Why are air passengers so angry?

Is it my imagination, or are air travelers getting angrier at each other this summer? 
It is not. Passengers like Leigh Shulman agree. She admitted that she almost lost her cool as she boarded a recent flight. Shulman had just broken her ankle and was hobbling around the airport, one baby step at a time.
“Other travelers were pushing me around,” she said. “They apparently didn’t notice the boot.”
Shulman felt her blood pressure rising, and it stayed that way for the duration of the journey. “I was pissed off for hours,” she said. She blames a combination of poor airport design, indifferent airlines, and increasingly selfish passengers.
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This is probably the busiest summer for air travel in the U.S. That means planes will be packed to capacity. It’s also a contentious summer, with a divisive U.S. election just ahead. Making matters worse: The recent wave of flight cancellations after the CrowdStrike meltdown.
It’s a tinderbox just waiting for a spark, according to experts.
Because of all this, travelers seem more anxious, stressed out, and overtired than at any time since the pandemic, said Jeremy Murchland, president of Seven Corners, a travel insurance company. 
“To cope with that stress, they’re lashing out in inappropriate ways,” he said.
Shulman, a writing coach and public speaker, said she resisted the urge to take a swing at one of her fellow passengers, despite being jostled around.
“I took a few deep breaths,” she said. “Then I boarded the flight.”
It doesn’t always end that way.
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There have been so many incidents of angry air travelers that it’s hard to compile a highlight reel. But here goes:
The statistics also paint a troubling picture. The Federal Aviation Administration reports that inflight incidents remain elevated, and “recent increases show there remains more work to do,” it added. (Overall, unruly passenger incidents appear to be trending downward after the pandemic.)
So what’s making airline passengers so crabby? It comes down to three things, experts say.
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Look, I’m not gonna lie. The best way to stay calm this summer is to find another way to get there or to just stay home. 
Travelers want to have it all – a great trip with zero stress. That’s impossible. I travel constantly, and I always experience anxiety in the same places – the security checkpoint, at customs, before boarding, and at the luggage conveyor belt.
Shulman, the passenger with the broken ankle, has the right idea, according to Colleen Newvine, who teaches a stress management workshop.
“Breathe slowly and deeply, exhaling twice as long as you take for your inhale, to help tell your nervous system that you’re safe,” she said.
What if someone is being rude to you? Don’t retaliate, advises etiquette expert Nick Leighton. 
“Never respond to rudeness with more rudeness,” he said. 
That just leads to an escalation – and then you’ll be in my next highlight reel. Instead, Leighton said you should assume an etiquette crime isn’t being committed intentionally and deliberately. Give your fellow passengers the benefit of the doubt, and you will find a solution.
Finally, remember to pack your manners. That’s the advice of Thomas Plante, a psychology professor at Santa Clara University.
“It all comes down to respect and compassion,” he told me. “Typically, escalating tensions can be diminished if you show both respect and compassion to the person who is getting upset.” Yes, even on a plane, in a crowded airport, or at an overcrowded luggage carousel.
If it seems like I’m blaming passengers for the escalation of anger, let me correct you: I’m not. The U.S. airline industry bears a lot of the responsibility for creating this problem. It can easily defuse this summer bomb. 
How? Just give passengers a little more personal space by moving the seats farther apart instead of packing travelers in like sardines. Remove the junk fees that irritate travelers. Maybe give flight attendants a little more customer service training instead of combat training. But at a time when airline profitability is waning, good luck with getting that.
If airlines started treating us with respect and compassion, maybe we would start behaving with respect and compassion.
Oh, I know. Dream on. But someone had to say it.
Christopher Elliott is an author, consumer advocate, and journalist. He founded Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps solve consumer problems. He publishes Elliott Confidential, a travel newsletter, and the Elliott Report, a news site about customer service. If you need help with a consumer problem, you can reach him here or email him at [email protected].