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CABIN PRESSURE

Review your fellow passengers! We invite you to submit your shared-space traveler stories and we'll publish the best. Our aim is to promote travel civility, considerate to the needs and comforts of those around us on our trains, planes, buses and hovercraft. We're all in it together, after all. Don't be gratuitously rude (and we're obviously not down with any bigotry) but do send us your travel tales. take a look at previous entries for the format and then simply click the button below:

submit your review

Passengers we don't love: The Alarming Entitlement

19/6/2014

1 Comment

 
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Outside of the masochistically insane, we none of us like close connections. Granted, there's a a rush of 'living on the edge'-type adrenaline as the first plane taxis in and there's no jetway and you have 30 minutes to get across the terminal  and you really wanted to grab a quick Zinger Burger from KFC and can you really just take that on the plane and you're way down the back and everyone is taking an age to get their carry-on and now you're approaching stroke-inducing levels of annoyance and it's so unlikely you're going to make it now, but it's not the despair that kills you, it's the hope...always the hope.

What's a modern traveler to do? How about take a leaf out of this enterprising chap's big book of entitlement as he tries to make a connection at London City Airport to get to Frankfurt? Getting off one plane late and looking like you might have to rebook? Never mind, simply set off an alarm to make sure that your Frankfurt plane doesn't leave and in the meantime cause the entire airport to be evacuated and NO FLIGHTS TO LEAVE AT ALL. After all, buddy, the entire European flight network is just for your convenience. What other choice did you have? THERE WAS LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE YOU COULD DO.

If we had a special ranking for negative passenger ratings, this chump would be the only person in it. It's one thing to torment and rankle your fellow passengers once you're on the move. It's quite the breathtaking other thing to decimate the travel plans of an entire airport because you might have to wait two hours to get home. You already win worst passenger of 2014. Category closed. Thank you, and goodnight Vienna. Well, Frankfurt. 

1 Comment

Passenger review: The Nodfather 

5/6/2014

0 Comments

 
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Thanks for this, @SiobhanONeill

Journey details: Overnight Cancun to Madrid en route to London, zzzz...

The scene: Mid section of a packed Air Europa flight in the knees-under-your-chin class

Passenger description: Enormous, like Brando-esque, shoeless Mexican guy crammed into an aisle seat

The review: So we're all in place and the jam-packed economy section is buzzing with that curious blend of mild anticipation and people steeling themselves for nine long hours of attempting to get 40 whole minutes of sleep by jamming an ear into an arm rest. The air crew are shutting the doors when people become aware of another kind of buzz. A buzz that becomes a low, deep rumble.

Two rows back to my left an enormous in all dimensions and very shiny Mexican with a t-shirt that only partially covers his stomach and no shoes, fills the entire 18 inch seat and then some. We haven't even begun to taxi and this guy is out for the count.

As we reach the runway and the rumble begins to compete with the sound of four jet engines on full throttle, people in the surrounding seats begin to turn to attempt to locate the evident hole in the fuselage. As they realise the source is in fact our tired friend, knowing smiles and winks between passengers hide the weary knowledge that this will not be so funny when we hope to grab some shut-eye ourselves.

By the time we're at 35,000 feet, the guy's snores have reached decibels so impressive that people on the other side of the plane and several rows forward are lifting from their seats to try to identify the noisy sleeper. The poor woman in the window seat beside him has pulled her blanket over her head. Since it's clear the sound of a jackhammer playing on her iPod wouldn't drown her neighbour out, she's evidently just using it to hide her nervous breakdown.

After seven and a half hours of continuous and loud snoring during which a five metre square section of plane pauses their tossing and turning on occasion merely to wonder how this guy can get a better night's sleep in an upright position than most of us can manage on an over-stuffed superking mattress, the lights and the smell of airline panini rouses him from his baby-like slumbers. The sound of two dozen sets of teeth gritting and neck muscles straining as people attempt not to spin round to give him the evil-eye-of-fury fills the air.

But not for long. With sandwich and juice consumed our relaxed traveller drifts back into another 90db snooze for the final descent.

Verdict: Exhausting

Rating: 1 for the early humour factor

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