How to be the perfect plane passenger

Telegraph Travel columnist Anna Hart answers your travel conundrums. This week? The divisive jungle that is plane passenger etiquette...

Question: Last week I was seated between a passenger who enthusiastically flossed his teeth after the meal service and a passenger blaring loud video clips on his phone. Please provide a set of rules for in-flight manners that I can pass out to the rest of my row next time I fly. 

Answer: I understand your despair. In the century since the first commercial flight, flights have become less like glamorous high society parties in the sky, and now resemble shabby student flats on a hungover Sunday. We’ve lost the dinner jackets and clinks of martini glasses; they’ve been replaced by stray grubby sports socks and dog-eared copies of Heat magazine. And when we lose glamour, we lose good manners and decorum, too.

Glamour, in essence, is a visual cue to behave a little bit better, to bring the best versions of ourselves into the arena. Glamour urges us to conduct ourselves in the manner to which we’d like to become accustomed. Glamour masquerades as something superficial and purely aesthetic, when secretly, it is the most effective and insidious means of imposing a moral order.

Alas, there is little glamour to be found in economy class these days, and that’s where firm, fixed rules of etiquette come into play. Jet-iquette, if you like.

In-Flight Attire

For long-haul flights, comfortable sportswear is permissible, but accept that if you’re going to dress like a slob, you need to ensure you don’t smell like a slob, talk like a slob, or eat like a slob. Bare feet aren’t acceptable and neither are shabby socks; if you remove your shoes, have a dapper pair of flight socks to hand. 

Airline Personnel

Treat airline staff like hosts, not staff. They have invited you to this peculiar party in the sky, and the more enthusiasm and gratitude you can muster, the more miniature bottles of Merlot they’ll bestow upon you. 

Neighbourly Behaviour

Smile and politely greet the passengers in the same row as you as you take your seats. Despite the indignities of the security line and the subsequent series of queues and pens into which you’ve just been herded, you are not entering prison, and making eye-contact with your new neighbours will not get you shivved in the shower room.  

Territorial Disputes

In a Utopian society, we’d all politely ask the passenger behind us beforehand if they object to us reclining our seat, to which they would immediately respond, “Not a jot, thanks for asking, comrade.” But in these savage and ferociously individualistic times, there’s a chance they actually will object, which makes things awkward.

• It's my right to recline my plane seat, and I refuse to be told otherwise

I settle for reclining the seat gently and slowly, and never during mealtimes. Treat armrests as seat-dividers, and if you place your elbow on it, ensure there’s space for your neighbour to do the same.

• The science behind the elbow war – what kind of human being hogs both armrests?

Gadgets

It is never acceptable to subject your fellow passengers to sounds emitting from your phone or iPad; parents, this applies to children’s games, too. Keep the thing muted or wear headphones. 

Grooming

Yes, you might have just slept in alarmingly close proximity to your fellow passengers, but they are not your university roommates or long-suffering family members. Accordingly, any grooming rituals beyond that of a swift comb of your hair or smearing of face cream, should be conducted behind the closed doors of the airline toilet.

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