28 Questionable Things Everyone Should Know Before Flying

1.

There are a lot of fears associated with flying. These are considered irrational since there should be nothing objectively scary about placing your soft and very breakable body into a winged cylinder that is flung across the planet faster than the speed of sound. But a lot of these fears are dissuaded with certain facts; and exacerbated by others. The thing is, we usually think about flying in a few ways that overlook many other facts about the act of human flight. Down below are just a few dozen insights into flying you may have never considered.

2.

Aircraft hit LOTS more birds than the 10 o'clock news reports and most never know when they do. Though we do have a very extensive inspection that we have to do when it happens. It is just not an issue and the Hudson River crash was a one in 10 million occasion. Flying is DEFINATELY the safest way to travel, statistically.

3.

Former pilot here — turbulence will break your nose or your neck before it knocks the plane out of the sky. Buckle up when the light is on and take comfort in the fact that turbulence hasn’t crashed a plane since the 1970s.

4.

Both pilots are equally qualified — the captain just has more responsibility and more experience (usually). We trade off who is flying and who is monitoring the radios every other flight (sometimes every two flights).

5.

The reason you are supposed to open your life vest outside the aircraft in case of an emergency ditching is so that you don't float upwards while still inside the plane. This will trap you and increase your risk of drowning.Always open them outside or immediately before you leave the aircraft, should you need to evacuate on water.

6.

Flight attendant here. I think everyone should know or at least keep in mind that airline travel is difficult.You and your fellow passenger can expect to have: Stress, An altered food schedule, Lack of sleep, Swelling, Dehydration, Discomfort, Confusion trying to figure out new things, Social anxiety, Changing ambient pressure, Loud noises, Nausea, Being hot or cold, Boredom.Please remember your fellow passengers are traveling for various reasons. Hopefully it’s vacation but very frequently I run into people going to funerals, going to get medical treatments and commuting to work away from their families.Everyone has a different story and many of us are having a rough day onboard we all have the same goal. Get there quickly and safely. Including the staff. Have patience with each other and us.

7.

No one is physically capable of opening the cabin door while in flight because of the aircraft pressurization. So take comfort in knowing that if a crazy person gets up and starts frantically trying to open the door in the middle of a flight, they're not going to be able to do it at all. You could sit in your seat and watch them work on it for hours and it still won't happen.

8.

There are no parachutes on commercial flights, so please stop asking. If the plane is going down there is nothing you can do but pray and ask forgiveness for your sins.

9.

We fly with broken s**t on the airplane all the time. We have a list that tells us what can be broken and still be able to fly safely and legally.

10.

Interfering with the air crew is a felony. If you have grievances you can address them with the airline after you disembark.

11.

Your tastebuds are reduced by 30-60% on flights. So more salt and seasoning are added to the food so it doesn't seem bland. Might also be the reason so many crave tomato juice ONLY on planes.The air in flight is drier than most of the deserts in the world, this impacts the taste of the food as well as your need to hydrate. Make sure you are drinking plenty of water on the long trans-oceanic or even transcontinental flights.Flight attendant jumpseats are waaaaaay more uncomfortable than anything you are sitting on and are usually right by a stinky lav. So keep that in mind when you complain to a crew member about your seat. Jumpseats are about as comfy as those old plastic fold-up lawn chairs.

12.

Not every landing is going to be smooth. Sometimes we purposefully land a little firmer. Just know that if it was a rough landing, the other pilot is making fun of the one who made the landing.

13.

When a plane is landing at night, they dim the interior lights incase you need to evacuate upon landing... your eyes are already adjusted to the darkness so you'll be able to see better once outside the plane.

14.

My husband was a plane mechanic for years and he says that flying is hands down safer than driving.

15.

Not an airline worker, but when I sit down, during the safety lecture, I count the number of rows to an exit. If an evacuation is necessary, it's a good number to know.

16.

Alcohol has a greater effect on people at higher altitudes so know your limits and don’t push them. Even if you have had a drink in the airport it can still affect you during the flight. As flight crew, we do not care that it’s your holiday, birthday, stag party, hen party or that you are nervous, if you are drunk and behaving like a prick it will not be tolerated and you can be arrested get a ban from the airline. And because airlines share their ban passenger list you could find yourself banned from a few airlines.

17.

In most European airports, you can enter the business class security lane with any ticket, not just business. The code scans anyway.

18.

When you are seated, buckle your seatbelt. I don’t want you to be paralyzed because we hit turbulence and you smacked your head on the ceiling. So much paperwork.

19.

If you checked your Dog there's about a 30% chance it's terrified before it even gets on the plane, who knows how scared it gets during the actual flight. Bag room agents will usually try to comfort a scared animal, but all we can really do is talk to it, so if you write your pet's name on their carrier it usually helps a lot.I've never seen a cat who was scared in the bag room, cats don't care about anything..

20.

Don’t make jokes about the pilot drinking. “Oh, didn’t I see you at the bar late last night hur hur hur”. We then (for safety and to make sure there is no doubt) will take a BAC test to show we are stone sober. It makes s**t unnecessarily difficult.

21.

Your bag is more likely to break flying on a narrow body. Especially 737’s. They don’t have containers so the ramp crew is most likely throwing your bags 30ft underneath the plane. Every bag gets thrown. The sorting system isn’t soft. Containers get filled by thrown bags.Get a good bag and stop worrying.

22.

As a pilot, I don’t know where baggage claim is, I don’t know where your next flight is, I don’t know where the Starbucks is, and often I don’t know why the flight is delayed. I also don’t know what lake we are flying over.

23.

Jet mechanic here and you should avoid drinking coffee on the flight! Those tanks aren't cleaned as often as they should be and when they do get cleaned, they get super cleaned with chemicals... NOT good! $6000 for the coffee maker that makes terrible coffee! Just buy the Starbucks before you get on!

24.

Former Lufthansa cargo agent here.Do not EVER drink water on an aircraft that did not come from a bottle. Don't even TOUCH IT. The reason is the ports to purge lavatory s**t and refill the aircraft with potable water are within feet of each other and sometimes serviced all at once by the same guy. Not always, but if you're not on the ramp watching, you'll never know.

25.

As pilots, we are just darn lazy. We focus our attention on finding ways to avoid anything becoming busy, rushed, or any time our capacity might be stretched.We do everything for a simple life. Sometimes that means using the autopilot as much as we can. Sometimes it means manual flying and looking out the window.Whilst some of us might secretly relish the opportunity to go off-piste and demonstrate our prowess as great aviators in adverse circumstances, no one wants a sweaty day. The imagery of seasoned sky gods wrestling with the controls are all well and good in the movies, but that’s exactly the sort of stuff we are determined to avoid. In fact, most of us are just plain boring.Come say hi - either before after. Small kids and big ‘kids’ alike.

26.

Ladies, take your batteries out of your toys when you're packing. It's not going on the plane if it's dancing all over the baggage conveyor, and the bigger the airport the more difficult it'll be to find you so you can go in and deactivate it.

27.

Almost every commercial flight you ride-on has a dead body on board. Possibly 2 if you're on a wide-body (large) aircraft.

28.

We are there for your safety first, your drinks second.Also: we don't turn right back around after a 14 hour flight. How would that even work? I've been asked that so many times.

29.

there is only enough oxygen in the emergency tanks for approximately fifteen minutes. also, those tanks do not actually contain oxygen; they contain a substance (barium peroxide) which becomes oxygen when exposed to heat. another interesting fact is that the bathrooms on airplanes do not actually lock. the metal sign which says "vacant" or "occupied" is actually a secondary latch. people can flip it up from the outside if necessary. most interesting of all is that every airplane built since 1979 has had a special safe installed in the cockpit. the combination to this safe is only released to the pilot in the case of a reported and confirmed encounter with an alien spacecraft. nobody knows what is actually inside the safe, but many people have speculated that you should include a "serious" tag on questions like this.

30.

Everything is expensive as heck! If you want your flights to be cheaper, take care of the aircraft while flying. The seat is rented by you, NOT owned! Just a simple tray table fix can cost $1000. The airline industry just passes the cost to the customer. Simple computers can cost tens of thousands of dollars. The FAA sticker of approval can triple, quadruple, or exponentially raise costs of things, hence the $6000 coffee maker.

31.

We KNOW your kid doesn't wanna get a peek in the cockpit, stop pushing that crying distressed child inside, dad.Planes often get delayed due to missing their slots, especially during the busy months, chances are we've been sitting on board for a while too as such a flight can be our 3rd/4th leg of the day, we feel you, yet there's nothing we can actually do about it. -FA.