The Five People You Encounter on Every Flight
I've been on ten flights in the past year—a mixture of international and continental, large airlines and budget airlines, small planes and airbuses. Around the fifth flight, I began to notice patterns in the people sitting around me, and so, like the good writer I am, I started to people watch. And I realized, though the specifics changed, many of the fellow travelers I saw on these flights could be cookie-cutter replicas of one another. These are the five types of flyers I noticed most frequently:
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1. The Kicking Toddler
In all my years of traveling (and six or seven long-haul international flights), I have, knock on wood, only been on two flights with newborn babies, and they both slept the whole way. However, there is something much worse than a newborn baby, able to be hushed with a pacifier or rocked to sleep: it's the kicking toddler.
I swear to God, if there is a toddler on a flight, each and every time, they are in the seat directly behind mine. My last flight from Louisville, KY, to Minneapolis, MN, I was stuck in the dreaded toddler-adjacent seat, and it was one of the most miserable flights I've ever had. First of all, toddlers do not yet know how to speak at normal human volumes. The kid would have been cute if he hadn't been bursting my eardrums with, "OH MY GOSH, DID YOU SEE THE PLANE TAKE OFF?" and "WHERE ARE MY GOLDFISH?" and the dreaded, "I'M NOT TIRED! I DON'T WANT TO TAKE A NAP!" And what makes a toddler especially dangerous on an airplane is that they are fascinated by everything. Without fail, a toddler will raise and lower the tray table on the back of the seat at least a hundred times, marveling at this feat of human engineering. And each and every time, it will jab into your back and wake you from your restless nap. Speaking of restless sleep, it will be impossible to get any while sitting in front of the toddler because toddler legs are the perfect length to stretch out and push against the seat in front of them. So while you're trying to get a second of rest, this kid will be giving you a very bad Swedish massage through the vinyl seat.
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2. The Middle Armrest Stealer
I don't know about you, but I like to have personal space. Personal space is hard to come by on airplanes, but I've found that if I have the window seat and lean on the right-hand armrest and the other person leans on the left-hand armrest, we never have to come into physical contact. However, there will always be that person who needs to take up more than their allowed space, and five minutes into the flight, they will lay claim to the middle armrest—what was meant to be neutral territory. This will result in you having awkward elbow touches periodically throughout the flight until you make yourself so small that you have practically become part of the wall of the plane.
From personal experience, The Armrest Stealer is usually a middle-aged white man (on my last flight, he even had a twirled evil villain mustache) who is practicing the age-old art of man-spreading. Bonus points if he also spreads his knees out into your seat area.
3. The Grandma
This is the sweet older lady who, on every flight, just wants to make you feel at home. She'll ask you about where you're going, where you've come from, if you went to college, what job you have, if you have a boyfriend—it'll be like every family gathering growing up, except with a stranger. The Grandma is usually going to visit her own family, whom she would love to tell you all about, and maybe even set you up with one of her successful grandsons—he has an apartment in Soho, you know!
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4. The "I'm Too Rich for Coach"
"I'm Too Rich for Coach" usually has the "I'd like to talk to your manager" haircut. She's carrying a $1,500 purse and requests to change seats three different times. She is the only one who orders alcohol on an afternoon flight. On the long haul international flights, she picks at the plastic wrapped meal with an expression I would normally reserve for cleaning up dog poop. Nearly every ten seconds or so, "I'm Too Rich for Coach" will let out the most pitiful sigh you've ever heard, lamenting her lack of leg room or limited choices for entertainment. Halfway through the flight, she will pop a sleeping pill and slip on a mask so that she does not have to suffer any longer.
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5. The Person who has Never Traveled Before
Before the flight even begins, The Person who has Never Traveled Before will somehow lose their boarding pass between security and the gate, holding up the boarding line for five minutes until they finally locate it in their coat pocket. They will try to stuff an oversize carry-on into the overhead bin, despite the five reminders to tag oversize carry-ons and leave them for the luggage hold. They will use the bathroom three times on a two hour flight. They will get up five minutes into the flight to get a book out of their carry-on in the overhead bin. Then five minutes later to get headphones. Then five minutes later to get their laptop. The flight attendant will have to ask them to put their seatbelt on, lock their tray table away, and move their seat back to the upright position. And worst of all, The Person who has Never Traveled Before will block your exit while they struggle to collect all of their scattered belongings, trapping you in that cylindrical prison when you were so close to finally escaping.