Travelocity released the results of its Rudeness 2009 Survey this week and discovered travelers do not like to sit near loud, obnoxious, fat travelers with out of control kids. In other words, the typical American family.
We couldn’t agree more with those findings, and we didn’t have to talk to more than 1,600 people to find out.
Here are some of the juicy details in the survey (you can read the full press release here):
Overall, people hate sitting next to smelly passengers (No. 1 answer at 40 percent) and people with the Swine Flu or at least exhibiting coughing, sneezing and hacking, 30 percent.)
Then there are the habits other display that travelers just don’t find appealing.
56 percent hate hearing loud or foul language
50 percent can’t stand someone kicking their seat
31 percent don’t care for loud families, loud kids (28 percent) and rowdy college students (24 percent)
Then there is the sticky issue of fat people. Travelocity tried to show a little decorum by simply calling them “large passengers” but we know what they mean. People whose rolls slip over onto your arm rest.
In the survey, 80 percent of the people surveyed said those people should be given two seats to acommidate their largess, though only 44 percent of those people said the biggies should pay for it. (Our guess is what they were saying was, “I should be given two seats.”)
Only 29 percent said they were bothered by people trying to board with bags too big for the overhead compartments. We think this number should be higher — at like 110 percent and people who do it, should be barred from flying.
To add an international flavor to the survey, Travelocity broke out the Canadian answers and discovered that our northern neighbors were bothered by Americans, while Americans didn’t realize Canada was another country.
