At first sight, I thought the two women having an animated discussion outside the loo on our jet were excited about their holidays.
It was hard to pick up their actual words due to the “whoosh” sweeping through the cabin at 34,000 feet.
One was in her late-teens, the other somewhere around middle age.
The younger woman went into the toilet first and, on reappearing, she brushed past the passenger old enough to be her mum. This time, my wife and I did pick up what the teenager was saying.
“Have a nice flight and a nice holiday – you miserable cow,” she spat, with daggers in her eyes. The older woman smiled weakly, but looked ashen-faced.
It seemed there was mayhem farther back in the plane, and a fair amount of friction between some sets of passengers, including these two.
The problem was that it felt like half of the travellers on board the Jet2 flight from Edinburgh were hen parties, or girls’ and lads’ groups aged around 17 to 19. They were loud and boisterous to begin with, developing into a disrespectful and unpleasant atmosphere for the next three and a half hours to Malaga.
You’ve heard Teenage Kicks (“all through the night”) by The Undertones? If not, it featured in One Direction’s Comic Relief single in 2013. This was more like teenage kicks all through the flight – children masquerading as adults in grown-up bodies.
But not everyone wanted to party at 7am. One family caught in the eye of the storm moved to other seats to escape.
Luckily, nobody tried to open the door in mid-air, as happened around the same time on another flight to Spain. A jet from Glasgow also had to divert to Newcastle as crew fought to wrestle a smuggled bottle of gin off another drunk.
Towards the end of our journey, the woman in charge of the frazzled cabin crew went onto the PA system to plead with the young ones. “It’s been a long and difficult flight… Please, please stop pressing buzzers to summon the crew,” she beseeched them. Not much later, she was bellowing “sit down” after one of them went walkabout as we were all buckled up and about to land.
I say do a Rwanda and stick them on special flights for hen and stag groups only; give everyone else a break. Yes, I know the trouble with that is most of them probably book independently, so airlines can’t identify groups in advance.
My general election pledge would be to slap a “respect tax” on any troublesome passengers who upset others, so they are made to pay extra for their return flights. And an increased premium on their flight bookings for the next five years – like car insurance companies do following careless-driving convictions. Except, in this case, troublemakers would be classed as “careless passengers”, after being identified by their seat numbers and logged.
Feeling trapped on trains and in theatres
It’s an uncomfortable feeling being helpless and trapped with strangers who are under the influence of alcohol.
Scotrail passengers are still divided evenly over the booze ban on board. Many of us have been stuck on trains with drunken swearing yobs making our journeys a nightmare.
The problem with alcohol is that all sense of respect and decency towards others in your immediate vicinity goes out of the window. Even theatres are now struggling with a drunken rogue element who spoil it for others, or threaten staff.
I had a bit of bother at a big musical favourite in Aberdeen a little while ago.
A man and woman talked loudly throughout the entire first half of the show, attracting annoyed glances in response. Eventually, one exasperated audience member in our row hissed a loud “shush” in their direction.
The man’s head swivelled down the line, and his eyes came to rest on me. He decided immediately that I was the culprit – no judge and jury required.
It was impossible to explain I was an innocent party, as the cast and orchestra had launched into another belter. But I happily filled in as a kind of understudy for the phantom shusher who had complained.
Full marks to staff for intervening diplomatically, despite the risks these days to life and limb
So, we waved our arms at each other furiously, but gesticulating in the dark is never an effective form of communication.
Luckily, theatre staff had been already clocking his bizarre behaviour and had a quiet word. He piped down after that, but full marks to them for intervening diplomatically, despite the risks these days to life and limb.
On my flight, the teenage girl was now bragging to her pals at the loo about her “miserable cow” jibe. Looking at these teenage party animals, I wondered if a spot of national service would help, but their Louis Vuitton sneakers didn’t look up to it.
They seemed the sort of kids who knew the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal
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