Dusk Through Narrow Streets

Most of what’s annoying about RyanAir is to be expected, really; they are very cheap, so they have to make up for that in every possible way, by charging for any checked luggage and plastering their airplanes with ads and all that sort of thing. The more annoying part is that the people who fly RyanAir seem to be pretty uniformly–well, stupid. I don’t know if I just think this because I’ve been on airplane flights pretty regularly since I was very young and therefore know exactly what I’m doing, which means I might have a bit of a “lol noobs” attitude towards less experienced travelers…or if it’s because people really are stupid.

I mean, I totally understand hanging on every word of the safety lecture if you aren’t familiar with it. At least that stuff is mildly important. And, okay, since RyanAir doesn’t do reserved seats and loads from both ends of the plane, it can be difficult to find a seat, which I suppose explains–but doesn’t excuse–the seemingly inevitable pushing and shoving past each other that happens as everyone is getting onboard (though frankly I think there’s never a good enough reason to have several people going in opposite directions in those tiny airplane aisles).

But look: it does not take much knowledge of air travel to understand that bags you can’t or don’t want to store in the overhead bins go under the seat in front of you. Not under your seat. Not between your feet. Not in your lap. Under the seat in front of you. That’s what it’s for. There’s even a bar so you can’t put crap under your own seat. Even that is more easily remembered from experience, I suppose, but this is common sense: you really don’t want your bag in your lap or under your feet for two and a half hours. There is room under the seat in front of you. It’s totally empty. Squash your bag in there. Seriously. I can think of at least five women just in the rows around me who spent the entire flight from Katowice, Poland, to the London-Stansted airport with their bags either in their laps or under their feet.

And really? I know even on more normal flights people start unbuckling their seatbelts before the fasten-seatbelt sign goes off at the gate. But whipping off your seatbelt and standing up while the plane’s still moving down the runway? As the flight attendant is making an announcement, at that very second, that you shouldn’t take off your seatbelts yet? COME ON PEOPLE. THIS IS COMMON SENSE. YOU ARE NOT FIVE YEARS OLD. SIT THE FRACK DOWN AND SHOW JUST A TINY BIT OF PATIENCE, GEEZ.

Oh. And when they keep proudly telling us “We’ve arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule!” and remind us they have the best on-time-arrival rate of all European airlines? Sod off. I’m convinced they just pad their arrival times for that very reason.