A lot of us have been there, locked in a metal cylinder flying at more than 500mph (804km/h), gritting our teeth about the armrest the person to the left is hogging.
Or the person next to the window who keeps getting up to go to the toilet, or the person in front who has suddenly put their seat back, squashing your knees.
With roughly half of the UK’s households flying once a year, how people behave on planes is an ongoing bugbear.
And this week a Hong Kong couple were banned by Cathay Pacific after tensions flared over a reclined seat.
So how can we avoid getting in our fellow travellers’ bad books?
To recline or not?
Someone putting their seat back on a long-haul flight can be frustrating – but it seems to trigger Britons and Americans to different degrees.
A 2023 survey by Skyscanner into the issue indicated that 40% of people in the UK find it annoying, but a YouGov survey earlier this year suggested that only a quarter of Americans view it as unacceptable.
Whatever the percentage, reclining seats “really are a problem”, according to Charmaine Davies, a former flight attendant.
She says cabin crew sometimes have to step in to stop anger boiling over between passengers.
The basic problem is how airlines cram seats onto planes, with passengers having less space than they did in the past, according to Prof Jim Salzman of University of California, Los Angeles.
“[The airlines] are able to pass on the anger and frustration of cramped seating to passengers who blame each other for bad behaviour instead of the airlines who created the problem in the first place.”
William Hanson, an etiquette coach and author, says it’s a matter of choosing your time to recline your seat, which you shouldn’t do during a meal. Check whether the person behind is leaning on the table, or using a laptop – and recline slowly.
If in doubt just talk to your fellow passenger, he says. Don’t expect them to be a mind reader.
Armrest hogging
Another gripe linked to the amount of space people have on planes is double armrest hogging.
Mary, a flight attendant for a major US airline, says she is often given a middle seat between “two guys with both their arms on armrests” when she’s being transferred for work and doesn’t have a choice of seat.
Nearly a third of UK airline passengers found this annoying in 2023, the Skyscanner survey suggested.
Mary has had “a tussle with elbows”, she says, but has a strategy for reclaiming the space.
“I wait until they reach for a drink and take the armrest. One [guy] kept trying to push my arm, and I just had to give him a look: ‘We’re not doing that today.'”
To resolve any tension, Mr Hanson says people should get used to the idea of having “elbow rests” rather than armrests, and share them.
Toilet etiquette
Many of us will be familiar with the dilemma of being in a window seat and needing to go to the toilet, but the person next to you has fallen asleep.
Do you nudge them to wake them up, or climb over them?
More than half of Americans responding to the YouGov survey said climbing over someone to go to the toilet was unacceptable.
Mr Hanson says he normally has an aisle seat, and before going to sleep he tells the passenger next to him it’s fine to wake him up or hop over if they need to.
If sat in the middle or window seat, you should just gently let the passenger in the aisle seat know you need to get past them – but be aware you might not speak the same language, he advises.
If a passenger has been drinking alcohol, it can make them need to go to the toilet more often too.
Zoe, a former flight attendant with Virgin Atlantic, was on a flight to Ibiza on a different carrier where many of the passengers had been drinking in the airport bar beforehand, she says.
As soon as the flight took off and the seatbelt light went off, “everybody stood up” and started queuing for the toilet. Some got “quite aggressive”, she says, leading to the cabin crew turning the seatbelt signs back on, forcing everybody to sit down.
Unfortunately, one passenger really couldn’t wait so had to “have a wee in a carrier bag”.
“He put some swimming shorts in there first to soak it up,” says Zoe.