A flight attendant says this is the biggest mistake travelers make when boarding

19.10.2023 - 15:41 / insider.com

For every flight CiCi works as a flight attendant, she can always expect passengers to step onto the plane distracted.

Whether it's AirPods blasting music or a TikTok video a traveler can't take their eyes off of, CiCi said she's always encountering passengers who aren't paying attention.

CiCi, who asked Insider to omit her full name and the airline she works for, for privacy reasons, said distracted passengers can cause injuries, anger fellow passengers, and delay the boarding process. 

"If you're playing on your phone or listening to music, you can't communicate with the people around you," she told Insider. "And that's where I see a big problem."

CiCi documents travel tips she's learned through her job as a flight attendant on TikTok and Instagram under the username @cici.inthesky.

On her platform, she also encourages every passenger who steps onto a plane to be focused and aware of their surroundings.

"When you're boarding a plane, you are doing a task and you should be focused on that task," she said.

CiCi said time and time again, she sees passengers mistakenly bumping into fellow passengers, hitting their backpacks against another traveler, or swinging their water bottles and hitting a seated person's head. 

The result of this is often an injury. And even if it doesn't cause an injury, it typically results in an angry passenger, CiCi said. 

According to the flight attendant, another outcome of distracted passengers is traffic jams. A person looking at their phone often doesn't realize another passenger is backtracking to their seat, CiCi explained.

"People get to their seat and realize they don't have a place for their bag, so they have to go a couple of rows back. Well, the distracted person that's behind them is following them very closely," she said.

So when the passenger puts their bag away and turns around to go back to their seat, there's a pile-up, CiCi said.

If the distracted traveler was paying attention and communicating with the other passenger, CiCi said they would've realized they needed to pause and wait to let the person put away their belongings and get situated. 

CiCi encouraged travelers to take out their earbuds and put away their phones while they board. She said this would make boarding faster and create an overall happier airplane cabin. 

In the past few years, CiCi said she's seen a striking incline in distracted passengers. She hypothesizes that it's a coping mechanism to combat the stress that flying often entails. 

"People will put their earbuds in, they'll withdraw themselves because they're stressed, they're anxious, and maybe they have a fear of flying," she said.

CiCi acknowledged that these are legitimate challenges many passengers face, but she encouraged