Recently on Twitter.com Times Travel asked me who I thought the worst type of passenger was. I wrote, “a business class passenger who does not get an upgrade and ends up in coach.”

But not all business class passengers who end up in coach are bad. In fact, business class passengers are actually my favorite passengers. They know the drill. They know exactly what to expect. So there’s no “on my last flight…” or “what do you mean there aren’t any magazines or pillows?”

The truth is the worst type of passenger is the kind of passenger who thinks he/she travels often, but in reality he/she only travels a few times a year, which isn’t really all that often, not compared to frequent fliers today. Yet they have no problem letting me know just how often they fly (which isn’t all that often) when they’re doing something they shouldn’t be doing, something a frequent flier knows not to do, like use a cell phone after the flight attendant has made the announcement that it’s time to turn off and stow all electronic devices.

The following scenario actually took place on board one of my flights…

We’re on the tarmac in Chicago and the flight attendant is walking down the aisle while the safety video is on and she sees a passenger on his cell phone talking and says, “Sir, you need to turn your cell phone off!”

He tells whomever he’s talking to on the phone to hold on a minute, and then he covers the mouthpiece with his hand and asks the flight attendant, “what flight number is this?”

Shaking her head, the flight attendant says, “Sir, you can’t be on your phone right now! The safety video is on. You need to turn it off.” She points to the video monitor and it’s at that part where the guy in the suit reaches up and grabs the oxygen mask and places it over his nose and mouth, looking way too relaxed for a guy who has just placed an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth because he’s probably going through a decompression or something and should probably be hyperventilating along with the rest of us.

Continue reading GALLEY GOSSIP: CELL PHONES ON THE AIRPLANE