The five most annoying travel pet peeves

TRAVELLING has its ups and downs. And while it’s mostly a wonderful experience there are some things along the way that can drive us crazy.

Children flying on aeroplane - high-spirited child playing on plane annoying passengers. (Thinkstock Dv2074047[1])

LIKE MOST of us, I love to travel. However, my friends and I have had the same few incidents happen to us too many times, and they drive us crazy.

I’m sure you’ve experienced some of these, so allow me to rant a bit about things I hate about travelling.

LAST MINUTE SEAT CHANGES OR WORSE

I purchased my ticket nine months ago and selected my favourite seat (I love 12J). I periodically checked to make sure I still had the seat, and I did, up to the point where I checked in for my flight.

When I arrived at my connecting airport, not only did I not have 12J, I had no seat whatsoever. My seat was reassigned to 32B, and I was now on a full plane. The frustration level was immense and you can bet the airline received an email.

SNIPPY FLIGHT ATTENDANTS

I get it, flight attendants have bad days, but I wasn’t one of those passengers who gave you that bad day. In fact, I could help turn your bad day around because I’m a nice, reasonably patient, and certainly not needy, traveller. I also understand that there are difficult passengers you have to deal with on a daily basis but give me a chance to be one of the good ones before you bite my ear off.

EARLY MORNING DEPARTURES

Why on earth are there 5:30am flights? I hate getting up at 3am to catch a flight. The only thing worse is getting in the night before on a 1am flight and having to connect to that 5:30am flight. I am partly to blame because I’m too cheap to buy that more expensive ticket. Ugh.

THE SEAT GRABBER AND THE KICKING MUNCHKIN

Just imagine sitting in one of those new streamlined seats that are one inch thick and springy enough to function as a rocking chair — and the person behind you won’t stop grabbing your seat and pulling your hair. This happened to me, and with no prior warning, I was catapulted several times before we even departed. So much so that even my neighbours noticed, and I finally had to say something. Not that it stopped, however.

Then there was that cute child with the super-powered feet. My friend was sitting in front of him and after a lengthy period of having her seat kicked she kindly spoke to the mother. The mother replied that as long as my friend did not recline her seat, he would not kick.

“I’m going to recline my seat, it’s an eight-hour flight,” my friend replied.

The kicking still continued off and on until arrival.

WEATHER DELAYS, ESPECIALLY AMSTERDAM

When weather hits Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the place becomes utter chaos. You can expect any or all of the following: five-hour waits for the transfer desk, a two-hour delay in Twitter responses, three-hour service desk waits in the lounge, no online changes possible, and two-hour phone waits. I have experienced all of these except the two-hour phone wait — I was just sitting next to someone making a call and witnessed it.

My recent experience was the worst — after missing several possible flights and a four-hour wait in the lounge queue, I started going to the gates and finally got someone to put me on a flight, but only because I had Diamond status with Delta. Insane.

I know there are partial solutions to many of these, and I do take action when necessary, but it sure can be frustrating when these things happen. There, I feel better now — thanks for listening to my rant.

This story originally appeared on Flyertalk.com.