Warning Signs of a Novice Flier

There are a few perks to being a frequent flier beyond the free airline miles. For example, you learn to always take the business traveler lane when you go through security, even if you're wearing flip flops and a Hawaiian shirt, bringing a beach towel and water wings as a carry-on, and your boarding pass clearly states you're departing for Grand Cayman at 10:36am from gate A21. Yes, traveling as a frequent flier is fast, easy, and since you've already been through every type of crisis the airlines can think to throw at you (delayed flights, long waits on the runway, broken airplane bathrooms, lost luggage, flight attendants running out of cran-apple juice), there's nothing that you can't shrug off. Except for one thing. Only one thing can throw a wrench in the well-oiled operations of your getting-from-point-A-to-point-B machine: the novice flier.

Novice fliers are the single worst threat to smooth traveling. The inexperienced traveler is slow, confused, overly-cautious, high-strung, stressed out, and not going to do anything correctly on the first try. One major study* suggest up to 47% of travel frustrations are caused by novice fliers, with the remaining 53% being comprised of canceled flights, unnecessarily long layovers, having to sit in the middle seat, and the abridged menu common at airport fast food joints. Woe is the traveler stuck behind, next to, around, or [insert choice preposition here] a novice flier. Luckily, however, this menace to your traveling comfort is easy to spot and, subsequently, to avoid. Just watch our for these telltale warning signs.

At Check-In

• The novice flier will always arrive two hours early for domestic flights and three hours early for international ones. The frequent flier knows that despite TSA recommendations, one hour will get you through check-in and security with plenty of time to pick up a muffin at Starbucks before you board, unless you happen to be traveling from a major airport during a peak travel holiday. Frequent fliers also know that even if you do miscalculate and lines are longer than expected, waving your ticket at an agent will instantly get you bumped to the front of any line.

• The novice flier will have checked in and printed his boarding pass at home. Because in the mind of the novice flier, check-in lines are really long so you need to be as prepared as possible before you get to the airport. You only have two hours to get to the gate, after all.

At Security

• The novice flier will fret about regulations and go to painstaking lengths to meet them. Even a novice flier knows airports have security and restrict what can and cannot go on the plane. Unlike frequent fliers, however, novice fliers think these regulations must actually be obeyed. False. Do whatever you want with your liquids. While even the most inept TSA agent will catch a two-liter of Coke in your backpack, almost anything else will get through without a problem. I usually put my travel liquids in a baggie just in case I get stuck with an over-zealous TSA-er, but unless I'm in a generous mood I almost never take my baggie out of my suitcase and place it in the tray. Laptops are fifty-fifty; you'll probably get caught, but the TSA-er won't bother to actually take it out or re-scan your luggage. TSA-ers work long hours at an exceedingly boring job and, especially at small airports, are pretty lax with enforcement. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten jumbo bottles of hair gel or full-size tubes of toothpaste through security; my father once forget he had a pocket knife on his keychain and even got that through. JFK did take away my unopened jar of crunchy peanut butter once, though, resulting in a thoroughly unpleasant layover in Seoul when all I had to snack on was dry Saltines.

• The novice flier will be slow and probably ask you to pass him a bin when he's halfway down the line. I use exactly one bin; two if I'm carrying a pillow or something else I didn't bother to cram in my carry-on. A novice has no idea how many trays he needs and will probably use far more than necessary because he thinks all his bags need one (nope—bags go directly on the conveyor). A frequent flier can also remove shoes, laptop, and liquids (if she's generous enough to bother) in about forty-five seconds without pausing to hold up the line, and then do the same in reverse on the other side of the x-ray machine. A novice stands there like an idiot, blocking the conveyor and taking his sweet damn time.

At The Gate

• The novice flier will be the first in line. If you're first in line, that just means you'll stand in line the longest. Stay sitting as long as possible—or better yet, go check out the massage chairs at Brookstone until about ten minutes after your designated boarding time. Basically, you can wait on the cramped plane, or you can wait in the airport (just make sure you're already checked in). A novice flier thinks he needs to be the first one on to get overhead space. A frequent flier knows she'll always have under-the-seat storage and her seat's already reserved; in the event of an overhead shortage, the flight attendant will gate-check your bag free of risk and charge, anyway.

• The novice flier will board with his zone. Don't board with your zone. Board whenever you feel like boarding. Board with the first class if you want and enjoy your economy seat while you watch the plane fill up. Though personally, I prefer Brookstone.

On The Plane

• The novice flier will listen to the flight attendants give their schpiel. If he's super-novice, he'll follow along on the safety card. A frequent flier has heard it all before and knows none of it matters cause if the plane goes down, we're all dead anyway.

• The novice flier will turn off his electronic devices. Please. I haven't turned off my cell phone on a plane since I was sixteen. If it were actually a threat, TSA wouldn't let you bring your iPhone on board. In the rare event something is messing with communications after the cabin door has closed, they make an announcement. I regularly have my iPod playing from the moment I step on the plane til the moment I step off. It's not a problem unless you get caught.

• The novice flier will ask what drinks are available. My default complimentary drink order (except on the lucky international flights with free beer and wine) is Minute Main cran-apple cocktail. Deliciously refreshing and perfectly masks the double shot of vodka I tipped in there when the flight attendant wasn't looking (what did you think I had in my liquids baggie? Shampoo?).

• The novice flier will strike up a conversation with his seatmate. Fuck you, novice flier, I'm trying to read my Stieg Larsson novel and there's a reason I'm still wearing my headphones after the cabin doors have shut.

• The novice flier may try to retrieve something from the overhead compartment during the flight. If you didn't have the foresight to put it under your seat, you don't deserve to have it til we land. Stuff in the overhead shifts in flight, and every time Mr Novice Flier tries to retrieve his toothbrush or his neck pillow from his suitcase in the overhead, I have terrible “Lost” flashbacks to Kate's federal marshal getting conked on the head by a flying suitcase when the overhead busts open as 815 hits turbulence.

At Immigration

• The novice international flier will actually be honest on his customs form and declare what he needs to declare. Rookie mistake. I don't care if you clearly have a live wild tiger with mad cow disease stuffed in your suitcase—never declare anything. Never.

Other Warning Signs

• The novice flier will dress a bit too comfortably. Especially true on international flights—if he's wearing sweatpants, slippers, and a pajama tops, I guarantee he doesn't fly too often. The logic is simple: he finds the cramped conditions on an eight-hour flight to Heathrow uncomfortable because he's not used to them. To the frequent flier, a trip like JFK-Heathrow is no more uncomfortable than anything else you might do in a day. Besides that, Stacey London is right: you never know who's going to sit next to you on a plane, and it's your loss if you meet a potential employer or soul mate when you're in your jammy-jams and two-inch thick eye glasses. First impression fail.

• The novice flier will be traveling with children. That's not to say every novice flier travels with children, just that no matter how much you flew in your pre-parent life, when you show up at the airport with infant-in-arms, I instantly demote you to novice flier status because the child is a novice flier and you're responsible for the child. I think we all know the sort of horror that results from the equation {child^number of children/[10(combined age in months of children under ten) + 5)combined age in months of children over ten)} + airport(stress level of parents). Needless to say, avoid traveling families at all costs.

Unfortunately, the only way to avoid novice fliers is to charter a private jet—though flying business class might help cut the frequency of encounters if you're lucky enough to have a corporate expense account to pay for such a thing. A more empathetic (read: less traveled) individual might advise you to treat the novice flier with kindness and understanding, remembering that you, too, were once nervously fidgeting while having your bags checked on your first time through security. I, however, don't have time for that sort of advice—I've got a plane to catch.

*which was conducted by me, meaning I made the whole thing up but wholeheartedly expect these results if this study were ever actually conducted.