Harriet Baskas Travel writer

Q:  I know my airline seat cushion is supposed to be a valuable emergency floatation device, but sometimes I feel like ripping it out and using it to bop an irritating seatmate over the head. May I?
— Frustrated Fred in Row 98, Seat B.

A: Dear Frustrated Fred: If it wasn’t a sure bet that once you pick up that seat cushion and get a good look at all the icky gunk collected on the underside that you’ll be too grossed out to think about anything else, I’d say “Whoa there, let’s  step back a moment and talk about it.”

Instead, let’s talk about the Air Passengers’ Code of Cordiality.

Oh. You haven’t heard of it? That’s because it doesn’t officially exist. Yet.

Ideally, there’d be no actual need to draw up a Code of Cordiality for air travelers. But then again who’d have thought there’d be a need for a fliers’ rights movement? Or for the rash of proposed legislation to force airlines to  treat passengers in a somewhat sane and humane manner by not, say, keeping paying customers locked inside airplanes left sitting for hours at a gate or by a runway?

I’m all for better-behaved airlines. And while our elected officials and government agencies work on that, I’d like to see the rest of us work on being better-behaved passengers. Maybe it’s just the usual summertime crunch, but given some of the antics we’re reading about in the news, that I’ve witnessed first hand and that, I must admit, I’ve been tempted to try myself once or twice, I think it’s high time to introduce and formalize an Air Passenger’s Code of Cordiality.

What would the code include? And how would you go about distributing and enforcing something like that?

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Each airline already has some sort of code-of-conduct rule buried in their contract of carriage. Those rules give an airline the right to refuse service to any passenger that a member of the flight crew decides is too disorderly, too abusive, too violent or who is behaving in a manner that the flight crew thinks might interfere with the operation of the airplane. That can and does cover a wide range of behavior, but in general those rules seem to get invoked only in the most extreme cases.

The Air Passengers’ Code of Cordiality would be something much different. I envision it as something that would address everyday passenger behavior. I don’t have it totally worked out, but I see the “code” starting with some truly basic rules. And by “rules” I mean behavior that, if we all agreed to abide by, would make air travel easier and much more pleasant for everyone.

This Code of Cordiality would not be hidden away in some hard-to-find paperwork, but posted at the gate and on each airline’s Web site, printed on airplane tray tables and on the laminated cards in the seat-back pockets. The code could also be read out loud during the pre-flight safety announcements.

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