Please Remain Seated Until the Authorities Arrive
Today's flight will include dinner and a show.
By Steven Cleamer- 07.18.2025
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Airlines used to hold passengers to a higher standard, but a post-COVID world still scrambling to recover financially has rolled out the red carpet for mental patients looking to get a seat. The skies have seen it all, from failed attempts to disembark at 30,000 feet to psychotic breakdowns proclaiming that motherfucker back there is not real.
Despite the world's return to normalcy, unruly passengers still can't seem to help themselves from engaging in pointless arguments, brutal fist fights, and incredible Waffle House-style brawls within the tightly confined space of an aircraft fuselage.
There is a huge misunderstanding of the role people play as an airline passenger. When you're given a boarding pass, you maintain your previous position of wielding absolutely no authority. The flight crew functions under a chain of command that you're not a part of, therefore you have zero say in any aspect of the flight's operation. To better illustrate this, here's a quick look at the operational hierarchy that takes place on every commercial airline.
Captain
4 Stripes
This is the senior officer who oversees all aspects of the flight from boarding to touchdown.
First Officer
3 Stripes
The secondary officer assists in general operations and executes additional tasks for the Captain.
Flight Attendant
2 Stripes
Flight attendants provide cabin control, passenger service, and safety protocols.
You
No Stripes
You're not even a rung on this ladder. Sit down, shut the fuck up, and do what you're told.
Bean counters may have designed airplane seats to be as uncomfortable as possible, but parking yourself in one is the only way to get you anywhere faster than a Hyundai Sonata. Responding to the crew and other passengers at higher decibels or through the threat of violence only further inconveniences everybody. It can also add a stop to your itinerary at the nearest correctional facility before you reach to your final destination.
Let's examine proper airline passenger etiquette to avoid complications of your flying experience.
Use the Can Before You Board
Stuffing your face with half a pound of Pei Wei chased down with two Dr. Peppers in preparation for your Frontier flight to Vegas is a bold move, but nothing says you're an amateur traveler like getting bloated before takeoff.
While your aircraft may have lavatories, one up front and two in the rear, so did the massive building you just loitered in for three hours. And spoiler alert: those restrooms were bigger, cleaner, and didn't require you to crawl over people to get to them.
Deciding the best time to make a bowel movement is when Zone 3 files onboard doesn't make you a free spirit, it makes you that guy. Holding up the boarding process to avoid hotboxing the main cabin with your infamous Grilled Bourbon Chicken farts is commendable, but also a surefire way to become everyone's least favorite passenger before the plane has left the jetway.
Take Your Seat Quickly and Keep Quiet
We've got a destination to be late to, so sit your ass down. Stop standing in the aisle, quit digging through your bag, store your belongings either overhead or underneath the seat in front of you, and immediately plant yourself in that little blue chair.
Once seated, buckle up and embrace total silence. Don't look at what the guy next to you is texting, don't cry about how much you missed Seattle, and don't share boring stories of your unremarkable airline experiences. The less you engage, the lower the risk is of someone taking the opportunity to remove your beanie and yank out a handful of sweaty, Windex-colored hair.
As a friendly reminder: overhead bins aren't assigned to seats. If you're fashionably late and can't find space above yours, it looks like you'll be making two trips because your crap is going in the back.
Know Your Armrests
Want to avoid awkward passive-aggressive elbow wars? Great. Just learn the sacred armrest code. It's not rocket science.
Aisle seat? That passenger gets the armrest on the aisle. Window seat? That one gets the one by the window. Middle seat? That one gets both. Yes, both. Why? Because this is the consolation prize every poor bastard gets for having to suffer in the most miserable seat on the plane.
It doesn't matter who sat down first, whose side tits are spilling over the boundary line, or which ethnicities you checked on your job application. These are the rules. Study them. Know them. And also know that having platinum status with a high-interest airline credit card is not an exception.
Calm Your Tits, Lady
If your daily diet includes booze, SSRIs, Xanax, or a generous helping of benzodiazepines, you might want to consider topping it off with a solid sleep aid, just to keep those airborne psychotic episodes in check.
The last thing fellow passengers or your future court-appointed lawyer want to deal with is you on a mile-high meltdown. If you're prone to extreme volumes, feel the need to open at window at cruising altitude, or see ghosts and other apparitions who didn't opt for Comfort Plus, subduing your consciousness saves everyone a lot of trouble.
At best, you become a viral sensation who will never get married. At worst, you're restrained with massive amounts of duct tape that's a bitch to shower off in a county jail. Avoid these consequences by doing your best to not be you.
Restrain Your Appendages
There is no timeline in the Marvel multiverse where touching another person, let alone one wearing wings, ends with anything but you getting zip-tied, hauled off like livestock, and banned from the airline you just turned into a UFC match.
You're not Wesley Snipes roundhouse-kicking terrorists who like their sirloins bloody. You're not Nicolas Cage wrestling with another convict who wouldn't put the bunny back in the box. Hell, you aren't even William Shatner seeing something on the wing. You're just a fat dork who lost a dick-measuring contest because he's pissed off about his connecting flight to Omaha getting cancelled.
Keep your hands to yourself, champ. This ain't Road House. You're not in a movie. You're in a metal tube full of miserable people who, like yourself, also regret the majority of their life choices.
Don't Argue With the Flight Crew
Before you go mouthing off like a Karen in heat as you disembark, understand that your delayed departure, your seat not reclining, or the plane treating you to a Taiwanese sauna isn't the fault of those who just safely put you on the ground.
Unless Denzel Washington waltzed onboard half an hour late, nursed a cocaine bender with a pot of black coffee, and flew the plane upside down, such complications aren't under the control of the pilot. Mechanical issues, air traffic control blunders, and unpredictable weather all conspire to remind you that flying is still a modern miracle, even if it feels like a Greyhound with wings.
Ultimately, you're going to have to suck it up and deal with it. Whining, complaining, and arguing with the flight crew changes nothing and your compromised travel schedule will continue to remain a problem that is strictly yours.