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 use special assistance, I can appear ok, I tremor when tired, I do need help, Parkinson’s

I haven’t seen it I did have a man try to get me to ” move along “ my row, after we had booked the aisle and window seat. He wanted my aisle seat. I just had to be determined in ushering him past, and and eventually say no thank you! I’d prefer to stay here.

I was on a flight recently whereby as soon as the seatbelt lights went off, a lady sprinted up to the cabin crew to order her child a cheese and ham toastie. She was told there was only a limited supply and would have to wait until the food and drinks trolley got to her. She then demanded that her child has autism and they must sell her one as her child would “kick off” otherwise

Sorry to hear about the Parkinson's. My point was that the PP had said that she asked for special assistance to get on the aircraft. She didn't want to wait for assistance to disembark and walked off. It's that that annoys people, it appears to be all about the convenience rather than ability.

I haven’t seen anything quite as bad as you describe, but I agree that generally passenger behaviour is getting worse. I think a lot of it is due to the cost of flights. No exaggeration, when DH and I went to Thailand, our flights (cattle class!) came to more than our 7-night stay all-inclusive at a 5* hotel where we didn’t want for anything! We could choose off an a la carte 3-course menu in the evening and had the most incredible breakfast buffet each morning. On our flight, we didn’t even get given a blanket and DH’s inflight entertainment screen wasn’t working. We fly a lot and so know that this is not uncommon and have generally low expectations. But for others who don’t fly often and for whom a long-haul flight is a significant expense, I can certainly see why some people get disappointed by their experience and hence feel irritable and angry.

Flying in this day and age is such a horrendous experience that I can sort of understand why some people respond with entitlement as a sort of survival instinct.

We really avoid flying as it has come practically impossible with our autistic daughter. However looking around she really isn't the only one on the cusp of a meltdown.

I can't say as I've noticed. I have my headphones on though.

No exaggeration, when DH and I went to Thailand, our flights (cattle class!) came to more than our 7-night stay all-inclusive at a 5 hotel where we didn’t want for anything! *

Thing is that shouldn't really be a surprise.. if you actually look at what it costs to operate a Longhaul aircraft on some routes it's multiple tens of thousands of dollars an hour.. TBH it's a miracle flights are often as cheap as they often are.

OTOH Hotels in some parts of the world are going to benefit from local pricing and iften lowish labour charges.

Go on what are the 3 destinations? 😀

According to AI the nationalities most complained about by cabin crews are:

British and Irish
American
Indian
Chinese
Israelis

Given the demographics of flyers these days you'd kind of expect those nationalities to figure...

One of those nationalities in particular is notorious for what appears to be overuse of things like Meet and Assist.

You have one of them correct on your list 😂