Seat Kickers and Barefoot Passengers Are New ‘Worst’ Travelers, Study Finds

Expedia released its 2018 Airplane and Hotel Etiquette Study and wow, just reading it might get your blood pressure rising.

The study compiled responses from 18,229 Expedia customers across 23 countries to find out what bothers flyers the most. “Whether you’ve been on one vacation or 100, you’ve likely experienced some form of annoying behavior while traveling,” says Nisreene Atassi, Global Head of Communications for Expedia. “Our goal with this study is to better understand travelers’ biggest pet peeves and offer tips to help them maximize comfort and minimize annoyances.”

As for those annoyances, here are the top five worst flight passengers, according to the study:

• The Seat Kicker/Bumper/Grabber (51 percent)
• The Aromatic Passenger (43 percent)
• The Inattentive Parent (39 percent)
• Personal Space Violators (34 percent)
• Audio Insensitive (29 percent)

“Over 90 percent of global respondents agree it’s not ok to be barefoot during a flight,” including 75 percent of American respondents who said they “always” keep their shoes and socks on. Also—and I found this surprising, and a bit difficult to believe—a quarter of Americans said they “never recline their seat because it’s rude.”

Plus, 77 percent of Americans “dread sitting next to someone who talks too much,” 54 percent of people said it’s acceptable to wake snoring passengers, and 20 percent said it was fine to just shimmy past snoozing seat mates (but, specifically, “with your back to them”). The study focused mostly on air travel annoyances, but does include some hotel nuisances as well.

Here’s the ranking of the most annoying hotel guests:

• The Inattentive Parents (45 percent)
• The In-Room Revelers and Hallway Hellraisers (41 percent)
• The Complainers (29 percent)
• The Party-goers and The Bar Boozer (27 percent)

Readers, what are your biggest travel pet peeves? Is it the seat-kicker? The shoe taker-offer? The aromatic passenger? Comment below.

More from SmarterTravel:

• Etiquette Alert: To Save Seats or Not to Save Seats on the Plane?
• 7 Unintentionally Gross Things You Do While Traveling
• The 20 Worst Travel Mistakes