Heading off on hols sometime soon? From the bottom of our hearts, we hope you have a wicked time – you work hard, you deserve it. The only barrier between you and a couple days of cocktails and sun though, is the dreaded plane ride filled with some of the worst people you'll ever come across. Let’s meet your fellow passengers...
The early starters
Armed with an Instagram feed full of the pints they bought at 7AM in Stansted Airport’s Wetherspoons, these lads are off on vay cay and they’re making every minute count. Whether it’s a stag do or lads holiday they’re on, there’s a mix of low V-necks and various forms of fancy dress, all topped off with the staple straw trilby. They bought a bottle of vodka in Duty Free and they’re going to drink it the whole way. En route, there will be singing, sexism and, if you’re lucky, lots of talk of the shagging they’re on the way to (try to) do.
The nervous flyer
Alternating between rubbing her sweaty palms up and down her already damp trousers and flicking through the duty-free catalogue without actually paying any attention to the bottles of Britney Spears’ perfume range on offer, this gal takes nervous flying to the next level. Every tiny bump and noise is enough to make her jump and, while you’ve never really given a shit before, fear is as catchy as chlamydia, and by the time you land at your final destination you’ve come to the unfortunate realisation that the term ‘so scared I pissed my pants’ can be meant literally.
The talker
This guy is one thing on a 45-minute flight to Amsterdam, but find him next to you on a long-haul to Bangkok and you’re in for 12 hours of hell. Perhaps it’s that he doesn’t often get a captive audience for his oh-so-interesting anecdotes about when him and his ‘buddies’ went to a bar and drank a lot of alcohol, or perhaps he’s just come off a self confidence course that encouraged him to ‘make positive interactions with human beings outside his immediate social circle’, but either way, other than being stupidly rude, you’ve got no choice but to sit back and listen.
The zen master
This guy is great, if he’s not on an aisle seat. Unfortunately, due to his vast experience of flying around the world, he’s always clever enough to book the aisle seat. Within seconds of the plane taxi-ing down the runway, this expensively-dressed chap has pulled on his Muji sleep mask, plugged in his Japanese-designed hyper-effective earplugs and headed off to snoozeland from which he will emerge from just in time to catch the last drinks round before landing. By which point you’ve given yourself cystitis because you were too afraid to clamber over this master of napping to get out.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
The Best Cities To Go On A Mini Break To If All You Want To Do Is Drink Excellent Cocktails
How To Plan A Bargain Weekend Away For You And Your Best Mates
** Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons**
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.