THINGS THAT ANNOY PASSENGERS IN PLANES

Passengers rushing out of seats before the seat belt sign goes off as the plane comes to a halt, reclining seats without warning those behind them and not switching off mobile phones unless asked by the cabin crew are some of the habits that annoy most of the air travellers. According to a survey of air travellers in India, around 83 per cent of them like to travel in their casuals and only 7 per cent in formal clothing. Around 56 per cent of the air passengers, in an online survey by a travel portal, said that people getting up from their seats to rush out in the aisle even before the seat belt sign goes off as the aircraft comes to a halt annoys the most. Another habit of air travellers which leads to arguments and even scuffles is passengers rudely reclining their seat without informing those seated behind. 51 per cent people said they hate this behaviour. The India Air Travel Survey 2014 by TripAdvisor also found that another habit of co-passengers of not switching off their mobile phones unless asked to do so by the cabin crew annoys them. 40 per cent said they dislike this habit. Among the airlines, low cost carrier IndiGo was the most preferred airlines among the Indian carriers, followed by Jet Airways and others, while Emirates was the most preferred among the international carriers, followed by Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa. Newly launched Air Asia emerged as the airline most of the flyers were looking forward to fly with. Apart from these, the survey found that books (59 pc), ipad or tablet (42 pc) and ipod or portable music player (26 pc) were the passengers top in-flight companions, while their favourite past time of Indian while onboard was watching movies in-flight (63 pc), followed by reading (59 pc) and sleeping (52 pc). When it comes to seats and cost concerns, 89 per cent passengers prefer to choose their seat at the time of making the booking or web check-in. Airlines, which asks for additional amount for providing a seat with extra leg room, should know that 98 per cent of the air travellers don't want to pay for such facilities if the flight is of less than four hours. But they are ready to shell out some extra amount if the flight is more than four hours long. Most of the Indians believe that airlines do not have transparent fares and costs, despite several guidelines by the civil aviation regulator in this regard. Nearly 48 per cent respondents thought that domestic airlines were not transparent about all the costs including booking a flight like cost of meals, extra baggage cost and others. But around 45 per cent people said that they were comfortable paying all inclusive fares if it was under their budget. Another interesting fact that came to fore was while the web check-ins showed a sharp increase compared to last year, not many respondent follow airlines on social media like facebook and twitter. Around 85 per cent people said they web check-in "sometimes" or "always", an increase from last year's 76 per cent, while 46 per cent had an airline app on their mobile against just 26 per cent last year. Among the app users, checking flight options and web check-ins were the two most popular functions followed by checking flight status.