- When you do it a lot, you smell of plane.
- People tell you how big your carbon footprint is.
- Its defencelessness in the face of bad weather, volcanoes and “acts of God”.
- You book the flight yourself, online, and buy the wrong ticket… and you can’t get a refund.
- Or you buy the right ticket, but twice… and can’t get a refund.
- And whatever you paid, you can guarantee the guy next to you paid less.
- A last-minute plane change means the slick new business class seat you had been looking forward to trying out is actually an old version from the 1980s.
- The plane is so decrepit that it rattles as it goes down the runway.
- There’s no room for your cabin baggage because everyone has exceeded their own allowance.
- Or you are told you have exceeded yours, and have to check it in.
- You look out of the window and see your suitcase being thrown on to the plane as if it were a beach ball.
- Or it doesn’t make it on to the plane at all.
- There is always one passenger who’s late, and delays you.
- The person next to you has a cough. Or sniffs. Or breathes through their mouth. A bad sign on a night flight.
- And they want to talk to you.
- But then they get upgraded just before take-off.
- No one greets you on board, offers to take your coat or gives you a drink.
- There are crumbs all over your seat and butter on the remote control.
- The only seats left to select were the middle ones, or by the washrooms.
- Or by the bassinets, which are occupied by babies with extreme colic.
- Or by the galley, and it’s a night flight so you have to put up with inane chat from the crew while trying to sleep.
- The “noise-cancelling” headphones provided don’t cancel anything.
- Having boarded on time, you are stuck on the tarmac for an hour.
- Just before take-off, you’re told there is a fault and that maintenance are trying to locate a spare part.
- Boring safety demonstrations. Can’t they jazz it up a bit? Like Cebu Pacific.
- On long haul, the in-flight entertainment doesn’t work.
- Or having seen the films on offer, isn’t worth turning on.
- The music selection hasn’t been updated since the eighties.
- The flight map doesn’t work, or shows a different route, so you worry you got on the wrong plane.
- Or doesn’t have an English translation, so you are left trying to work out your flight status in Mandarin.
- Your plane has mobile phone technology, and the person next to you thinks it’s good to talk.
- The child behind you keeps kicking your seat, and their parents don’t seem to mind.
- Or they tell them off too aggressively, making everyone feel uncomfortable.
- You get up to go to the washroom and are blocked by trolleys in both directions.
- People in lower classes keep using your washrooms, and crew do nothing to stop them.
- When you finally get into one, someone bangs on the door just as you’re getting comfortable.
- You look in the mirror before you come out and see the cabin pressure has aged you by a decade.
- And you feel so dehydrated that your eyes, nose and throat feel like sandpaper.
- In business, the “fully- flat” bed is angled lie-flat so you slide down it and wake under the footrest.
- While wearing the ridiculous beige sleep suit they have given you.
- The bed has been designed for midgets.
- The fleece blanket doesn’t cover your toes, and gives you a static shock when you get out of your seat.
- You wake up aching everywhere.
- In economy class, the window seat you requested is occupied by a heavy drinker with a weak bladder.
- The person in front reclines their seat fully, even though it’s a day flight.
- Or the seats don’t recline at all.
- The legroom is so poor that you knock your neighbour out while trying to get into your flight socks.
- The person beside you informs you that the shared armrest is theirs.
- Then leans over your lap to look at the view.
- You nod off, then realise you’ve been leaning on their shoulder.
- And you’ve been dribbling.
- Imperious cabin crew who talk to you like you’re a child and take half an hour to come when you press the button for service.
- The food service takes two hours to complete even though you’re on a six-hour night flight and need to get some sleep.
- Your first choice of meal isn’t available.
- There is no choice.
- Your travel manager has booked you on a dry airline.
- There is one red and one white wine available, and both are paint stripper, served warm, in plastic.
- The “champagne” is Prosecco.
- The menu described the meal incorrectly. What it should have said was: “Grey, misshapen substance, not edible.”
- But you eat it anyway, because it’s in front of you, even though you ate in the lounge as well. And then you feel sick.
- And you drink more wine than you should, because they offered it, and you feel hungover an hour later.
- In economy, the crew parade the business class meals past you on their way from the galley.
- Your vegetarian “special” has ham in it.
- The meal is served with silly little metal knives with stubby rounded ends. Or plastic cutlery that breaks when you try to slice anything.
- You’ve been promised a breakfast snack and get a three-day old croissant and a coffee with UHT milk.
- And the sachet explodes all over your suit when you try to open it.
- You can’t smoke but there is an ashtray in the armrest, just to tempt you.
- You feel nauseous after putting on too many nicotine patches.
- You can’t work out how to get the tray table out of your armrest, let alone back in.
- Then when you’ve finally got it assembled, it bounces like a trampoline when you attempt to type on your laptop.
- Your laptop battery dies an hour into the flight and there is no in-seat power.
- In business, the amenity kit has moisturiser but no ear plugs.
- In economy, your neighbour has 30 years of over-eating under his belt and it’s spilling into your seat.
- It’s a night flight but the lights aren’t turned off.
- You suddenly get an overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia, and you’re only two hours into a long-haul flight.
- Air rage.
- The cabin temperature is always too hot or too cold, but never just right.
- There is so much turbulence that you start to wonder if you’ve updated your will.
- When it stops, the seatbelt sign stays on for ages, and you need the loo.
- Ceaseless engine noise.
- People who do lunging exercises in the aisle because they “need to stretch”.
- Pages ripped out of in-flight magazines.
- Boredom-induced purchases from the in-flight duty free.
- Guilt-induced purchases from duty free (you were away for their birthday again).
- You have to use the sick bag but it’s so old the bottom has worn away.
- Trying to calculate what time it will be when you land and how many hours’ sleep you should try to get, or if you should sleep at all.
- Thinking about what else you could be doing with the money you spent on your ticket.
- Worrying about ticking the wrong box on your arrival form.
- Someone opens their window shade just as the sun comes up, blinding you.
- The crew turn off the in-flight entertainment ten minutes before the end of your film.
- You arrive on time but then have to circle the airport for half an hour because there is no slot available to land.
- Or you’re delayed and the captain is over-familiar and makes a joke about how he’ll be late home for tea. Just fly the plane, goddammit.
- The landing resembles a kamikaze mission.
- People applaud when you touch down.
- Then jump up and open the overhead bins before the seatbelt sign is turned off, knocking you out.
- It’s raining when you arrive.
- When you turn your phone back on, dozens of emails and voicemails flood in for you to deal with.
- You’re kept waiting ages before you can get off the plane.
- And it is designed in such a way that people in lower classes get to disembark before you.
- Jet lag.
- And then there’s the airports – but that’s a whole other 101 things to complain about… (Look out for the next in the series, “101 things we don’t like about airports”.)
- What are your air travel hates? Let us know at [email protected]