Passenger Stands for Entire 7-Hour Flight, Turns Aisle Into Her Personal Theater

A woman stood up in the aisle for her whole seven hour flight, according to another passenger on board who shared the incident online. The passenger was up whenever the seat belt sign was off. This was even her preferred position for watching a movie.

@envisionaries #onthisday ♬ original sound – ❧☙

Standing in the aisle, rather than back by a galley and lavatories, meant she was impeding traffic flow in the cabin, getting in the way of other passengers headed to lavatories and flight attendants performing service.

I certainly understand wanting to stand up during a long flight in coach. Modern ‘slimline’ seats take up less space in part by being less padded. I find some implementations, like United and even Southwest, to be hard enough that I’ll get a back ache on flights over 3 hours long. And we all know about deep vein thrombosis (‘economy class syndrome’)!

Ultimately I don’t think this is as bad as sticking your foot into someone else’s seating area, and she’s making the most of tight space on the aircraft. So while it’s an unusual choice, it’s only impeding flight attendants that’s problematic if she’s consistently in the way. But since she remains seated when the seat belt sign is illuminated this could certainly have been worse!

Nonetheless, for your own safety it’s better to remain belted when you don’t need to be up due to the risk of clear air turbulence. We’ve certainly seen plenty of flights with passengers and belongings unexpectedly strewn around a cabin.

Aftermath of major turbulence on AC19 today
byu/HefetzHashud inaircanada

(HT: Live and Let’s Fly)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I would guess she had back issues and this was the only way she may have been comfortable for that length of time.

  2. I am sure the sit in the seat you bought (rented) crowd will chime in that she bought a seat, not an aisle, so she should be forced to sit in a seat the same as almost everyone (sarcasm).

  3. What airline? What flight? Are we just reposting crappy tiktok videos now and calling it news? Amazing journalism!

  4. Well I wish I had a world-viewed website focused on these things, because if I had, I’d have tried to contact that pax to find out why she chose to do that.

    Unfortunately I do not. If only there were such a website.

    Gary? Buehler? Gary?

  5. I would put money on sciatica being the reason behind this. If you’ve ever had it, you know just how excruciating it can be to remain seated even for short periods of time. I agree that this would have been annoying, but she may have had little choice but to travel for good reasons we don’t know.

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