A passenger is being roasted for opening a can of tuna on a plane. Airline food doesn’t exist in coach on most flights, or it’s tiny, terrible, and often overpriced. It’s smart to pack your own, but don’t fumigate the cabin with your lunch.
The man cracking open a can of tuna onboard was caught on video. It wasn’t a sandwich or a tuna salad. It was the full tin on the tray table. Reactions include,
- “Canned tuna on a plane has to be one of the worst crimes against humanity.”
- “Immediate no-fly list.”
- “Call Interpol, The Hague, somebody.”
- “We are all damaged now.”
Is it illegal? No. Should it be? Maybe. Eat whatever you want at home. On a plane, stick to foods that don’t make teh rest of the cabin reevaluate their life choices.
@allyjaksen @Bumble Bee Seafoods ♬ oh my god bruh oh hell na man
What strikes me as odd here, too, is that you can generally bring a sealed can of tuna through security (although if it’s packed in enough water, you could run into liquid ban issues if TSA decides to test the contents). You can’t bring an open can through – that’s a sharp weapon. But, oddly, you can open the can once you clear security. Go figure.
And there are many worse foods for inflight than tuna. On a frequent flyer charter trip a decade ago with American Airlines (the ‘oneworld MegaDO’) the airline had highlighted its then-new international business class meal service, providing it to everyone on the aircraft. That service simply took too long flying Dallas to Seattle, when everyone wanted to be up in the aisles. So we had catering removed from the aircraft before our Seattle to Los Angeles flight.
There were packaged snacks for everyone at the gate, but with the delay and drinks on the ground we needed food. We drank the plane dry during the delay and we raided the nearby aircraft. A tug was sent to the edge of the airport to go get more.
I went into the terminal in search of food. Restaurants were closing. A Chinese place was still opened but that seemed like a… bad idea.
First class got personal pizzas while I bribed the bagel shop to give us all their sandwiches (which meant they’d need to stay late to prep for the next day). That turned out to be a lot better than handing out Chinese food to a full economy cabin on a Boeing 757. I think that would have been much worse than a can of tuna!
The scene at the Seattle airport bagel place went something like Woody Allen feeding the revolutionary army in Bananas.
Worse still, though, is the trend of airports adding Chili restaurants. There’s one food that should never be served at an airport, before passengers get inside a metal tube where their stomachs will be subject to the vagaries of air pressure. It seems so blaringly obvious.
About a decade ago Washington’s National airport opened a Ben’s Chili Bowl. And the idea spread from there.
Ben’s Chili Bowl is a DC institution. It’s been around for over 60 years, hosted civil rights leaders in the 1960s, and President Obama ate there the month he took the oath of office as President in 2009. The Pelican Brief and State of Play had scenes filmed there. It’s a tourist destination. But it’s not actually very good.
Passing gas on a plane is something that happens on most every flight, every day, because changes in air pressure cause the body to produce more gas.
- An average person does this 10 times a day anyway. Now multiply that out across a full widebody on a long haul flight and that’s without factoring in changes in altitude. The cause of the odor is sulfur.
- The problem inflight is worse in cabins with leather seats (which traditionally meant first class). Most fabric seat covers are more absorbent.
- Beans may be good for your heart, but you shouldn’t eat them before flying or on a plane. Avoid fried foods, cabbage, broccoli and brussels sprouts.
Whatever you bring on board, please be mindful of your fellow passengers. At the same time I do sort of almost respect this.
No chance is the guy next to me eating a full rack of ribs plus sides on this plane gtf pic.twitter.com/hDD9u6MlPi
— Lanna Tolland (@lannatolland) February 20, 2023
(HT: Paul H)
Good for the passenger with the can of tuna (I think it is tuna salad). A few flights ago I made three tuna salad sandwiches for a flight. They were good. With all of the people hacking up a lung, culturing foot fungus, farting and being unkempt, some tuna salad isn’t even close to being the worst thing on an airplane. I should bring some durian sometime and swallow the evidence before I am in trouble.
Flights out of Central America used to be flying fried chicken takeouts. Passengers would come aboard with boxes of chicken from Pollo Campero. A regional chain that has a delicious marinated chicken that had an odor all its own.
Frequent flyers on American Airlines or Delta Air Lines often find themselves surrounded by fellow passengers enjoying gas-producing foods that can lead to unpleasant odors, such as flatulence, rotting fish, or even the smell of unwashed laundry wafting from the aircraft’s air vents. However, travelers no longer have to endure this boorish behavior—characterized by crude, insensitive, and thoughtless conduct that disregards the comfort of others. Costco has a delightful solution: a five-pack of FART NINJAS from Funrise Toys, available for just $15.99. These quirky characters are expertly trained in “gassassination” and possess a unique skill set in the art of martial farts, promising to add a touch of humor to your flights. Pro-tip: Fart Ninjas can even help you find some much-needed space in crowded airline frequent flyer lounges. Check out the video for more fun!
https://fartninjas.funrise.com/
Fake outrage. Tuna is not offensive. It doesn’t smell. There are much worse things that people eat or do on planes that are much more offensive to the nose.
Roasted tuna.
Pretty sure that I have gotten a buy on board snack box with a small can of tuna at some point. It had a foil top rather than a rigid metal one and was smaller than a standard can. Might have been part of a protein pack.
“You can’t bring an open can through – that’s a sharp weapon.” – Actually, opening a tin can of tuna results in separating a sharp top from the rest of the tin that is not sharp. This could be one reason from preventing open or unopen tin cans of any food on the plane. But nowadays, tuna can be purchased in glass jars – easy to inspect by TSA.
Wasn’t this an episode of The Office?
India deemed my can opener a dangerous weapon and seized it.
Once again, @Ken A gets it. ‘Beans, beans… the magical fruit…’
@1990: Thanks. To clarify, when passengers express their displeasure from their last domestic airline flight or the over one-hour wait list to enter an overcrowded frequent flyer lounge, the sounds emitted by the Fart Ninjas should not be confused with the frequently used word enshitification. For VFTW readers learning English as a second language, when attempting to communicate with gate agents and the lounge staff in the Admirals Clubs or Delta Sky Clubs, the correct pronunciation of enshittification is en-shit-i-fi-kay-shun.
Here is a breakdown of the syllables:
en — sounds like “en” in “head.”
shit — sounds like “shit” in “ship.”
i — sounds like “i” in “ship.”
fi — sounds like “fi” in “fish.”
kay — sounds like “kay” in “day.”
shun — sounds like “shun” in “sudden.”
The stress is on the syllable kay.
https://youtu.be/kCvz52rIb7g?si=yvcGcCt7ZWsA4Wph
And here I thought this is why US carriers installed air vents.
Balikin said: “Tuna is not offensive. It doesn’t smell.”
Incorrect. Tuna have a very well-developed sense of olfaction.
But it does have an odor that, when off gassing, could be offensive to some people.
Ken A: “en” as in head? That’s freaking hilarious.
Lawd have mercy, y’all. I was on that very flight when some poor soul thought it’d be a fine idea to pop open a can of tuna at 30,000 feet. Honey, I about lost my wig. I get enough fishy business in my own tight tuck, thank you very much, without some airborne ocean assaultin’ my nostrils. Bless his heart, he clearly thinks the whole cabin is his personal seafood buffet.
When that stank hit, I nearly kissed the floor in prayer. Folks around me were gaspin’, clutchin’ their pearls, and I swear I saw a flight attendant consider declaring a state of emergency. Sugar, I’ve dealt with enough trauma in my day, but this? I didn’t sign up for involuntary tuna aromatherapy.
If I wanted seafood on a plane, I’d have ordered it—last I checked, your can of tuna wasn’t on the menu, sweetheart.
And child, don’t even get me started on the time I flew Iceland Air to Nashville—a seven-hour nightmare of pure torture. Some sweet pilgrim thought it’d be fabulous to crack open a mystery fish dish mid-flight. Honey, the smell was so potent I swear I could taste it in my eyeballs. People were fanning themselves with airline magazines like it was Mardi Gras, crying into tiny pillows like we’d all been sentenced to fishy purgatory, and one poor soul tried to barter their extra bag of peanuts for a whiff of fresh air. I hid under my blanket, waved my scarf like I was fanning a wildfire, and at one point I seriously considered negotiating with the flight attendant for a life raft off the plane. By hour four, I had invented curses in three different languages, and by hour six, I was begging the pilot to just splash us in the North Atlantic to rinse the air.
By the time we landed, sugar, I solemnly declared: “Never again.” I die a little on every flight where fish dares to roam freely.
If anyone thinks we survived that stink with dignity, sugar, they clearly never met Anita Grits in full panic mode.
Bare feet with flip-flops are a bigger issue on flights IMO. The pervasiveness of this offense is an indicator of the coming end times. Joking of course, but too many people seemingly managed to get through their early years without being taught about hygiene.
@WearyWatchdog:
The “e” in “head” is the vowel sound /ɛ/. This is the same vowel sound found in words like “bed,” “dead,” and “get”.The letter “n” is not present in “head,” so the comparison in the prompt is unusual. However, if you include an /n/ sound, it would follow the vowel, as in the word “hen,” which is pronounced \(/hn/\).
Whoa, Ken, excellent explanation. Thank you!
Now would you kindly explain the “p” sound in “warmth” please and thank you. lol
@Ken A, @ WearyWatchdog
….. The ‘P’ is silent, as in swimming !
Would beans/farts still be an issue with the highly touted HVAC systems onboard modern airliners these days ? Don’t they exchange a complete cabin full of air every few seconds ( or similar ) which was touted during the pandemic ?
All food tends to be smelly on a plane. Tuna woudl be a killer. Ribs as well. I once joked to my wife that I would bring a Maine Lobster on board with butter and such. I never did that. So many foods have a stronger smell on a plane. Travels through the entire metal tube.
This is one of the most stupid and racist takes I’ve read here in a long time.
What do you think they eat on Chinese airlines? Yes, that’s right, “Chinese food”. And everyone survives just fine.
Check your cultural bias dude.