Etiquette expert explains when it is acceptable to take your shoes off on a plane

An etiquette expert has explained when she reckons it's acceptable to take your shoes off on a plane.

Speaking personally, I was hoping the answer was going to be 'never', but it sounds like there is a specific window of opportunity where the expert thinks it might be alright.

Ideally, the less of yourself you expose to your fellow passengers the better as nobody wants to spend the flight parked next to someone who has decided their own comfort comes above everyone else's and has their feet loose.

Getting one's feet out during the flight is liable to make your fellow plane passengers take against you to the point they might spend several hours seething before taking to Reddit and making sure everyone agrees with them that you were awful.

So when is this one spot where you could take your shoes off on a flight?

Yuck (Getty Stock Photo)

Etiquette expert Jodi R.R. Smith told the NZ Herald that the only time you could ever really take your shoes off on a plane is if you were on a longer flight.

More specifically, she suggested that flights which lasted four hours counted as above the short-term threshold, and trying to sleep on the plane was an acceptable time to possible slip one's feet out of one's shoes.

Even then, the etiquette expert stressed that this was only possible 'if your feet have zero odour', which is unlikely to be the case given all the things you go through to get onto a plane and the podiatry predisposition to pong.

In other words, your feet are likely going to smell unpleasant so it's best to keep them and your stench safely enclosed within your shoes.

Beyond whether or not you could, you'll also want to consider whether you even should get your shoes off on a plane considering what it's like inside the cabin.

It's only acceptable if your feet don't smell, and your feet will smell so don't do it (Getty Stock Photo)

According to a flight attendant you should never take your shoes off on the plane because it's liable to be absolutely filthy in there and all the mess, muck and germs that gets trodden into the carpet through a thousand flights is not what you want to be getting onto your socks.

Planes are not the most hygienic of places and you don't want to be putting your feet somewhere if you're not sure how clean it is.

The more layers of protection between you and the germs, the better.

It's for this reason that you ought not to wear flip-flops on a flight either, since they're going to expose the fellow passengers to your stink, not protect you from mess and be a hinderance should anything go wrong.

Seriously, just keep your shoes on if at all possible.

Please.