Is the behaviour of passengers on airplanes getting more demanding?

[SailingOnAWave]

Hello. I fly several times a year and one thing I've noticed in recent years is that the behaviour of other passengers on the planes seems to be getting worse and more entitled.

On one flight a passenger started to demand that one of the three toilets was for her use only.

In another a passenger demanded that she is given a seat in the emergency exit rows for more leg space (they were already filled and she said she had not paid for this, but was expecting her wishes to be fulfilled).

On another a passenger wanted the pilot to read out to the whole plane a personal message.

I could go on and on.

I would be really interested to hear other stories!

I mean to be fair, all of those behaviours are quite unusual.

So give the millions of normal passengers who don’t behave like that, I’d have to say YABU.

I live in Scotland and generally only fly with TUI and Jet2 on shortfhall package holidays so apart from CF's on hen/stag do's trying to 'steal' our pre-booked seats I never noticed anyone being particularly demanding.

Until we went to New York from Heathrow, OMG people were horrendous in cattle class. Refusing meals at meal time, demanding them 3 hours later, constantly pressing for flight crew demanding this that and the other. I don't know how the crew put up with it to be honest. One lady refused to wake her kids up to put their seat belts on as she didn't want to disturb them. People want 1st class on cattle class prices.

You've seen the behaviour of a handful of people and think that can be extrapolated to "passengers on airplanes" in general? Are you in the US?

Not seen that, but more people seem to leave a mess/fail to look after their children than in the past.
Not seen any of the stories you read about, like people demanding a seat swap because they're pregnant/want to sit next to their partner.

Nah.

i flew in the 1990s on charter flights where the whole company was going on a jolly abroad and the behaviour is considerably better now.

I was thinking that too.

We fly numerous times a month (long haul and short haul over the years) and I’ve never witnessed any of the behaviours you describe.

I’ve never seen any like this, except entitled parents thinking that their children (often not that young) are entitled to sit next to them despite not having those seats allocated.

I fly a lot and I haven't noticed behaviour worsening generally. I expect you've just randomly happened to see some unusual cases.

That said, I was on a flight last year where a couple fighting almost caused the plane to be diverted! Mind you, I was actually blissfully unaware of the whole thing in my seat, but my friend sitting near the back (we're too cheap to pay extra for seat reservations) heard it all - so she spent the flight worrying about whether we'd make it home 😯