air rage

The curious very late twentieth century malady that causes people to go bonkers whilst traveling in airplanes.

Examples:

• The business man in first class on a flight from Brazil to New York who took a crap on the drinks cart because they refused to serve him any more booze.
• The man who dropped trou and commenced to simulate humping with the back of his own seat.
• Several instances of peeing on people and seats
• Various throttlings and finger bendings caused by spilled drinks, crying children, and drunken soccer hooliganism .
• One passenger charged the cockpit and had to be subdued by other passengers, in the process of subduing him they beat him to death.

A Possible explanation:

source:http://www.flyana.com/rage.html

Injecting fresh air into a pressurized cabin consumes extra fuel, which costs money. There are three compressors on most large passenger jet models that are available to make the external air breathable at cruising altitude. On the average flight only two of the three are run (you can request that the third be run, see above page for details) to save fuel, this means that the air is recycled more. Recycled air is generally shittier than fresh air, being high in carbon dioxide, low in oxygen and brimming with viruses and chemical impurities and allergens, not to mention tons of people funk. Oxygen deprivation causes people to become belligerent and irrational. Combined with the effects of alcohol consumed at atmospheric pressures equilvalent to 8000 feet above sea level, this reasoning seems likely. In fact pilots are often required to switch to bottled air for landings because the average airplane oxygen quality can impair their vision and judgment.

Airline management, by the way, blames air rage on the size and number of carry on bags passengers take on the plane.

Personally I have seen one example of air rage. On a flight from San Fran to New York the flight attendants were serving drinks to keep us happy because the flight was taking extra long, as they struggled up the aisle with their cart they would temporarily block view of the amazingly bad in flight movie “Fly Away Home”, about a girl who teaches geese to migrate because they have no mother and spends most of the movie screaming shrilly for some reason. One man who looked quite a bit like Bill Gates freaked out that they were blocking his view of the movie and that he had payed 900 dollars for his ticket and he was entitled to see the movie “IN ITS ENTIRETY”. His outburst was generally ignored mostly because it was too insane to even contemplate, so he threw his shoe at the flight attendant. He was later gaffled by the navigator and another flight attendant and kept in plastic handcuffs in one the jumper seats that the flight staff uses. We all had to walk past him when we got off the plane, I would like to say that no one looked at him at all, but that’s not true, we all started at him with utter fascination.

Interesting that Divine_Wino mentions that the only incident of "air rage" that they have witnessed was whilst "flight attendants were serving drinks to keep us happy"...

According to the news today, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein has written to the CEOs of seven major U.S. airlines urging them to voluntarily limit domestic passengers to two drinks, or possibly face legislation forcing them to do this. she contends that this will reduce the number of "air rage" incidents.

Hmm..so much for the "land of the free". Setting aside the crude, bullying approach, what could such legislation lead to? How about a follow-up bill that restricts bar owners and pub landlords to serving just two drinks to their customers in a bid to eradicate "bar rage"? How about rationing the purchasing of alcohol completely: You could certainly cut down on the number of drink-driving incidents that way, couldn't you? Whilst I applaud the motive, I must condemn the approach.

Interestingly enough, the Association of Flight Attendants oppose the introduction of such limits, whether they are voluntary or by legislation. They believe that such a limit would be difficult to enforce in practise and would simply lead to alcohol-inlcined passengers "loading up" prior to getting on the plane. Thank God for common sense.

Maybe we should have more flight attendants in the Senate and give Senator Feinstein a job handing out snacks and counting drinks on Delta Airlines.