Boarding Gone Wrong!

My perfer mode of travel is by plane. Its usually quickest way to travel although not necessarily the least stressful way especially during borading.

Usually I am not one to board a plane right away nor do I tend to take things on board because I do not want to be fighting for space in the overhead compartments. But on this occasion, I had to do both; board early because I was taking carry on items. As I sat and waited for the other members of the row to join me, I began to observe all the happenings of the boarding process.

One of the first things I noticed was that a lot of people that morning woke up and forgot how to count. People kept passing their rows and ended up having to double back, which of course mucked up the boarding process, causing congestion and some uncomfortable touching. I sat there mystified because these people had their tickets in hand with the row number on it and yet they still seemed to pass up their assigned seat. Then, there were those whose bags were too cumbersome for them to handle and struggled to place them into the overhead bins. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why people pack bags that they cannot carry or handle. At this point I checked my watch because I felt some time had passed and we had not made much progress in boarding. We were already 30 minutes in and half the plane was still empty. At the same time, I began to wonder where my row companions were, as the seats next to me were still unoccupied. Perhaps they were stuck behind the person who could lift their bag into the overhead compartment or rubbing butts with someone because someone was doubling back to their missed seat.

The most entertaining boarding event I witnessed was the window aisle seat switcharoo! You know where a person sits in the aisle seat because they have a window seat or vice versa. Why for the life of me do people play such games? Why not simply take your seat then ask if anyone would mind switching. It is obvious that you are faking. The letters A and C and D and F look nothing alike so confusion is not justified. There are little pictures next to the letters too to help avoid confusion on seat assignments but yet there are still lost soles sitting where they should not be. Finally, there is the I am not seated next to someone because my seat assignment is way over on the other side of the plane problem so I decided to sit here. This really is a biggy as it holds everything up as this requires multiple participants. Not only do you need to involve the person sitting next to you but you may need to involve passengers in the next row or even rows aways. Once you find a person willing to switch seats then you have the whole carry on bag issue. What about my bags? OMG just sit down! You will have to wait and be inconvenienced at the end of the flight just like you are inconvenincing everyone right now. I looked at my watch and thought wow 45 minutes into boarding how much longer is this going to take?! I was about to recheck my ticket for the estimated time of departure when my row mates showed up, a young couple. As they sat down and we tried to figure out which belt buckle belonged to who, the man mumbled to his partner “Just in time, best way to fly is with no carry ons so you can board at the end not have to worry which leaves room for more preflight cocktails.”

Noted.