Flight Etiquette: Airline Passengers Surveyed On Small Talk, Armrests, Taking Off Shoes

A recent British Airways survey finds that the majority (59 percent) of airline travelers say it’s perfectly fine to remove your shoes during a flight.

The airline etiquette survey of more than 1,500 travelers from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy found wide disparities in how some passengers view privacy and courtesy. Among the findings, two-thirds (67 percent) say that passengers should only commandeer one armrest and leave the other one open. In regards to chattiness, 83 percent of travelers said conversation with other passengers or people sitting next to you should end after a “hi and a smile.”

Forty-two percent of U.S. travelers said it’s completely unacceptable to share personal stories with other passengers, while U.K. passengers suggested the top way for avoiding conversation is simply to use the restroom.

Americans were much less likely to sign on to the shoeless policy, with 60 percent saying its ok versus 78 percent of British respondents. And although the majority still backed taking one’s shoes off, 87 percent of survey respondents said removing your socks is not tolerable.

Sleeping on crowded flights as well as asking permission to move from one’s seat also saw highly opinionated responses. Eighty percent of travelers said it’s fine to wake up a neighboring passenger in order to use the restroom. But only half that percentage said you can take that opportunity more than once per flight. One-third of those surveyed said they would climb over a sleeping passenger in order to use the bathroom.

And how to do people prefer to climb over a fellow passenger? More than half (54 percent) said the best etiquette for physically maneuvering around them is slither by them face-to-face.

Nearly half of respondents said that the middle armrest on flights is on a first-come, first-serve basis. Although French travelers were twice as likely than all other nationalities to avoid armrests altogether. British passengers were the most likely to move to an empty seat once the seat belt sign was turned off, but 62 percent of Americans said people should wait and ask a flight attendant.

Just slightly more than 1-in-10 U.S. respondents (11 percent) said they would poke a sleeping neighbor who is snoring too loudly, while twice that amount of British passengers would do the same. But 66 percent overall said the best etiquette is too simply ignore a passengers who is snoring obscenely loud.

The most agreement among passengers from every country pertained to bright device screens: 92 percent of travelers said you should dim phones, tablets or computers when the cabin lights are off.