Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock
Topics: Travel, TikTok, Plane Etiquette
Jess Battison
It’s that time of year when everyone starts banging on about ‘needing a holiday’ and showing off that they’ve already got there’s booked.
With the weather so grim at the moment, plenty of us are simply wanting to fly away and get out of the UK.
You might even be already dreaming of your routine when it comes to just getting on a plane; putting on your neck pillow, laying out your snacks, setting up a film to watch and perhaps getting ready to pull down the window shade.
But that’s where the disagreements may come in, as a pilot has caused a debate after explaining the one thing you should do if you’re in the coveted window seat on a flight.
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Captain Steve is an airline pilot and shares various bits of trivia and advice on TikTok.
And one clip sees him discuss ‘shade etiquette’ as he says when you first sit down you might start pondering if you’re keeping it open or closed.
“But the other passengers come, and they sit in those other two seats next to you, and they don't really have a say in where the shade goes, really, because you're kind of the owner of the shade,” he says.
“So do you reach out to them and say, ‘Would you like the shade up or down?’ I always do.”
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Steve reckons it’s a ‘courtesy’ to your fellow passengers that, once you’re up in the air, you ask if they want ‘shade up or shade down’.
He points out that once you’re up in the air and you fall asleep, there’s ‘nothing worse’ than the window seat passenger being asleep, while you’re ‘trying to fight the sun that’s coming in’.
But while the pilot believes the window seat passenger should be asking before opening or closing the window shade, some users in the comments disagree.
“I pay for the window, I use the window,” one wrote.
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Another added: “Nope. I own the shade. I sit by the window so I can sightsee.”
As a third said: “I pay for the window seat, it’s MY window.”
Others also wrote: “You do realise that some passengers book the window seat just to keep the shade closed during the entire flight.”
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Some also added that they book the window seat because looking outside it their ‘favourite part’ of flying, so the last thing they want is being asked to close it.