Idiots on Airplanes and Other Travel Commentary

[fishbrains]

I have a backpack that fits neatly under a plane seat and won't bother anyone else.

That last sentence is the key to it all.

[dismalist]

I have a backpack that fits neatly under a plane seat and won't bother anyone else.

That last sentence is the key to it all.

Absolutely! I've always done the same.

The source of the problem is that extra space is free to the traveler once he has paid his ticket. This is an example of bundling, like football with Physics in colleges, a result of too little competition.

It is easy to imagine how unbundling would work, as the technology is already available. Charge for the whole flight by total weight, passenger plus baggage, and publish those rates. Take your stuff and jump on the baggage scale. Bingo -- a ticket price is printed out!

[Langue_doc]

I have an eight hour flight for an international move in August. I am dreading it. Masks no longer required. COVID can damage every organ system in the body, including the brain and heart. I'll wear a respirator but there's no denying masks work better when the majority of people wear them properly. Trying to figure out how to go ten plus hours without food or water (considering when I have to get through security plus get through customs, get luggage, etc.) Also not happy that I'll have to risk my life by taking my mask off just to be identified. Yes, risking my life. Even a asymptomatic case of COVID can cause a deadly heart attack or stroke. I hate people right now. I hate that public health has become politicized.

I don't know anything about your personal health situation, so I want to be careful. That said.

1. The risk of catching covid is cumulative, so pulling down your mask for 5 seconds for identification is not dramatically increasing your risk of infection.

2. Airports and even airplanes are pretty well ventilated spaces. Otherwise they would smell terrible all the time.

3. Long Covid is very real and a concern, but some perspective is needed. It's really hard to quantify the toll of something when it involves a lot of disparate symptoms ranging from mild to disabling. Regardless, according to the CDC, most people with long covid are experiencing fairly minor symptoms that they report aren't having a significant effect on their lives-stuff like lingering coughs-annoying rather than debilitating. Heart attacks and strokes are concerning, but also pretty rare. As you'd expect, both the minor and serious symptoms do seem to decrease and often completely go away over time. It also appears that the percentage of people getting long covid is going down-which probably is about vaccination and prior infection.

4. Again, I want to be sensitive, because I don't know what your health situation is. However, some of the language you are using suggests that you might need to recalibrate your ideas about risk. It's helped me to think of covid as something that isn't going away as a problem anytime soon. So, it's worth thinking about how I want to deal with the risk in the long term and how to balance that risk against other factors. Pulling down your mask for 5 seconds is "risking your life" in the same way that driving to work is. Technically an accurate description, but probably not a particularly healthy way to think about your life.

Covid is still with us as anyone who caught it recently can testify. An acquaintance despite all the shots, came down with it twice in a five-week period, with entirely different sets of symptoms in both cases. The second infection, which was quite debilitating, and which took much longer to recover from, was most likely from air travel so I can understand people being concerned about traveling or being surrounded by people in public places.

[the_geneticist]

There was a family with 4 young children on the plane.  They boarded early (good!).
But they would NOT make their kids sit down and take off their backpacks. 
The issue: all kids wanted to sit by the window.
Look, I get it.  Kids are a lot.  They had the parents out-numbered 4 to 2.  But, the parents should have known that it is not possible for all 4 of the kids to get a window seat when you booked only 2 seats with a window.  There are lots of ways to solve this (take turns! kid with window on this flight gets no window next flight! only parents get window! ask folks nicely if they will trade!).  But when your kids have a screaming meltdown and you are blocking the aisle so no one else can board you are going to get death glares.

[Caracal]

I have an eight hour flight for an international move in August. I am dreading it. Masks no longer required. COVID can damage every organ system in the body, including the brain and heart. I'll wear a respirator but there's no denying masks work better when the majority of people wear them properly. Trying to figure out how to go ten plus hours without food or water (considering when I have to get through security plus get through customs, get luggage, etc.) Also not happy that I'll have to risk my life by taking my mask off just to be identified. Yes, risking my life. Even a asymptomatic case of COVID can cause a deadly heart attack or stroke. I hate people right now. I hate that public health has become politicized.

I don't know anything about your personal health situation, so I want to be careful. That said.

1. The risk of catching covid is cumulative, so pulling down your mask for 5 seconds for identification is not dramatically increasing your risk of infection.

2. Airports and even airplanes are pretty well ventilated spaces. Otherwise they would smell terrible all the time.

3. Long Covid is very real and a concern, but some perspective is needed. It's really hard to quantify the toll of something when it involves a lot of disparate symptoms ranging from mild to disabling. Regardless, according to the CDC, most people with long covid are experiencing fairly minor symptoms that they report aren't having a significant effect on their lives-stuff like lingering coughs-annoying rather than debilitating. Heart attacks and strokes are concerning, but also pretty rare. As you'd expect, both the minor and serious symptoms do seem to decrease and often completely go away over time. It also appears that the percentage of people getting long covid is going down-which probably is about vaccination and prior infection.

4. Again, I want to be sensitive, because I don't know what your health situation is. However, some of the language you are using suggests that you might need to recalibrate your ideas about risk. It's helped me to think of covid as something that isn't going away as a problem anytime soon. So, it's worth thinking about how I want to deal with the risk in the long term and how to balance that risk against other factors. Pulling down your mask for 5 seconds is "risking your life" in the same way that driving to work is. Technically an accurate description, but probably not a particularly healthy way to think about your life.

Covid is still with us as anyone who caught it recently can testify. An acquaintance despite all the shots, came down with it twice in a five-week period, with entirely different sets of symptoms in both cases. The second infection, which was quite debilitating, and which took much longer to recover from, was most likely from air travel so I can understand people being concerned about traveling or being surrounded by people in public places.

Sure. I'll probably wear a mask on the plane when I travel next month and will only take it off to sip a drink and eat a bit. I don't want to get covid. I was just reacting to the claim that removing a mask for a 5 seconds should be thought of as "risking your life."

[Sun_Worshiper]

I have an eight hour flight for an international move in August. I am dreading it. Masks no longer required. COVID can damage every organ system in the body, including the brain and heart. I'll wear a respirator but there's no denying masks work better when the majority of people wear them properly. Trying to figure out how to go ten plus hours without food or water (considering when I have to get through security plus get through customs, get luggage, etc.) Also not happy that I'll have to risk my life by taking my mask off just to be identified. Yes, risking my life. Even a asymptomatic case of COVID can cause a deadly heart attack or stroke. I hate people right now. I hate that public health has become politicized.

I don't know anything about your personal health situation, so I want to be careful. That said.

1. The risk of catching covid is cumulative, so pulling down your mask for 5 seconds for identification is not dramatically increasing your risk of infection.

2. Airports and even airplanes are pretty well ventilated spaces. Otherwise they would smell terrible all the time.

3. Long Covid is very real and a concern, but some perspective is needed. It's really hard to quantify the toll of something when it involves a lot of disparate symptoms ranging from mild to disabling. Regardless, according to the CDC, most people with long covid are experiencing fairly minor symptoms that they report aren't having a significant effect on their lives-stuff like lingering coughs-annoying rather than debilitating. Heart attacks and strokes are concerning, but also pretty rare. As you'd expect, both the minor and serious symptoms do seem to decrease and often completely go away over time. It also appears that the percentage of people getting long covid is going down-which probably is about vaccination and prior infection.

4. Again, I want to be sensitive, because I don't know what your health situation is. However, some of the language you are using suggests that you might need to recalibrate your ideas about risk. It's helped me to think of covid as something that isn't going away as a problem anytime soon. So, it's worth thinking about how I want to deal with the risk in the long term and how to balance that risk against other factors. Pulling down your mask for 5 seconds is "risking your life" in the same way that driving to work is. Technically an accurate description, but probably not a particularly healthy way to think about your life.

Covid is still with us as anyone who caught it recently can testify. An acquaintance despite all the shots, came down with it twice in a five-week period, with entirely different sets of symptoms in both cases. The second infection, which was quite debilitating, and which took much longer to recover from, was most likely from air travel so I can understand people being concerned about traveling or being surrounded by people in public places.

Sure. I'll probably wear a mask on the plane when I travel next month and will only take it off to sip a drink and eat a bit. I don't want to get covid. I was just reacting to the claim that removing a mask for a 5 seconds should be thought of as "risking your life."

Yes I have to agree with Caracal here. For a healthy person who is up to date on vaccines, the probability of catching a life threatening bout of covid is extremely low. Wearing a mask reduces that probability still further, even if the mask is momentarily lowered.

This is not to say that it cannot happen, but we should really be encouraging people to have a more reasoned understanding of risks.

[MarathonRunner]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/air-france-passenger-blood-toronto-1.6905023

And people wonder why I'm worried about travelling internationally. I would be freaking out so badly that I would probably be arrested. No way I'd stay seated in a seat where a passenger had hemorrhaged, and it hadn't been properly cleaned. No way I'd be able to keep myself and my cat there. I'd probably be so freaked out that they would have to divert and arrest me. I can't even imagine. And asking the passenger to clean it up? I would have been sick and absolutely insane.

[ab_grp]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/air-france-passenger-blood-toronto-1.6905023

And people wonder why I'm worried about travelling internationally. I would be freaking out so badly that I would probably be arrested. No way I'd stay seated in a seat where a passenger had hemorrhaged, and it hadn't been properly cleaned. No way I'd be able to keep myself and my cat there. I'd probably be so freaked out that they would have to divert and arrest me. I can't even imagine. And asking the passenger to clean it up? I would have been sick and absolutely insane.

Have to agree with you.  What a nightmare! I can't even imagine.  It's one thing if it happens on your own flight (and still... ack!), but it was on a previous flight and they still had him sit in that seat with the cats without fully, fully cleaning that up?! Oh my.  I'm glad he's holding out for more compensation, though I'm not sure what would even compensate for that experience.

[fishbrains]

What kind of grown-a$$ adults have loud conversations in hotel hallways at 6:00 am? Who "raised" them like that?

[fishbrains]

So why can't hotels create bathrooms that both vent AND have accessible showers that don't spray/leak water into the bathroom? I've been to quite a range of hotels this year so far, and none of them have been able to do both at the same time.

OTOH, I have to say that airlines and airports haven't been a problem for me so far this year, so there's that. I even sat next to a baby on a fairly long flight, and the only times she cried was when she smelled the airplane food and during a very bumpy decent. Can't fault her there.

[darkstarrynight]

So why can't hotels create bathrooms that both vent AND have accessible showers that don't spray/leak water into the bathroom? I've been to quite a range of hotels this year so far, and none of them have been able to do both at the same time.

My latest confusion with hotel showers is that none seem to have a shelf for our own toiletries. I understand the environmental benefits of having three big dispensers of shampoo, soap, and conditioner, but I still have other stuff I use and cannot put anywhere, and sometimes the dispenser with soap is empty which I only find out once I am in the midst of showering.

[spork]

Morons designed Terminal 5 at Heathrow. Cavernous, wide-open room for check-in. Pass through security, and the rest of the terminal is cramped, congested, and loud. The orientation of escalators, gates, etc. consistently impedes foot traffic.

[apl68]

Morons designed Terminal 5 at Heathrow. Cavernous, wide-open room for check-in. Pass through security, and the rest of the terminal is cramped, congested, and loud. The orientation of escalators, gates, etc. consistently impedes foot traffic.

Oh yes, that's the terminal where there was such a fuss when flights were cancelled and bags lost by the hundreds as soon as they opened.  Ironic that a building described as the largest free-standing structure in the UK can end up seeming cramped and congested in places.  Never been there, but I've seen other large buildings that managed that trick.

[bio-nonymous]

In the airport could you please use headphones!!!!!!!! NO ONE wants to listen to your music videos. I shouldn't be forced to put on my headphones and crank up the volume to drown out your abysmal taste in music. Likewise to the child playing video games on the parent's phone--turn off the volume or use headphone, please! UGG! Could have been in the rants thread, but WTH! Traveling sucks so bad, but if we could just have some consideration it would make less horrible..

[apl68]

We sometimes have to remind people at the library about the same thing.