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 😯

I fly a lot and haven’t noticed more entitlement, just the usual too much noise and kids on noisy devices.

Haven’t noticed it. What routes/airlines are you flying?

Never heard of this before.

However, does not surprise me as such behaviour is not unique to flying.

Not noticed terrible behaviour, but on a two-hour flight someone asked to sit in dh’s paid-for aisle seat so they could sit across the aisle from their dh. And they were offering a middle seat several rows back!

Also I saw coming back from a trip a man boarding in a wheelchair. The cabin crew told him and his wife that they would have to wait till everyone had got off before they brought on a wheelchair for him at the other end. Well, surprise surprise, no wheelchair needed… the couple were pounding through Arrivals, and to cap it all he was pushing a trolley loaded with cases at speed in the car park.

I've flown 8 times in the last 8 months combination of shortish flights for work and short and medium haul for holidays, every flight has been fine other than the flight out to Greece, child about 10 behind me constantly kicking/bashing the back of my chair, parents taking turns to sleep in the seat next to the two children while the other sat elsewhere. In the end I turned and told him to stop it, to see he was kneeling in the footspace with a handheld games console of some kind on his chair and was pushing his back and lap tray against the chair and kicking the underneath of it, there's no way the parents didn't know he was on the floor. Even when I turned and spoke to him the snoozing dad half opened an eye and just ignored the whole thing. I ended up with back ache

No, I don't think it's worse, and we're regular travellers. You occasionally get some selfish, entitled, drunk arsehole kicking off, but it was ever thus. I find the whole experience of flying more stressful now, because of all the additional security and how busy many airports are, but I think part of that is just that I'm older and less tolerant. Hell really is other people.

I don't think so. I think most people understand air travel isn't the special experience it used to be, so expect very little by way of service and comfort. I can't recall seeing any sort of demanding behaviour.

We go away several times a year and i haven’t found that type of behaviour is usual . I did once have to ask a woman to move out of my pre booked seat . She was very reluctant to do so as she wanted to sit beside her BF who was in the aisle seat ( DH and I had window and middle) and got a bit stroppy but cabin crew stepped in and told her to move to her own seat several rows behind . After some further argument she moved but was not happy .

The wheelchair thing happens all the time and, as a genuinely disabled person who desperately needs the assistance, it boils my piss.

We were on a really quiet beach in Kos a couple of years ago where a man was playing with his, I presume, DGS. He was running around chasing him, diving in and out of the sea, having a whale of a time. When we got to the airport to come home, there he was in a wheelchair. Same as we left the flight. As soon as the assistance team left the family in the baggage hall he picked up suitcases from the belt and walked off with them.

DS1 had a man board in a wheelchair and sit next to him on a flight home once. He helped him and his wife put his bags in the overhead locker, got them back down etc. but because you have to wait until everyone else is off for the assistance team, he got off with the rest of the passengers. Not only that, DS1, who’s a soldier, struggled to keep up with him.

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

I fly a lot and the yhe two most memorable things was a .epically emergency as the plane was arriving in Vienna and another time.e I was in the second to back row and the guy at the back seat, who had been very charming and helpful to me was arrested as soon as wer landed in Manchester.
We were told to sit on our seats and police boarded. He didnt resist and there were more police with guns on the ground.

Virtual all my European flights have been with Ryan air and Ive never had an issue.

Its the clapping when we arrive at certain destinations that I find baffling. It's almost like they didnt expect the pilot to manage it but well done him!!!

I travel a lot to and I have not seen this behaviour at all. In my experience people are just normal and act normally. The worst that has happened to me lately was a man cutting in front of me in the short business line queue when we were boarding the plane. I was annoyed and thought he was rude, but it wasn't the end of the world. Especially since the queue was so short.

All behaviour is getting more demanding.

Its the clapping when we arrive at certain destinations that I find baffling. It's almost like they didnt expect the pilot to manage it but well done him!!!

Italians always clap when the plane lands. They often cross themselves too before it takes off!

There is definitely a lot of this.

Not sure it’s getting worse. I flew home from Chicago, night flight with a crowd of drunk Mancunians who insisted on shouting swearing running up and down the aisle despite everyone else trying to sleep.

We seem to have a high number of ignorant, selfish, inconsiderate and entitled people.

When travelling abroad, sometimes it can be embarrassing to admit being British.

Honestly I take no notice of other passengers when I get on a plane, I hate flying. I get onboard, check dc are okay if they are with us, put my headphones on and block everything out.
There was one time I ended up moving sears because there was a fuss happening further up the plane, I ended up leaving my prebooked aisle seat to sit in the middle seat of a row between a husband and wife (all quite bizarre), I absolutely hate fussing on a plane so swapped so everyone would stop moaning and we could just get going. One minor drama in my 41 years is really not noteworthy. Plus I got 2 free drinks out of it.