But thanks to Redditor pumpboy, you may find yourself traveling with ease.
The Orignal Poster asked:
"What are your airport tips and tricks?"
You arrive at the airport. Now keep in mind of the following.
Information From The Source
"Don’t just trust the gate number on your phone app, always double check with the airport screens."
– googooachu
Checking The Gate
"Don’t even trust the gate number at the gate. I showed up five hours early at the appointed gate. Waited around with no one else showing up. Then the people behind the counter grabbed their jackets and purses and left, even as the display still showed my flight."
"I went around the corner, looked at a screen, and found my flight had been moved to a gate at the other end of the airport. Ran through the airport and caught my flight 15 minutes before it was due to board."
– tangcameo
Announcements
"Also listen to all announcements near your gate. On my last flight everybody was confused because the gate changed but the screens in the airport would not change. They had to announce about 5 times that the gate changed before everybody started to move. I had a notification on my phone from the airline saying the gate changed before they ever announced it."
– Jsully05
Being Early
"Its better to be 3 hours early than 3 minutes late, airport food is cheaper than paying to book another flight."
– Fuzzwuzzle2
Restrooms on land are better than the ones on planes.
One Last Trip
"Always pee BEFORE you board."
– mikedashe
Unpredictable Waits
"Can't emphasize this enough."
"Oh well, we should be up in the air soon enough, I can hold it until then." "The fasten seatbelt sign has to go away at some point, right?"
"These are not acceptable thought processes. I've had these bright ideas only to get in line, and board, then have to wait another 45 - 90 minutes before I get to go pee. When you get in line, make sure you're in condition to hold it for a while. It's not always this bad, but it could turn that bar any moment."
– OwlCoveredInSnow
Here are some tips about carry-ons and water bottles.
Stay Hydrated
"At the security line, put all your things (phone, wallet, watch, belt, etc) that will need to be removed in your carry-on. It makes it much more efficient rather than taking each individual article and placing it into the bin."
"Bring an empty water bottle and fill it at the fountains. Air travel dehydrates you and most of us don't drink enough fluids anyway."
– kukukele
Beware The Bottle Pressure
"Once I filled up my water bottle in the airport. Later, while in mid flight, I flipped open the spout for the first time since filling it and I guess because of the pressure difference and my bottle being air-tight as the plane ascended, opening it instantly caused half the water in the bottle to come shooting out, blasting straight up like a geyser, hitting the ceiling of the cabin and coming down spraying all the strangers around me. I sheepishly apologized."
– bcmachine
Stay Cognizant Of Access
"In your carry on or especially in winter, it’s often easier to put it all in your coat pockets."
"And also pack with access in mind, especially when travelling abroad, sometimes you have to take out your laptop sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you have to include the charger. Sometimes iPads count. Just make sure they’re all in easy to access places."
– PhiloPhocion
A Hat Trick
"I often wear a ball cap and put everything from my pockets into that. Security will often tell you to empty your pockets into your carryon, but I rarely have the space. They’re always reluctant to hand out the tiny dog bowl sized bins which would be perfect."
– pfranz
Keep It Simple
"I always pack a smallish collapsable bag and when I'm sitting by the gate waiting to board I put in the things I want to access during the flight ( book, a couple snacks, headphones) from my carry on so I dont have to dig around in the carry on during the flight."
– Curlytomato
These tips may save your sanity.
Know Your Worth
"if you get bumped from a flight because the airline overbooked and you have to wait more than two hours then you are entitled to up to 4x your fare. Certain restrictions apply but point is dont let them take advantage of you."
– AussieBlender78
Seek An Advantage
"Always try to book an early flight. My father-in-law used to travel a lot and worked in an industry connected with the airlines. He said that the schedule board usually resets between 3 and 6 in the morning, so if there are late or cancelled flights causing a chain reaction in other areas that all tends to drop out of the system when it starts fresh the next day. I’ve never had a flight that left before 8 am that was noticeably late or canceled unless it just wasn’t safe to fly."
– gemurrayx
General Summary Of Tips
"I used to board 2-4 flights every week before COVID. Here are a few things:"
- "If you can then arrive early."
- "Have 2 bags. The backpack should contain all the stuff you would like to be available at moment's notice during the flight. The bigger trolley should only be opened once you have deboarded"
- "Stay away from the line that contains old people, kids, families. Queue up behind business travelers. There is an excellent scene in Up in The Air where Clooney profiles different kind of fliers. All of it is true."
- "Flight attendants have heard every single excuse for an upgrade. You can try but good luck. However, if you do get one than stop bragging about it. It might get them into trouble."
- "Flight attendants also like small gift like little bags of treats. If you are on a longer flight this is always an option to cheer someone up and make their day."
- "If you are frequent flier get a pair of noise canceling headphones."
- "Always check in as soon the window for check in opens. Usually 24 hours before the flight."
- "A small powerbank can make a world of difference."
- "The lounge is worth the money if you have a long layover or you are a frequent flier."
- "Always keep a small bag full of regular OTC medication you may need."
"Edit: Since someone mentioned wine I recalled that you can always fill a venti/trenta Starbucks cup with an entire bottle of wine. Edit -2: This is illegal as people have mentioned below and do it at your own risk. In my profession, a lot of people are functional alcoholics."
– satya314
Dispense With Social Graces
"Airports are lawless wastelands, like Fallout 3. There are no rules, all social miscues you’ve been taught to avoid are no more. Want to sit on the floor? F'king do it. Pizza and beer for breakfast? F'king do it. Fasting walking past old people to get in line faster? F'king do it. Survive."
– DogmeatIsAGoodDog
Hold On To Personal Belongings
"Never leave your bags unattended, never leave it with someone, I know it’s good to be human and be helpful but never carry anyone’s luggage for them. You don’t know who’s carrying contrabands or not and can easily put you in a jam."
– kevinokai
Yes, traveling is stressful for passengers. But airline employees and TSA agents put with the same, if not more, amounts of stress dealing with a whole slew of irritable passengers who take their aggression out on them.
I try my best to be kind towards them as they put up with a lot of B.S.
Who knows? Your friendliness may cause airline attendants at the check-in counter to conveniently "overlook" the maximum weight limit for your check-in luggage–like it happened to me once when I took the time to acknowledge their name and flashed them my pearly whites.
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For awhile I was thinking about becoming a flight attendant. You get to travel and constantly meet new people/and right there, new people, and I was done with that thought. People are crazy, especially now.
When on Qantas...
harry potter GIFGiphy"A Qantas flight attendant, who moonlighted as a sex worker at a high-end Sydney brothel, had sex with Ralph Fiennes (Voldermort) on an international flight and then bragged to everyone about it. The press got wind of it and made all the papers and nightly news. She was sacked from Qantas, but not the brothel."
"Fish"
"Relaying a story for a flight attendant friend of mine:"
"We see all sorts of stuff, typical customer service nonsense. I have plenty of stories of people thinking they're being subtle about touching themselves when everyone around knows what's happening. For me, though, the strangest one is when the gate supervisor came up the jetbridge and paged a passenger. The passenger hit his FA call button and we let him come up to the main door. The gate supervisor asked the passenger to describe his suitcase. Then the supervisor asked him what he had in his suitcase."
"Fish."
"Apparently, this guy had packed a bunch of fish he caught into his suitcase. He managed to get it through check-in and even through the TSA screen, but after being bumped and tossed in handling, by the time it got to the plane it was wet and smelly and the baggage loaders refused to put it on the plane (thank God)."
"The gate supervisor had to explain to this guy that everyone is going to be much happier if he gets off the plane and retrieves his suitcase, and even offered him rebooking and a voucher if he would come back without the fish. He deplaned and that's the last I heard of it."
The Diddlers...
"On Christmas Day we were working the last flight of the night and it was completely full. Every seat. There was a couple in the last row window and aisle seat. He proceeds to diddle her under their coats. We notice but don't make an issue out of it. Well when she's satisfied she proceeded to return the favor for him."
"Once again we notice but don't want to make a big deal out of it. When we land they were the very last two off the airplane and the grizzly senior lady I'm flying with calls out to them as they were about half way down the aisle. "Just so you know… that's crap you pulled doesn't put you in the mile high club… that doesn't count. Merry Christmas."
"They just turned beat red and scampered off the airplane as fast as they could. I looked at her like she was crazy, sure we were about to get fired. She winked at me and said what are they going to do? Write a letter to the company that we called them out for diddling each other on the airplane? We will be fine now come on kid let's go get a Christmas cocktail."
When unwell...
"I did a flight on New Year's Day a fair few years ago. A older gentleman passed out and his wife thought he had died. The other crew all went to assist and there was a doctor onboard luckily. We had to stop the food service while the gentleman was stabilized which took ages. Once he was stable we tried the food service again. However just as we were getting the trolly from the back galley a woman dramatically collapsed in front of it so we had to deal with her."
"We get her stable and back in her seat and then go for the trolly only for her to come back and collapse again in front of the trolly. It was news years day so this woman had partied too hard the night before and was why she felt sick. A crew member from the front comes down and says they had to stop the food service as well because a kid had thrown up all over the front galley and the toilet."
"We also had a parent who kept letting their child press the call bell for fun. I had to explain twice that it was not a toy and to stop lifting your child up to press the button. The paramedics came and the guy was taken to hospital but not before his wife said that the same thing happened on their flight out. Moral of this story is don't fly if you are very unwell and don't fly hungover."
Air baby
episode 17 friends GIFGiphy"Cousin is a FA. Had a VERY pregnant woman who was en route to deliver at a different hospital in the last 2 weeks of her pregnancy. Unfortunately, her baby wasn't waiting."
"Halfway through the trip, she starts going into labor. They move first class back one row (wasn't full) so they had room. Luckily, the flight had a shock trauma cardiothoracic surgeon and a Navy corpsman on board. She didn't know she was having twins (thought they were obligated to tell you?). One didn't make it. I'm guessing that's why she went into labor."
- tidytibs
That's a whole lot of drama for a few trips in the clouds. And what is the deal with doing it on a plane? Lord, take a deep breath and wait until your destination. Nasty.
Bless You...
britney spears phone GIFGiphy"The nicest flight attendant I ever had was the one that put in my grandpa's eyedrops so my grandma didn't have to. Thank you, JetBlue!"
Back in the Day
"My mom used to be a flight attendant in the '80s and '90s. The things she remembers most are 1) how frequently flights used have to make emergency landings for passengers who had anaphylactic reactions from people eating peanuts or seafood near them."
"2) the time she was put in charge of an unaccompanied minor and ended up having to spend 4 days with the child in a crew hotel, because the child got kicked off the plane for refusing to stop painting her nails and making the cabin stink of fumes."
Just Do It
"Former flight attendant here. Funniest story always is people who are joining the mile high club. You are absolutely allowed to have sex in a lavatory and we won't stop you. People slinking out of the bathroom with crap eating grins and red faces was always hilarious."
Ice Ice Baby...
"My aunt used to be a flight attendant for the airline that is now United. Anyway, she went through CPR training and the basics of helping someone via first aid in case of emergency. On one flight, a baby was choking on an ice cube and she got the cube out of its throat and saved the babies life. So the way she saved the baby putting the baby into her arm (baby facing down) and with her other arm she firmly hit the babies back and the force of the hit ejected the ice cube from the baby's throat."
Seriously?
New Girl Facepalm GIF by HULUGiphy"Man urinated on fellow passenger for not letting him smoke."
Humanity has gone mad; between urinating smokers and people who have to be duct taped to seats, chaos reigns. Thank you sky warriors. You have my gratitude. God speed and good journey!!!
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Out of Shanghai
Fire Extinguisher GIF by Playing With FireGiphyWorked for Royal Caribbean for 7 years, was based out of Shanghai at the time and saw a guest put a lit cigarette in a garbage can. You can guess what happened 30 seconds later. Luckily there was a fire extinguisher near by.
Not Without my Chair
Saw 2 employees escort a 30-something year old woman from the pool deck back to her cabin while others were scrambling to get some rags. She had peed while lounging on a poolside deck chair, and the huge puddle was streaming into the pool. Her excuse was she did not want to give up the chair.
So many questions....
Not a cruise ship but I worked a couple of contracts on a passenger ship. Special questions passengers asked me (stupid questions don't exist but dang it, these people came close):
1-does the crew sleep onboard? (During a multi day sail). No ma'am. We change the crew every night with a submarine with a nightshift. (This one gets asked a lot).
2-could you stop those vibrations? (Sure, let me shut down the engines quickly).
3-could you stop the ship for a few minutes (after a passenger saw a whale and wanted to take pictures).
4-can i get a tour in the crew's area? (I sort of understand this question but let's just assume that we don't really like to show our house to random people you meet at work). No sir, regulations don't allow that.
5-what do you mean I should know not to hang my clothes there? (Right after a passenger found out that the sprinkler head actually goes off if you brake the glass tube when you try to hang your clothes hanger on there. It was a nice fire fighting exercise).
Overboard
doc savage dive GIF by Warner ArchiveGiphyNot an employee, but a former frequent cruiser. I once saw someone sitting on the railings that surround the top deck of the ship. If they'd fallen, they would've been killed instantly.
Who is not Stupid?
I wasn't an employee but I was on business to work with the employees so kind of had the backdoor experience. The dumbest thing I saw was someone standing on railings, luckily it didn't last long.
But one of my favorite things I saw was in the "club" style bar. A woman maybe like 85 was straight up dancing like she were 23 to some techno. We joked that her hip replacement must have been top notch.
As a passenger I think the stupidest thing I witnessed was myself ordering liquor drinks like they weren't watered down.
Death's Trip
Die.
Hear me out. Many cruises, especially the cheaper ones, become YOLO nursing homes for the extremely elderly/unwell who want to spend their last days on vacation. Because forget everyone who will be massively inconvenienced by your death aboard a vessel in international waters. The amount of extremely frail or sick old people on cruises is staggering. There's a trend of blowing their retirement/life savings on a non stop series of cruises with the expectation that they will either die on board or their kids will put them up somewhere when they get back.
Not only is their death a problem but they tend to treat the service staff like their hospice nurses, requiring an extraordinary amount of maintenance to keep happy and comfortable. Almost any cruise employee develops an intense hatred of old people by the end of their time.
Dangerous Tides
I saw a woman walking through one of the buffet restaurants, stop pull a funny face, wiggle a bit and then carry on walking. You guessed it she had just shat herself and then left a log on the carpet and carried on straight outside to carry on eating. Absolutely vile. Of course the restaurant had to be shut until it could be cleaned properly and the whole area sanitized thoroughly.
I personally got arrested in Spain once, but I was lucky and got out of the clink before anyone noticed I was gone so I turned up to work the next morning as if nothing had happened (drunk and disorderly type of thing)
I'm sure I can think of more given time...
will ferrell snl GIF by Saturday Night LiveThe stupidest thing I've ever seen was probably on one of those weekend booze cruises. There was a group of former cheerleaders who were clearly out of practice and very drunk. They attempted to do a pyramid on the pool deck and 2 out of the 3 ended up in the infirmary.
The stupidest thing I've ever done when I was working on ships? I got drunk on Absinthe in St. Petersburg, Russia, and nearly got arrested before I got back to the ship.
Stay Sober
Drinking so much they fell down a flight of stairs and broke their spine. Putting a still smoldering cigarette butt into a trash can inside the ship and setting the can on fire. Both happened while I was working onboard, seen by coworkers. Other than that, just really stupid questions and any generic dumb crap customers do at retail/hospitality places/restaurants on land.
Rona Days
Cruise Ship GIF by GIPHY NewsGiphyBoarding a ship during a pandemic. (Not actually a cruise ship employee.)
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