Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

How to deal with annoying airline passengers – crying babies have nothing on these antisocial neighbours

From a woman opening her tray table and changing her baby’s diaper to a man clipping his toenails during dinner, some passengers have zero thought for others
Here are some top tips to help you handle those seat mates from hell

Airline passengers can be so annoying. How annoying? Just ask Retha Charette, a tour guide from Arlington, in the US state of Vermont.

On a recent flight from Newark in New Jersey to Amsterdam, her seatmate opened her tray table, placed her infant on it and began to change the baby’s diaper.

“It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen on a plane,” Charette says. “I didn’t know what to do.” It’s hard to find someone who does not have a story like hers to tell. Charette, who writes a blog called Roaming Nanny, says she tries to keep her cool when a neighbour does something irritating.

“I think the number one thing to remember when something weird starts happening is not to lose your temper,” she says. “I firmly believe that when most people travel, they don’t think about those around them. We’re all worried about our comfort.”

Jacquelyn Youst, a frequent traveller and president of the Pennsylvania Academy of Protocol, agrees that maintaining your composure is the golden rule when it comes to passengers seated behind you, in front of you, or next to you.

Losing your cool is counterproductive, considering that you’re trapped with them in a pressurised tube for the foreseeable future.

“Don’t yell,” she says. “This will only make the rest of your travel experience tense.” So what are the most aggravating things passengers do – and what can you do about them? The problems are as numerous and varied as the solutions. If there’s a common thread, it is this: stay above the fray. Otherwise, you could end up starring in a viral video – or worse.

I asked Marianne Perez de Fransius – the CEO of Bébé Voyage, a site for parents who travel with young children – for her thoughts on babies in flight. “A crying baby can be annoying,” says Perez de Fransius. “But the absolute wrong reaction is berating the parent or caretaker for having a crying baby. Parents want their baby to stop crying more than the other passengers.”

Instead, offer to help or try distracting the baby. “Maybe you have a cute video on your phone you could show the baby, or you have something entertaining like a colourful key chain,” Perez de Fransius says.

Infants are hardly the only passengers who can grate on your nerves. Consider the situation Lisa Cortez found herself in on a recent flight from Los Angeles to Rome.

Soon after the flight attendants served a snack, a passenger seated across the aisle calmly removed his shoes and began clipping his toenails. His seatmate, her face buried in a book, didn’t react.

Cortez, a frequent air traveller who runs a tour company in Phoenix, in the US state of Arizona, waited in vain for the seatmate to react. “I grabbed my tablet computer from the side pocket of my seat and set it to a standing position as a barrier between flying toenails and my yummy midflight snack,” she says.

Sometimes, that’s all you can do – protect yourself from whatever a fellow passenger sends your way.

And then there are the seat-reclining passengers. Oh, those seat recliners! Kat Koppett, an actor and improv consultant from Albany, New York, had one on her last flight.

“It would have been easy to react mindlessly,” she says. “I could have passively aggressively bumped her seat a lot.”

Instead, she applied the principles of improv and used the moment as an opportunity to stretch her performance range, cycling through possible responses.

“I could tap her on the shoulder, politely explain that I had a deadline and ask her to move up,” she says. “I could see if the flight attendant might help me. I could choose not to work and find out how that decision might lead to other options, like meditating or listening to music.”



She could also vow never to fly on an airline with such a scarcity of legroom again. Or book a ticket on an air carrier that limits seat recline, such as Delta Air Lines.

In the end, she suffered in silence, as most of us do.

If you are going to address the problem, it’s better to do so sooner rather than later. That is what Gregorio Palomino discovered when a passenger boarded late and took a middle seat next to him.

“He sat down next to me and pushed me and the other seatmate off [the armrests] after we had settled in,” says Palomino, an event planner from San Antonio. “He looked at me and said: ‘Are we going to have a problem here?’”

Palomino stood up, walked to the front of the cabin and asked if he could move to a different seat. Instead of reseating him, the attendant called the airport police, who ushered Palomino and the aggressive passenger off the plane. The airline gave Palomino a ticket on the next available flight. But it could have been much worse.

Imagine if Palomino had waited until the aircraft had reached cruising altitude.

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
Trump Steamrolls EU in Landmark Trade Win: US–EU Trade Deal Imposes 15% Tariff on European Imports
ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman says people share personal info with ChatGPT but don’t know chats can be used as court evidence in legal cases.
Intel Reports Revenue Beats but Sees 81% Rise in Losses
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
Tulsi Gabbard Unveils Evidence Alleging Political Manipulation of Intelligence During Trump Administration
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Trump Announces Coca-Cola to Shift to Cane Sugar in U.S. Production
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
Moonshot AI Unveils Kimi K2: A New Open-Source AI Model
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Proposes Supplying Arms to Ukraine Through NATO Allies
US Opens First Rare Earth Mine in Over 70 Years in Wyoming
Bitcoin Reaches New Milestone of $116,000
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
Western Europe Records Hottest June on Record
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
France Requests Airlines to Cut Flights at Paris Airports Amid Planned Air Traffic Controller Strike
Poland Implements Border Checks Amid Growing Migration Tensions
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
Amazon Reaches Milestone with Deployment of One Millionth Robot
Yulia Putintseva Calls for Spectator Ejection at Wimbledon Over Safety Concerns
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
×