One coach passenger boarded their Zurich – New York JFK flight and found a a bare foot planted squarely on their armrest. It wasn’t an accidental brush or quick stretch – it was a full, unrepentant, toes-out encroachment before boarding had even finished. And all they could think was: “I have a 9 hour flight ahead of me.”
And those toenails!
The passenger says this wasn’t some kid twisting around in their seat—it was a grown woman. She’d claimed the armrest prior to pushback, and intended to hold it through takeoff. Fortunately, she took it down once the aircraft was airborne and, mercifully, didn’t try to wrangle the space back.
- We sometimes debate whether the armrest belongs to the middle seat passenger or not?
- But no one has ever made the case that it belongs to the passenger behind you.
Feet belong on the floor, with shoes at least whenever getting up from your seat (or at least airline slippers, if traveling in business or first class). Regardless, the bulkhead – let alone someone else’s armrest – is not your ottoman. As the passenger to move their foot. Call a flight attendant. But no one should have to suffer that prior to takeoff, let alone fearing that’s what the full flight ahead has in store.
Of course, business class passengers aren’t immune from boorish behavior either. A United Polaris passenger rubbed their bare feet on their seat’s TV screen.
Bare feet on a plane is such an awful thing to do to the rest of the passengers in the cabin that a passenger with smelly feet once drove another so nuts that he got stabbed on arrival in the parking lot.
A United Airlines flight attendant reportedly once offered a passenger a $1000 voucher to take their feet off the tray table. I’m confident this was a bluff, that the airline wouldn’t have made good. But they were trying to creatively solve the problem.
Fungus among us. I see nail fungus on skanky feet. Ew.
Oops! I just spilled my hot cup of coffee I carried onto the plane! Did it burn your toesies?? Too bad.
You just made me justify the $700 I paid to upgrade on an upcoming DFW/ANC flight. Sitting sandwiched next to someone like this in coach for six plus hours is well worth $700 to avoid.
rewarding obnoxious, rude, intolerable, unkind or inconsiderate by most standards behavior should not ever happen as in offering 1K points/mileage whatever. IMO this only encourages more of the behavior. Better to have be an unfortunately standard practice to have to remind people of proper behavior in a public mode of transportation. No smoking, no feet on armrests or bulkhead walls etc. Failure to follow crew directives will result in a lifetime ban for this airline.