Why Italians Can't Find a Seat in a Plane

For any reason some nations are more arrogant, and rebel, or simply don’t listen or react to the instructions they are given, especially when they are given in a language they don’t understand too well. It is like the instructions of an electrical appliance that you never bother to read. When flying this is often the case of Italian passengers that so many cabin crews complain about. Comments, like “Poor cabin crew based in Italy, having to deal with them every single day” or “I can’t stand it, why don’t they listen, they don’t care at all what you tell them to do” Well, of course not everybody is like that, but it happens there more often than in other places and with other passengers. It is a bit more quiet when they are from the north, and gets worse the more you go south or in flights with people from Sicily and Sardinia. You also find cases of non cooperative passengers in Spanish flights just to pick a example of a country in the same geographical area, but at least Spaniards comply more with the orders they are given and don’t curse so much in their own language thinking that you don’t understand them.

This kind of childish behaviour reaches its peak when you have people travelling in groups. I remember one occasion when a couple of passengers opened the life jackets compartment in the overhead panel. When I did a short announcement asking people not to do so, something like ten or more people decided to open to investigate what there is. Most of them didn’t manage to close it properly so the crew had to go row by row closing them while some more people were still opening a few more just because we told them not to do so. Cases of disruptive passengers caught smoking in the toilet are also more frequent in Italian flights, never believing your words when you tell them that they will be arrested on arrival, as they effectively are as smoking in the toilet is considered an offence. Abusing behaviour towards the crew is also common, and that includes in first place using the mobile phone at any time when it’s not allowed. In Italy refuelling and boarding is not allowed and that makes me think that the disrespectful attitude of people towards security is the reason. People making calls next to the fuel truck or smoking in the ramp are commonplace in any airport where refuelling and boarding is allowed.

In my company we have very short turnarounds between flights so whenever it’s possible we try not to refuel in Italy in order to avoid delays. Often we have people making a big mess during disembarking as they take short cuts across the walkways, mixing with passengers going somewhere else and so creating confusion and even making people board the wrong aircraft. The way is normally very clearly marked but surely fences like the ones used to lead cattle would be more suitable for certain people. The very relaxed rules applied (or simply not applied at all) in many Italian airports concerning the size and weight of hand luggage, let people go on board with bags that or don’t fit in the luggage lockers or if they do, they do it only in such a way that only three instead of six bags fit. Those small Chinese wheeled suitcases are very popular and most of them slightly oversized as cabin luggage. This of course causes delays, because it takes ages finding room for all the bags in the cabin, and often some of them must be off loaded and sent to the hold. Among them one or two passengers with a connecting flight in a short time and who didn’t check in any bags in order to save time.

Unfortunately the crew cannot do much for that person when this happens. And finally, the thing that by far, they are worse at than any other passengers from anywhere, it is their lack of capability to find a seat in the cabin. If seats are not allocated some people go all along the cabin three or four times, till it is almost full, and very annoyed they accept the last place that the desperate trying to get people sit down poor cabin crew offers them. When you tell them “this direction ten empty seats, that direction minus five empty seats” again they don’t listen. It is “full” everywhere. In the meantime the crew gets stressed trying to make the flight leave on time, carrying bags, asking people not to use the phone or to be keep silent during a safety demonstration in any other language different than their own.