Who are the worst people to be stuck on a plane with? You might think babies and toddlers because of their need to wriggle about and whine during long trips, but I think I've endured something far worse then being surrounded by tiny, screaming humans.
I've had a plane trip with bogans. Bogans are a fairly unimpressive species native to Australia and are known for their loud, crude and often racist remarks. They're fairly common on flights going to and from Bali, but this flight was different.
Due to it being out of holiday season, our plane was almost empty. There were a couple of grey nomads and another young family as well as your everyday youthful traveller, it seemed like it would be a particularly peaceful plane trip until a group of teenage girls and their mothers came on. Clearly quite drunk they were seated in the middle of the plane, Aaron and I gave each other disapproving looks that you really can only pull off when you become a parent and think everything fun and young is stupid. As we took off we got into our normal plane routine of soothing Lilly as her ears popped and trying to get her to sleep, a simple but delicate plan. It didn't take long before the flight began to turn sour and the young girls made their presence known. Now to be honest, I'm not sure which was worse, their heavily intoxicated and contemptuous mothers or their heavily intoxicated and obnoxious daughters.
I get it, they were probably flying over to celebrate someone's 18th, and they're young and dumb and it's their first trip overseas but it was truly horrible. They screamed at passengers, took their clothes off, treated the lovely air hostesses like dirt and verbally abused both me and another mother for having children and I quote "because they're just foetuses and our lives are more important" all while their mothers downed liquor faster then water.
Not only was everyone absolutely fed up with their behaviour, but we were also so ashamed. This is the next generation of Australian travellers who we're setting the standard for how the rest of the world views us, and they were an utter embarrassment. Going on holiday does strange things to people, but this is unacceptable, you never have the right to treat people like dirt and never, ever do you have the right to act like your worth more. You're simply not.
When we all finally got off this 3 hour nightmare we were so relieved, the staff were wonderful and tried their utmost but these kids were out of control. So I'm writing this as a plea to young travellers everywhere, don't be that person. Don't be the guy or girl who has no respect for where they are going and the wonderful culture they might experience. Be polite, show some common courtesy (and common sense) and be respectful, It's such a dying trait in this day and age.
