The Rudest things that People do on planes, buses and trains…
The actual “travelling” is the worst part of travel. It’s where you experience the worst of humanity. We just came back from a 10-day trip through the Costa del Sol. Lowlights: a drunk throwing up in the aisle of the bus, me getting in an argument with a Russian woman who thought it was her right to take up 3 seats on a crowded bus with her belongings, locals on another bus watching YouTube videos on their phone with the volume blasting.
I remember as a child flying to Europe and Africa. Travel back then was an experience, people would dress nicely to get on a plane. They’d brush their teeth and wear deodorant. There was this unwritten acknowledgement that we were all in this together and that people should be on their best behaviour.
When did humanity take such a turn for the worse?
I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to write about the things that people do these days that I find not just annoying, but also incredibly rude.
So: The Rudest things that People do on planes, buses and trains…
1. Taking up multiple seats. People getting on a bus and immediately putting their bag on the seat next to them. It’s usually young women. And it’s not the end of the world when the bus is empty. But progressively the bus gets crowded and they keep their bag on the seat. We’ll sometimes see older people get on the bus, looking down at the seat with the bag on it. You can see them processing it and wondering if they should say something. They usually don’t and will stay standing. The guilty party, usually that young woman, just looks out the window or at her phone so that she doesn’t make eye contact. It totally burns me. Did you pay for the 2nd seat for your bag? Do you think you’re so special that nobody should be allowed to sit next to you?
We were always taught by our parents that you should give up your seat to an older person. This isn’t even that, this is about moving your purse so that someone else, someone who’s also paid for their ticket, can sit down. I just find it a very rude thing to do.
2. Strategic placing of luggage on a plane. It seems to be a new thing: putting your luggage in overhead bins at the front of the plane so that when you deboard it’s conveniently near the exit. I recently had this happen on an Iberia flight: about three-quarters of passengers had boarded by the time I got on. I was in row 4 and the overhead bins were full. All the overhead bins were full. I had to go 10 rows further back to put my bag in a bin (lots of room there). Of course, other people had gotten on by then and I was getting dirty looks working my way back to my seat in the front. And after the plane had landed and the plane was deboarding, I had to wait until the crowd had thinned to be able to retrieve my bag.
If you want to see bedlam: On one flight, landing in Malaga, it was announced that deboarding would be from both the front and the back. Confused passengers were all over the place trying to get their bags.
Airlines should mandate that passengers store their belongings in the vicinity of where they’re sitting.
3. Bad hygiene. I mentioned that planes were usually places where people would have proper hygiene: taking showers, brushing teeth, wearing clean clothes. Now it’s flip-flops, tank tops, people who take off their shoes and bless us with their stinky feet, others who fart with impunity. There’s no romance to travel any more. We’ve seen people who’ve taken off their shoes place their socked feet on another person’s armrest. What’s wrong with people?
4. Getting up from your seat the second the plane lands. It never fails. You land and everyone has to get up and get their bags. If you’re on the aisle, you suddenly have bodies brushing against you, you have to watch out for bags being dropped on your head and you feel the pressure from others in your row to get up. It always amazes me. Have these people never travelled? Haven’t they figured out that it takes at least 10 minutes before the jet bridge is connected to the plane, the plane door is open, the first-class passengers are let out, and the 30 rows in front of get out of their rows?
Even worse are people who don’t follow the orderly row-by-row exit system. If you’ve got a connecting flight and apologize “really sorry, I’ve just got a few minutes to catch a flight” then it’s understandable. Otherwise you’re just being rude.
5. Using electronic devices without headphones. People listening to music on the bus or train, watching YouTube videos or playing video games. You’re not a DJ or a professional video game player and the plane/bus/train is not your living room. Not acknowledging that there are other people around you (who probably don’t want to hear your stuff) is rude. Invest in some headphones.
6. Skipping lines. They’re great at that here in Spain. The line is neat and defined until the bus or train shows up…then it’s a free-for-all with everyone crowding around the door and waving their tickets around like they just won the lottery. The thing is that it only takes one person to start it: they might have been behind you and they’re suddenly standing next to you, or they may have gone to put their bag in the baggage hold and now they think they have the right to be in front of you…but that one person sets off a series of events where an orderly line becomes an unruly crowd jostling to get in the door of the bus/train.
7. Smelly foods. You shouldn’t bring smelly foods on public transport. Off the top of my head: hard-boiled eggs, tuna sandwiches, sardines, durian, stinky tofu, blue cheese, bologna, bratwurst and Sauerkraut.
8. Out of control children. We like children and we can sympathize with both parents and what children have to go through on a long flight. We once had a long flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok with a young child behind us. He had red pimples on his face and cried the whole way. We felt bad for him and would make funny faces which placated him for maybe 2 minutes.
But out of control children are something else. Kids being loud, kicking the back of your chair, looking over their chair and meddling in your business. The problem is that too many parents these days don’t control their kids (“you can’t stop them from having their freedom of expression”) and they become little brats. Can’t stand little brats.
9. Non-stop talkers. Some people use the bus or train as an opportunity to catch up with family members that they haven’t talked to for months. They’ll spend the whole train/bus ride going through their rolodex of contacts to catch up on the latest. So you, as a fellow passenger, not only get to hear them talk for the whole trip, you hear them repeat the same thing over and over again.
You also get travelling businesspeople doing the same – using their time on a bus or train to communicate with coworkers and clients. Travelling businesspeople are usually a bit more discrete than the ordinary passenger calling friends or family…but if you end up sitting next to one on a long journey it still sucks.
10. Reclining seats. It’s probably what riles people up the most: people in front of them bringing down their seats making already tight seating even tighter.
I understand wanting to recline your seat somewhat. Sometimes on a long flight or bus ride you can’t be in the same position the whole time. I’ve myself reclined my seat maybe 10 to 15 degrees to change things up for my spine.
But some people don’t give a shit. They’ll get in their seat and recline it to the max, banging it into your knees and giving you a close up view of the top of their heads. I’ve had this happen a few times where their head is literally 6 inches from your face, so close you can smell their greasy hair. For me that’s rude, it’s a complete disrespect of somebody’s space.
The thing is, it might not have been so bad 10 years ago when airlines had decent spacing (“seat pitch) between seats. 10 years ago the average seat pitch between rows was 35 inches. Now it’s 31 inches. And some airlines have it as tight as 28 inches.
So you can blame the airlines. But you can also blame passengers reclining their seats: just because you can recline your seat by a 30 degree angle doesn’t mean you should. Again, it’s about curtesy, something that is seriously lacking these days.
A few things we do to make travelling more tolerable: we bring headphones (as well as earplugs), Vicks or tiger balm (to put under our noses for bad smells), power bars for snacks (sure, we’d like to return the favour and bring hard-boiled eggs. But we don’t). We bring moist wippies to keep hands clean (think of how many times you haven’t felt well after a long trip. Planes/trains/buses are great places to pick up bacteria). If I’m travelling on my own I wear a hoodie. People wearing hoodies make other people nervous (serial killers and the unabomber wear hoodies) and they leave you alone…and it’s like another layer of privacy from others.
What traveller rudeness pisses you off?
Related: Our worst ever Train experiences
Related: Is it safe to Travel? The weird and scary from 6 years of full-time travel
Related: 18 Travel Dupes (that I recommend)
Well said. I don’t travel much but in shops here on Skye in Summer it was usually Spanish tourists who’d jump queues – obviously well-practiced! I ‘re-directed’ a few but since C-19 it’s not a problem..
Living in Spain I can tell you that it is well-practiced 🙂