There's a lot to rant about in air travel, but my pet peeve is about in-flight movies. I like geography, and always try to get a window seat on the plane so I can enjoy looking out and identifying landmarks when the weather is clear. But it seems that on most long flights now they show a movie, which I rarely care about, and ask those sitting in the window to please lower their shade so the movie can be seen better. I sometimes lower it a little bit, but refuse to place myself in the dark so those of us who don't enjoy the window view can see something they can rent on a DVD and watch at home. I appreciate that watching a movie can make the flight seem faster but, for me, looking out the window is my pleasure as I enjoy the couple of packs of peanuts we're fed. No one has ever forced me to lower my shade, or even asked me, but I always feel a bit peculiar especially when I'm the only one.
Wow, selfish much? What makes your view out the window more entitled than the person who wants to watch the movie? (the percieved tone of this post really annoyed me)
I'm going to guess you don't fly often. Therefore, it's a novelty to you to track where you are from the sky. For me and others on your flight who fly all the time (150,000+ miles per year) the novelty wore off a long time ago. Flying is a way to get me from point A to point B.
But I try to remember that there are also people on my flight who have never been overseas, may never go again, or maybe never flown before.
As long as you're not kicking my seat then I try to be tolerant of whatever it is you're doing. I always have an eyemask, if you want to leave your shade up. I have noise-cancelling headphones, if you want to yak with your neighbor. Flight is more enjoyable for me and for you.
BTW - For flights with individual televisions in the seats, they don't make this request, only for the common movie screen flights.
If I may, here's my air travel rant: Spirit Airlines is selling seats on most of their flights at insanely low prices. My DD snagged a round trip to New York for $100 -- the closest fare on Northwest was $255. So far, so good. She gets to the airport and has to check one bag as she needed to bring more than just a carry-on bag due to the length of time she would be in NY. No problem, that will be $10. Per bag checked, per flight. Maybe Spirit advertised this new add-on fee, but it certainly wasn't anywhere on the ticket. She still came out ahead by flying Spirit, but these "hidden" fees are getting out of hand...$5 for the boxed snack; $7 for the boxed lunch; $10 for checking a bag; $$ for a paper ticket; what's next??
Sounds like the Ryan Air or EasyJet model. That's how they keep their ticket prices low. It's a low cost airline, which means when you bought your ticket, you bought a seat on the flight. You didn't buy space for your luggage, food, snacks, etc. For traditional carriers it's included in the ticket price, not so on a budget airline.