Personal Space Please

April 26, 2009

in Passenger Stories

I recently flew from Los Angeles to New York and sat next to one of the most obnoxious passengers I have ever encountered.

I should have known there was going to be a problem when the gentlemen who was assigned to sit next to me in a middle seat decided to sit in the aisle seat a row ahead of me despite the flight attendant’s frequent announcements over the PA system that we were already running late due to a delay and that she needed all passengers on the full flight to take their seats as soon as possible so we could avoid any more delays. Of course eventually the person assigned to the seat he was sitting in boarded the plane and the man created a huge log jam of people when trying to get back to his actual seat. (Why didn’t he just sit in his assigned seat to begin with? If you don’t want to sit in the middle seat on a 6 hour flight than book your flight earlier!)

He proceeded to cough loudly and without covering his mouth for most of the flight when he was awake, and making disgusting yawning – especially noises while he was asleep. While I didn’t mind so much that he had taken his shoes off, I did not understand why it was necessary for him to unbutton his pants.

If that wasn’t bad enough, about half way through the flight he decided to put both his feet up on the arm rests of the seat in front of him such that he was sitting as if he was at the gynecologist’s office. As such, one of his knees was in my space and the other knee was in the space of the passenger sitting in the aisle in my row (the passenger in the aisle seat and I glanced at each other with looks of disbelief as he did this). He then proceeded to sleep like this. Hoping to give him a hint that this was an inappropriate way to sit I decided to put my tray table down to do some work. His knee was in my space enough such that I couldn’t put my tray table down unless he sat like a normal person. He finally got the hint and put his feet down after my tray table tapped his leg about 8 times, but he proceeded to put his feet/knees back up in that position about 20 minutes later.

All I really want from a flight is for the plane to go up and come down in one piece, but is it too much to ask for passengers to respect the personal space of others?

Signed, HCK

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Festerdun May 13, 2009 at 2:46 pm

Don't be so passive. Tell him to get his damn feet down or you'll light the little piggies on fire.

Reply

Atari May 31, 2009 at 8:35 pm

Agreed.

Reply

Shamu August 30, 2011 at 5:10 am

Yeah I third that well said

Reply

Leave a Comment
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *




Previous post:

Next post: