Flying is one of the fastest and most convenient ways to travel great distances. Millions of people use air travel every year, be it for business reasons or for a well-deserved vacation. Unfortunately, flights are not always stress-free and pleasant. Reason enough to delve a little deeper into this topic.

When it comes to “unfriendly staff” in particular, it should also be remembered that they can be at their wits end because of very special passengers. We're talking about travelers who think they have to vent their pent-up anger to handling or airline staff for weeks or even months, or who immediately do the “unruly PAX” and get up to all sorts of mischief. There is actually nothing that would be so crazy that some passenger has not already tried it. This primarily means massively disruptive or aggressive behavior. This can subsequently also become a safety problem and go so far that the captain decides to make an intermediate landing in order to have the troublemaker taken away by the police.

delays and flight cancellations

One of the most common annoyances for passengers are delays and flight cancellations. Airlines sometimes face unforeseen circumstances, such as technical problems, bad weather or air traffic controller strikes. These unavoidable events can result in significant delays or even cancellation of flights. The resulting inconveniences, such as missed connecting flights, lost hotel bookings and wasted valuable time, can seriously affect the mood of passengers.

overbooking

Overbooking is another major annoyance for airline passengers. Airlines often overbook flights to avoid empty seats and maximize profits. However, this can cause problems if more passengers check in than there are available seats. Those affected are then confronted with the prospect of being rebooked on a later flight. This can cause delays, change of plans and significant inconvenience, especially when there are urgent appointments or important events that require punctual attendance.

Tight seating and lack of comfort

Another annoyance for passengers is the narrow seating arrangements and the lack of comfort on the planes. Most airlines try to squeeze as many seats into the cabin as possible to maximize profits. This often results in narrow rows of seats, limited legroom, and limited space to move around. This can make long flights particularly uncomfortable, as passengers have little room to stretch out or find a comfortable sleeping position.

Food and drinks are expensive and of poor quality

The quality and variety of food and drink on board is another common complaint. When airlines offer substandard meals or limited choices, passengers can feel disappointed, especially on long-haul flights. The disappointment can quickly become great, especially for business class travelers.

Buy-on-board offers are becoming increasingly popular on short and medium-haul routes. While frequent flyers confidently do without the mostly expensive drinks and snacks, some very rare flyers still have not noticed that the times when a warm meal including schnitzel is served in economy class on a 60-minute flight , are over for most airlines.

But there is another special case: some travelers feel that they absolutely have to eat and drink on board commercial aircraft. No matter what it costs, no matter how good or bad it tastes, they often only care about photos that are posted on social media.

Unfriendly staff

Interaction with flight crew can significantly impact the travel experience. Unfriendly or impolite staff can create a stressed and uncomfortable atmosphere on board. Customers expect flight attendants to be professional, helpful and friendly. Failure to meet these expectations can result in frustration and annoyance among passengers.

However, you also have to protect the airline and ground handling staff in a way. Since the corona pandemic, the number of unfriendly or even aggressive and argumentative passengers has increased enormously. Unfortunately, it happens almost every day that handling agents and/or flight attendants are yelled at, insulted or even physically attacked. Even threats directed against the employee personally are extremely common. It's by no means professional, but employees of airlines and ground handling companies are only human and at some point the measure of personal resilience is full and after the umpteenth yelling passenger that day you can sometimes react annoyed. In most cases, the passenger, who is not responsible for it, offers a polite apology. It should not happen that an employee is annoyed or uses the wrong tone, but they should certainly not be yelled at, threatened, insulted or even attacked.

The passenger has arrived, but the suitcase has not

Baggage problems are also a common source of dissatisfaction. Damaged, lost or delayed baggage can cause significant inconvenience, especially when passengers have important personal items or medication in their baggage. It gets really annoying when the airline feels incompetent or completely ignores complaints or puts compensation on the back burner.

Complaints are often not taken seriously

Dissatisfaction with customer service is another common complaint topic. Rude or unprofessional behavior by flight crew, unwillingness to help when problems arise and long wait times for complaints to be processed can lead to passenger frustration and annoyance.

Unfortunately, there are still enough travelers who think that if they book at a higher price with a network carrier, they are better off in the event of irregularities than with a low-cost carrier. Unfortunately, this is increasingly proving to be a fallacy, because it is becoming more and more common for passengers to be left to their own devices despite clear care obligations. The excuses of the press offices are then mostly creative, because they often try to put the blame on the ground handling agent.

But it is even more annoying when passengers submit additional costs and want them reimbursed or demand compensation to which they are entitled, when these are then downright ignored or sent on a gauntlet run. Airlines often take legal action because many passengers do not have legal protection insurance. The calculus: If you simply refuse, although you have to pay or completely ignore the passenger, you save money. In the past, low-cost airlines were mainly known for this phenomenon, but the Chamber of Labor is now piling up such cases involving a well-known Star Alliance member.

Note

The annoyances presented in this article are by no means complete, because every disappointment is always individual. It is merely a representation of particularly common exciters and frequent flyers will probably have experienced just about every example, possibly all combined at once.