Just because something isn’t explicitly against the rules doesn’t mean you should do it. For instance, most airlines don’t expressly forbid acts like trimming your toenails or sloughing off the dead skin from the bottom of your feet, but passengers should still know better. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case, and travelers aren’t shy about expressing their feelings.
A passenger had no shame
Bare foot airplane passenger with shoes removed during long haul flight for comfort travel
(ThamKC via Getty Images)
According to View From The Wing, a passenger on an American Airlines Airbus A319 removed her shoes and socks on a recent flight. This is controversial enough, since no one wants to smell someone else’s stinky feet, but she brazenly took it a step further.
After she’d removed her footwear, the woman used a foot exfoliating tool to grind away dead skin from the bottoms of her feet. The dead skin was visible, forming clouds in the air before settling over the floor.
The flight crew was informed
Smiling flight attendant in uniform standing in an airplane cabin aisle, offering service to passengers during boarding.
(Artit_Wongpradu via Getty Images)
If the in-flight pedicure wasn’t bad enough, the woman had already spilled her coffee on the traveler in the next seat. By the time she started sloughing away at her dead foot skin, that traveler was so fed up that he informed a flight attendant. Unfortunately, the flight crew’s only response was to shrug their shoulders.
The unfortunate man was forced to stand for the rest of the flight since he didn’t want to sit in a seat surrounded by a stranger’s dead skin.
This wasn’t the first time
While it might be tempting to write this off as a rarity, these incidents keep happening. Over the summer, a horrified flight attendant posted photos of a passenger’s toenails to TikTok. They’d been trimming them in flight and left them all over the ground for someone else to dispose of.
Other passengers have been caught painting their nails on board and filling the cabin with overpowering fumes.
Should flight attendants step in?
Flight attendants should step in when a passenger engages in outrageous behavio
(Michelle Brittain via Getty Images)
Flight attendants have a hard job. Their primary role is passenger safety, and they can’t be expected to resolve every passenger disagreement. But when a passenger’s behavior is so outrageous that it adversely affects other travelers, they should step in. No one should feel compelled to stand during a flight because there is too much dead skin floating in the air.
But of course, in a perfect world, the flight attendants wouldn’t have to step in at all. Air travel requires consideration of the other passengers sharing an enclosed cabin. We shouldn’t engage in activities that impact our seatmates. Pedicures can wait until we get home.