30 Annoying Plane Passengers Who Left Their Manners At The Boarding Gate

Being stuck in an enclosed vessel thousands of miles up in the sky means you need to stay put until you reach your destination. You can’t just stop, open a door, and get out, as you might be able to do while traveling by road. But this didn’t stop one man from trying anyway, during a recent flight from Milwaukee to Dallas in November.

The 29-year-old demanded he be allowed to exit the plane “immediately” mid-flight. When the aircraft crew told him it wasn’t possible, he took it upon himself to try and force open the door. As CBS reported, a flight attendant “positioned herself between the man and the cabin door, blocking his access.” The man then rushed toward the attendant and hit her, prompting fellow passengers to intervene.

It took three people to restrain the unruly passenger, and they ended up using duct-tape to tie his ankles and wrists together. Needless to say, the man was arrested by the FBI as soon as the plane touched down. Abdul-al-Jabbar Oloruntoba Olaiya faces charges of interfering with a flight crew through violence or intimidation, under the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States. If convicted, he could spend up to 20 years behind bars.

There were around 2,000 incidents involving passengers behaving very badly in 2023. And the Federal Aviation Administration revealed there have already been more than 1,800 incidents so far in 2024. A former flight attendant described it perfectly when they wrote that “in recent years, it seems that respect for crew members' instructions can be as difficult to find as lost luggage.”

In writing about the uptick in unruly passenger behavior, the former crew member pleads with passengers to practice tolerance "and understand that they're going to occupy a small space with people from all walks of life. They should do so with respect."

In the article, Anaïs Monique shares some lesser-known facts about the lack of hygiene on some aircrafts. The former flight attendant reveals that some passengers think it’s okay to use food tray tables as diaper changing stations. Monique also warns that lavatory floors aren’t as clean as you may think, and cautions passengers to always wear shoes, or socks at the very least.

“The stains on the carpeted aisles are probably not dried-up cola, and the galley floors have seen various forms of waste and the bottoms of thousands of dirty shoes,” they wrote. And on the dried-up cola note, you might want to put down your lunch before you read any further...

Those on board a Delta flight last September were subjected to what the pilot called a “bio-hazard” when someone’s very bad bout of diarrhea ended up all over the cabin of the Airbus A350. The plane was just two hours into the eight-hour flight from the U.S. to Spain. "This is a biohazard issue," the pilot reportedly told air-traffic control. "We've had a passenger who's had diarrhea all the way through the airplane, so they want us to come back to Atlanta." The pilot promptly made a u-turn to get passengers to fresher pastures.

"Delta flight 194 from Atlanta to Barcelona returned to Atlanta following an onboard medical issue," said a representative at the time. "Our teams worked as quickly and safely as possible to thoroughly clean the airplane and get our customers to their final destination. We sincerely apologize to our customers for the delay and inconvenience to their travel plans."