possibly having to sleep in the airport.
This is why those passengers keep asking for updates — or whether or not a connecting flight will wait for them. Assuaging those very real concerns is literally part of a flight attendant's job.
Yes, flight attendants hand out headphones, serve food and drinks, and pick up trash during a flight.
But flight attendants are also trained to deal with an enormous range of emergencies, from medical events to onboard fires. In fact, the primary job of a flight attendant is keeping people safe.
They are professionals, but some don't always act professionally.
Since retiring from flying, I once watched a flight attendant berate a passenger simply for trying to use the first class lavatory, embarrassing him in front of the whole plane.
On another trip, the crew snapped at the passengers so much it was surreal. Before distributing drinks, they announced over the PA that passengers better know what they wanted before the beverage cart reached them because the flight attendants weren't going to wait for them to make up their minds.
Later, when they were so slow picking up trash that passengers began taking it to them, they made another announcement telling people not to be so impatient.
And I get it: we're all human, and little annoyances are annoying. But I wonder who peed in their Wheaties that morning.
Anyway, if you're the professional you claim to be, act like it.
Most passengers are fine, and most flight attendants are too. A few are saints, and a few are sinners — and even the sinners sometimes have good reasons for "sinning."
But if flight attendants are constantly reminding passengers to take a hard look at themselves and their behavior on planes, I think it's fair to ask the same of flight attendants.
In any case, flying works best when both sides remember there's a human being on the other side of the aisle.