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(c) Elliott Publishing.

Slam Passengers
Err Travel · April 11, 2000

It's the battle cry of today's ticked-off travel writers: Slam the airlines. My colleagues, from Cheap Charlie to David Kirby, do it regularly, much to the delight of Ticked.com's readership.

I am no fan of the airlines, but I am not a blustery critic of them either. Sure, people get frustrated when flying. (I do too.) Some even get dangerous.

However, I point my finger of culpability more often at dimwitted passengers than at the airlines that take them aloft.

Where do these bozos come from? Can there really be that many natural-born nimrods in the flying population? Impossible. Surely there must be some training involved - some correspondence school somewhere that offers WPB (Witless Passenger Behavior) degrees. I can even imagine what the WPB curriculum must look like at Dufus U.

For instance:

1. Make your presence known. Refrain from bathing for a couple of days prior to travel.

2. Arrive at the airport early. This will allow plenty of time to get tanked-up on booze before boarding.

3. Relieve baggage-handling pressures. Carry on all your luggage, no matter how much crap you drag along. In fact, the more you can schlep through an aisle and cram in an overhead compartment, the better.

4. Board immediately. No matter the location of your assigned seat, try to be first to board so that others have to struggle around you.

5. Get comfortable. Immediately following takeoff, put your seat in its maximum reclined position. Complete this operation in a rapid movement so as to mash the knees of the passenger behind you.

6. Prepare your station. Release your tray table from its locked position and allow it to freefall until it bounces to a resting position. Repeat this maneuver several times during the flight. (If you have children, instruct them to use the tray as a drum set.)

7. Move around. But wait until the flight attendants have rolled service carts into the aisle before leaving your seat for the first of your sixteen trips to the lavatory.

8. Make sure others are alert: When returning to your seat, grab hold of the seat back in front of you as you plunk yourself down. Maintain your grip until the seatback becomes cocked, then release it quickly so as to launch the passenger in front of you into his tray table.

9. Share the joy. If traveling with children, don't bring anything to occupy the attention of these little gomers during the flight. Instead allow your bundles to roam freely through and over the other passengers. Screaming is encouraged, and if the little darlings need their diapers changed, just use an adjoining seat.

10. Deplane immediately. Make sure that you are the first out of your seat as your flight reaches it's destination. (Extra credit is awarded for standing before the plane reaches its gate so that the pilot must wait for you to be reseated.) Then make sure to unload your overload of junk into the aisles so that others are trapped behind you for a time.

I look forward to seeing more graduates on future flights.

Special thanks to Mandy, a delightful American Airlines flight attendant on a recent Dallas-to-San Jose flight who helped me get insight into WPB.

Dr. Terry Riley is a psychologist and travel security authority. His column appears on Wednesdays. He is author of the popular book Travel Can Be Murder. Visit his site at http://www.appliedpsychology.com or e-mail him at terry@ticked.com.