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?

Kid's Toy Delays Trans-Pacific Flight 90 Minutes

I was comfortably seated in business class on a Singapore Airlines 777-300ER recently, ready for an on-time departure from Hong Kong to San Francisco. Boarding was quick and efficient, and all was well...or so it seemed.

We sat waiting for pushback, and the Singapore Girls silently glided through the cabin, serving drinks, offering magazines and newspapers, and readying the aircraft....And we waited....

And we waited....

After 30 minutes, people switched on their electronic devices, and got up to use the lavs. After 60 minutes, I asked the FA serving me my second glass of champagne what was causing the delay.

Her reply:

"A child dropped a toy into part of the aircraft's ventilation system. The engineers are working on it right now."

Yep.

Reason #284 not to bring young kids on the plane. Crosscheck and I have gone on record as being generally against kids on planes, especially long-haul routes. And I personally have taken flack about that on FlyerTalk, MilePoint, and on other blogs. Regardless of your position, you have to admit, there's something silly (and avoidable) about a little kid's toy delaying a trans-Pacific journey by 90 minutes. That was the eventual magnitude of the delay, when we finally landed at SFO.

But...we arrived safely, and (otherwise) uneventfully, and for that I am certainly grateful. Thank you SQ.

Disclaimer: For all I know, it was the parent who dropped the toy down the vent. I'm just telling you what the FA told the pax. Also, the model plane shown here almost definitely isn't the one that clogged up the vents on my flight...

US Airways' Fair, Efficient, Consistent Boarding Process

Just kidding!

There's no such thing. 
 
After taking about ten flights this year on US Airways, in various markets, on different equipment from a number of airports (LGA, CLT, SFO, among others), we've come to the conclusion that when it comes to equitable, consistent boarding processes...US Airways has its head up its aviation ass. 
 
Here's how it goes when it's time to board a US Airways flight:

• The gate agent announces that "We will begin boarding in 3 or 4 minutes."
• 20 to 25 minutes later, we begin boarding.
• The gate agent announces "We will board by zone numbers, which are printed on your boarding pass."
• We board according to descriptive categories, and the zone numbers are never mentioned again.
• Exception: Zone numbers are mentioned when people in zones 3 or higher are told to kiss their carry on luggage goodbye, because the overhead bins are going to fill up faster than an Aeroflot lavatory.
• There is a mad cluster f*** as everyone rushes to the PreferredAccess lane and boards whenever the hell they want to.
• The gate agents don't bother looking at anyone's boarding pass to see whether they are even remotely associated with the group supposedly authorized to board at that point.
• Exception: The FAA mandates that there be one RALGA – Random Angry Lady Gate Agent – at each US Airways boarding zone. This agent will randomly stop a passenger from boarding, saying "We're not boarding your zone number yet! Listen for the zone numbers!"
  
  The passenger will point out that they haven't even called any zone numbers, just random agglomerations of status categories, like "Silver Gold Platinum Star Preferred Elite Access Premium VISA Card holders," and the passive-aggressive RALGA will say, "Fine, if it's that important, just go ahead and board," circumventing the lone attempt to enforce some rule at boarding time.

Maybe your experience is better than ours – but this is what we've seen every time.

At SFO, in fact, the boarding announcements are made by the disembodied voice of an invisible agent who is not even in viewing range of the gate that's boarding. This results in that awkward moment when the BP scanner stops working and nobody can board, but the agent keeps encouraging new groups to board every 20 seconds or so.

Way to go, US Airways.

Way to go.

¶¶¶

Bonus: For a laugh, read SeatGuru's description of US's boarding procedure. Key word: RANDOM.

Double-Bonus: Humorous treatment of same topic from 2010, as seen on Airliners.net.

Your Feet Still Smell: Etiquette Update

Back in June, we shared our views on airplane etiquette, with a huge tip of the baseball cap to baseball groundskeeper and blogger Murray Cook. And speaking of etiquette, the attached photo of someone's nasty hooves on the F cabin bulkhead was taken by my colleague and co-blogger, Crosscheck, on a flight last year from SFO to LAX.

On that note, this week I made a swing that included SFO-SEA-ORD, and witnessed the following:

Violation #1
Stopping by the SFO United Club in T3, I headed back to the so-called Contemplation Room (no cell phones). There's signage that clearly says that lying down, reclining, and sleeping on the furniture are not allowed.

Not only did I have to kick out one guy who was on the phone with his tree surgeon (really), I encountered a guy lying flat out on a couch, asleep: barefoot.

Gross. Blurry photo here (I was afraid if I used the flash it would wake him up, and he'd kick my ass – he looked like an extra from Eastbound & Down). Eventually he stopped drooling and put on his shoes and shuffled off to a flight (probably to Boston).

Violation #2
A couple of days later, I boarded a UA flight from SEA to ORD, seated in F. The guy in 5A was a cross between Hulk Hogan and that dude from the custom motorcycle show, wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, filthy cargo shorts, and flip-flops. Keep in mind there was an inch of snow on the ground in Seattle and the outside temp was 29 degrees Fahrenheit. And it was 19 degrees in Chicago. And the guy had no coat.

As soon as he sat down, he kicked off his sandals, and wiggled his gnarled, filthy, disgusting toes in glee. Before pushback, he got up to retrieve something from the overhead and the FA told him that "bare feet aren't allowed on board the aircraft." But she didn't make him put his flip-flops back on. And when he asked "Why aren't bare feet allowed?" her answer was:

"Because there are sharp objects on the floor."

WTF!? Wrong answer. How about,

"Because, Mr. Hillbilly, you are filthy, grimy, dirt-encrusted pig whose repulsive, exposed feet are a fungus-bearing disease vector, and you sicken us."

Folks, please keep your shoes on?

Thanks.

P. S.: As an aside, the woman in front of me on the same flight had a squalling 5 month old monster infant. In F cabin. That's a topic for another post.

Related articles

• Your feet smell, or airplane etiquette 101 (exitrowaisle.blogspot.com)
• Travel tips from a VERY frequent flyer (groundskeeper.mlblogs.com/)
• Should we have a charter for aeroplane etiquette? (telegraph.co.uk)