A Disturbing Mix

Drinking and driving, sleeping pills and alcohol, anything and methadone, even a storm trooper and Elvis- the list of ill-advised mixes that make for a relative topic of discussion on TDA is endless. The subject today however involves drunks and planes, I’m not talking pilots or even alcoholics for that matter- just drunk people in the passenger cabin of a commercial airliner.

Drunks on planes make the headlines everyday; they get naked, make threats, and even try to open the doors midflight. The ones I would like to address though never make the news, yet they could arguably be the most distressing and disturbing group you have ever had the displeasure of sharing a fuselage with. The prototypical example of the group is a middle age or higher male that is overweight. He drinks heavily and consequently sleeps heavy… and snores. Not just a slight wheeze or occasional snort, but a more like roar from an afterburning jet engine fueled by straight alcohol. Even with earplugs, you can hear it through your bones.

Click “Read more” to continue…

Many people drink to ease their fear of flying, but not our snorer. He drinks in excess for the specific purpose of passing out in a deep sleep, sort of a suspended animation for the long trip. Of course sleep is the last thing available for the rest of the three hundred poor saps stuck at thirty thousand feet with this guy running a saw mill in his skull. The alcohol not only acts as a sedative, it also acts as a muscle relaxant that actually amplifies the snoring process.

I’ve been unfortunate enough to experience this torture more than once. In many cases, the flight attendants repeatedly wake the drunken guy only for him to nod off seconds later with the same deafening results. Obviously I’m not the only one disturbed by this event, travel columnist Jill Schensul calls it “socially disruptive sleeping” but doesn’t address the alcohol related escalation. I am all for tolerance, but I have to agree with Jill on this one- a phantom nudge or “accidental” jostling is in order when considering the close quarter circumstances of a flight.

Regardless of the circumstances, usually the only people that can stand being around a drunk are other drunks. This rule is never truer than in a crowded airliner; drunks and planes, a very disturbing mix (even when they are comatose)!