Do You Like Urine on Your Feet?

So we've blogged about etiquette before (check out that word cloud to the right), and we'll do it again.

Today.

We have a real problem with people who bare their disgusting, filthy, traveling feet in public. Airline lounges and clubs are a prime place to spot this repulsive behavior.

Here are two photos we've taken (in United Clubs) in the last few months.

This appealing young (gross) lady was at O'Hare...

Bare feet up on the furniture. Nice.

And this lady was in the International Terminal at SFO:

That's her loving husband ignoring her crass ways.

But we saw something on an ORD-SFO flight last week that was truly appalling. Across from us in 21D was a 50 year old dad traveling with his wife and two kids (scattered among nearby rows). He took off his shoes as soon as we pushed back, and was barefoot.

This is bad enough. However, it gets much worse.

Three times during the flight, he got up and used the lavatory. In BARE FEET.

It is beyond appalling to imagine knowingly walking into a space that is splashed with man urine. That's what airplane lavatories are, let's just face it. Even walking in wearing the socks from your BusinessFirst amenity kit is pretty horrific.

But barefoot?

Take a hint from us: Never - NEVER - display your bare feet in an airport or on an airplane.

And if you do, for God's sake – don't visit the lav in your bare feet?

Please?

I Call Bullshit on Flight Pax Destination "Mix Up"

I was comparing notes on a news story the other day with Crosscheck. I think she sent it to me, I can't remember. Anyway, here's the story:

Airline mix-up sends passengers to wrong continent

Supposedly, this couple booked a trip from LAX to DKR - that's Dakar, Senegal, which is in West Africa. But they connected via IST and then – somehow – boarded a flight for DAC - that's Dhaka, Bangladesh, just to the right of India.

And it's not like they had the right tickets but boarded the wrong flight - they had purchased tickets to Bangladesh and didn't know it.

My take: Bullshit!

I don't believe this was the airline's fault. Here's why:

There are more than half a dozen places between planning a trip and boarding a plane where the destination's name - not just its airport code - is clearly listed. Let's walk through the process:

1. Flight search: When you check for flights, you see the city and country name. 
2. They may have used a travel agent - although there is a bizarre reference to leaving voice mail for the airline, about which more below. A travel agent or airline ticket agent would send or show or tell the customer an itinerary with the city pairs, country name, etc.
3. Based on the pax approval, presumably, the agent or airline issues the tickets and sends them to the pax. The pax can look at the ticket - which has the city name - and make sure it's right.
4. Tickets are accompanied by a final itinerary that shows the places to be visited. Again, it includes the city and country names, spelled out.
5. They get the boarding passes, probably from a ticket agent at the airport. See below for a sample of Turkish Airlines boarding passes.
6. When they get to IST they have to look at the departure board to find their connecting flight gate.

And finally, they have to look at the sign at the gate itself. City name listed.

By the way, have you seen a Turkish Airlines boarding pass? 

Check these out. Do you see the city listed anywhere?

Yeah. That was my reaction too.

So it would be tough to miss that it says DHAKA and not DAKAR. Best case scenario here is that yes, the airline somehow messed up, but these pax are still guilty of passenger stupidity.

The last weird thing about this story was that the airline supposedly searched its voice mail for a message from the couple - and then agreed to compensate them. I assume the compensation was to make the plaintiffs go away so the story wouldn't gain legs.

But who the hell books an airline ticket by LEAVING A VOICE MAIL FOR AN AIRLINE?

WTF?

Catching Flies in 12F

One thing about flying, you almost never notice bugs or insects of any kind in the cabin.

But you can't be too careful.

So I like to sit next to someone like this guy, my row-mate on an Air Canada flight last year.

This was duly noted in responses to my Seatmate Questionnaire....I'm posting this mostly for the benefit of my sometimes co-blogger Crosscheck, who abhors the public sleeper – and most of all the gape-jawed public sleeper, like this dude.