We’re all pretty much aware by now that the planes are not all right, but this weekend, I came across an in-flight horror story that genuinely made my jaw drop. Last week, a female CEO sued American Airlines for negligence, discrimination, and intentional infliction of emotional distress after a male passenger seated next to her in first class began masturbating during their eight-hour flight to Milan. Even worse, upon bringing his behavior to the attention of a flight attendant, she was allegedly dismissed and told “men just do stuff like that.” (Yeah, you know men! They’re always brazenly doing sex crimes! It’s totally fine and not a big deal! You’re the one who’s weird for having a problem with it, actually!)
It sounds about right that the woman was then told by gate staff to simply “call the 1-800 number” once she landed; I’m pretty sure that a serial-murder rampage could take place on a flight, and you’d be given exactly the same guidance. (Delta Airlines, I still hate you so much for sending my bag to the wrong destination, telling me to call the 1-800 number, then YELLING AT ME when I was flying home to a still-on-fire city in January! I’m glad I raised my voice in return!)
Obviously, this CEO’s ordeal is a pretty extreme example of just how bad flight etiquette has become over the last decade or so, and especially since the pandemic. But it’s also making me wonder: Are there any rules in the air anymore? I’ll be flying from Los Angeles to New York in May, and even if the plane lands safely and nobody jerks off near me, I know I’ll still have to deal with the kind of noxious plane behavior that seems to have become de rigueur these days, from passengers watching stuff on their iPhones without headphones to grown adults being so rude about the presence of small children on their commercial aircraft that said kids’ parents feel pressured to hand out gift bags. (If you’ve never desperately tried to entertain a small, angry person on what basically amounts to a hissing germ tube, I don’t want to hear your opinion on the kids-on-planes debate!)
I’m not saying that I expect the Don Draper-drinking-martinis-and-kissing-stewardesses treatment when I fly, of course; as a fat person and a longtime devotee of Spirit Airlines, I’m pretty used to being uncomfortable, if not actively humiliated, when traveling by plane. (Did you know that the average amount of legroom on even a non-Spirit airline has been steadily shrinking over the past few decades?)
