Worse than babies on plane? Businessmen
Following our article on flying with infants, some readers called for families to be banned from planes. Matt Rudd thinks differently
Last week, I wrote an article for this section about babies on a plane - and how, if anyone had seen the movie Snakes on a Plane, in which people are attacked by snakes (on a plane), it was nothing; babies are worse.
I explained how I’d ended up trying to change a nappy in a galley on a British Airways flight, at the suggestion of an attendant so compassionate, I could have kissed her (not the right time).
I then went on to advise parents to travel with babies as little as possible, and offered other, more practical advice if they ignored me.
The response was, ahem, polarised. Many disagreed with my premise that you should never fly anywhere for fun if you have children under three. Some added their own excellent tips (eucalyptus oil, breastfeeding on takeoff and so on).
Many, many others were in a quite different group, one that wanted children banned from aeroplanes. One reader called for the sacking of the attendant I could have kissed. Another said he’d be the first to book if an airline offered child-free flights.
Lisa from London, a woman not overburdened with maternal instinct, said: “How about airlines charge a premium for breeders and their kids?” Sheesh. Had the opposing camps been in a pub, a fight would have broken out.
So, let me make my position clear. I shall be throwing bar stools with the pro-baby gang, even though I think flying with kids is horrible and should be avoided if at all possible.
Why? Because the other camp consists, Lisa from London apart, of the miserable flying businessman, and if there’s one thing worse than snakes or even babies on planes, it’s grumpy businessmen.
If you are one, I have 10 tips to make your journey (and everyone else’s) more bearable.
1 Just because you are in business class and have a laptop with spreadsheets on, doesn’t make you better than everyone else. It is unlikely you paid for your own seat and if you did, that was a waste of money.
Sip your champagne more humbly. Feel compassion, not smugness, towards us hoi polloi down the back. Smugness kills.
2 When you look at yourself in the mirror, you see a winner. An international jet-setter. A tiger. You may even growl sexily. But you have a big belly and podgy arms. Please confine yourself to your own seat. Do not spill out of it.
3 Aftershave? No. It’s cloying at altitude and doesn’t help with that pot belly. You tiger, you.
4 Don’t abuse the cabin crew because they’ve been a bit slow bringing your fourth G&T. It puts them in a bad mood, which they take out on the rest of us by spilling our first G&T all over our laps.
5 If you’re not in business class, congratulations on not squandering your company’s cash — but accept the lack of curtain.
Accept that the parent with the screaming baby is doing everything he or almost certainly she can. Accept that the spreadsheet may have to wait. And wear...
6 Earplugs. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, but they’re clever little things that plug. In. Your. Ears.
7 If you are an EasyJet-flying businessman, well, we are in a recession. But speedy boarding doesn’t give you the right to (a) elbow everyone else out of the way and (b) lounge across all three seats. Budge up.
8 Hurry up in the toilet. You really should have done that before we took off. And no, it’s not something to be proud of.
9 Please keep your seat belt fastened until the plane has come to a complete standstill. Jumping up, grabbing your oversized hand luggage and racing for the exit while we’re still taxiing is not only dangerous, it’s annoying.
We all know you don’t have an important meeting to go to. We saw it on your spreadsheet.
10 Polo shirts tucked into leisure slacks is so mid-1990s mid-Atlantic.
It’s that kind of lack of originality that makes the world such a miserable, uncharitable place.
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