The Vacationer recently surveyed almost 1,000 people and discovered that drunk passengers and passengers who push the rear of seats are the most annoying passengers to be around.

Most annoying passenger types

The survey asked, "When flying on a plane, which behaviors from fellow passengers annoy you?" Those participating were able to choose as many options as they wanted from this list:

• boards or deplanes out of turn
• drunk and disruptive
• eating pungent or foul-smelling foods
• flirting with you, passengers, or flight attendants
• gets up to use restroom or stretch too much
• hogs the armrests
• inattentive parents / poor parenting
• kicking the back of your seat
• listens to music or movies too loudly
• overly affectionate couples
• reclines seat fully in front of you
• requests too much from flight attendants
• smells from poor hygiene or too much cologne/perfume
• takes off shoes
• talks to you too much
• uses overhead bin space many rows in front of seat
• none of these (if checking this choice, check nothing else)

The two most voted options were "kicking the back of your seat" and "drunk and disruptive," which had 59.11% of the votes. Next, with 48% of selections was "smells from poor hygiene or too much cologne/perfume." The third was "inattentive parents / poor parenting," with 46.81%.

The survey noted a few other interesting things. Men are more likely than women to be annoyed by rule breakers on planes, but women are more likely than men to be upset if a passenger is too talkative or flirty. The oldest American adults are most likely to be annoyed if you invade their space while seated and are much more patient about their space for passengers getting up to use the bathroom or stretch.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is that the younger generations of American adults between 18-29 years old are least likely to get annoyed while flying. More often than not, it seems that this age range is the most annoying or the one that gets the most irritated, but the survey found that those aged 30-44 get more annoyed than the 18-29 group. The older the demographic, the more annoyed they get.

FAA Zero Tolerance

Earlier this year, the Federal Aviation Administration updated its stance on unruly passengers. The FAA has a zero-tolerance ban for disruptive passengers and can issue fines up to $7 million for each passenger.

"Behaving dangerously on a plane will cost you; that's a promise. Unsafe behavior simple does not fly and keeping our zero-tolerance policy, will help us to continue making progress to prevent and punish this behavior." - Billy Nolen, Acting FAA Administrator

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of unruly passenger incidents has risen drastically, leading the FAA to update its policies.

Recently, passengers have been arrested for punching flight attendants, committing sexual acts on flights, sending nude photos to passengers throughout a plane, and the list goes on. Some have even called for a "blacklist" or no-fly list to be shared between all United States airlines.