Where are your manners, flyer?

Air travel is fast and convenient. It’s the rabbit in the tortoise race, but often too the Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam-like warzone in a small, cramped environment where sharing and caring can be continents apart.

Long-haul travel can be daunting when the passenger next to you wants to chat, drinks too much or has a small bladder that needs to go every time you doze off. After hours of this, it’s enough to throttle someone.

It’s ironic that on-board prerecords always wish passengers a pleasant flight, to sit back, relax… and take in the body odour of someone in your proximity who forgot to spray their armpits?

Air travel also raises one of life’s eternal questions: who gets what armrest, and what are the rights of the middle-seat occupant?

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Important flight etiquette rules to know

Understanding good flight etiquette, and then practicing it, is an essential part of travel.

One of the most important rules of flying is to be on time. Nobody is going to wait for you, because sacrificing the needs of one versus the desire of everyone else, who were on time, is a simple principle.

Also, don’t be the wuss that tries to get away with oversized cabin baggage. The crew may not stop you, but after placing your handbag, manbag, laptop bag and small suitcase in the overhead compartment, do you really think that there’s any space left for the poor sod who boards after you?

Equally so is the dimwit who reclines their seat seconds after the seatbelt signs go off. This is not so much a problem when it’s on a long-haul flight, but in the cramped cabin of a sardine tin between Joburg and Cape Town, squashing the knees of the person behind you into oblivion can be a declaration of war.

Because they will kick back. Armrests belong to the unfortunate soul who checked in too late. The middle-seater. It’s already unpleasant spending a two-hour flight sandwiched between two strangers. It’s even worse when inconsiderate nincompoops in the window and aisle seat force piggy in the middle to ease their comfort by any means possible.

When Mom packs you a lunch tin filled with your favourite chicken livers, dried fish, or any other strong, odorous meal, please do not open it and devour the lot while sharing fragrant home cooking with your neighbours – all hundred and something of them.

The same goes for emptying a bottle of perfume or cologne on your body. Few things are as irritating as the person sitting next to you trying to start up a chinwag. Leave the networking for cocktail parties. If the blabbermouth insists, try answering in gibberish or something that sounds like an I Don’t Speak English dialect.

If it’s an attempted pickup, respond with enthusiasm about your recent engagement. Otherwise, simply be direct and share that you are spending your flight with some much-needed downtime or, haul out a book and put on some headphones.

Claiming a rare condition or faking a guttural cough when all else fails, is a sure win to get some distance between you and the nosy neighbour.

Be mindful about what you watch on your inflight entertainment system or your device. It could be offensive.

Leave the sex, drugs, prejudice and rock ’n roll flicks for your couch. Just because you’re on a flight, facing forward with a tray table in front of you does not mean that table manners must be left at home.

Chew with your mouth closed. Nobody wants to share your digestive enthusiasm or contemplate the chicken you ordered, compared to their snack.

By now, the realisation should have dawned that airline seats in economy class are all pretty much the same size. That’s the space you pay for. Encroaching on someone else’s seat, spilling over because your biceps or your boep are simply too large for the seat to handle, is as rude as any form of discrimination.

If you’re XXXL, buy two seats, set yourself up in business class or pay me for the space you are robbing me of.

Embarking and disembarking can be a bun fight all on its own. Being at the front of the queue means little when boarding because nobody’s going anywhere until the last person in the line is seated. And, if everyone packs and stows appropriately, there’s no argument about overhead space for your bags. It’s the same with getting off the aircraft.

Luggage is loaded onto the carousel in the terminal at the same time. If you have no luggage, the five minutes you might save by forgetting good manners and rushing to deplane, may serve up instant karma when you’re the one who gets knotted in a traffic jam.

Good manners are everything: being courteous and considerate, as you’d expect others to be towards you, the golden key to a real pleasant flight.