Between landing, deplaning, baggage claim and customs, it can be a lengthy wait from touchdown to your taxi – and poor etiquette from impatient air travellers is on the rise. As American Airlines moves to squash “ gate lice ” – pushy passengers trying to skip the boarding process – with alarm sounds and alerts for gate agents, a new pest has been named onboard. “Aisle lice”, the new travel term for those who quickly unbuckle and queue down the cabin in a bid to deplane first, tend to shoot out of their seats once the seatbelt sign is turned off.
Now, frequent flyers are debating which of the two annoying air travellers is worse to fly with. A Reddit thread asked "Who do [we] hate more? Gate lice or aisle lice?" after aisle lice crawled out of their seats to be the first off the aircraft on a recent flight from Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport to LaGuardia Airport. The first-class passenger wrote: “Not only do the two people next to me decide to stand up but somehow the guy from the window seat shoves his way forward and is the first of all of us to get off the plane.
” Social media users largely agreed that the eager exiters are “exponentially worse” than their gate lice predecessors. “If you don't have a tight connection or any other ‘emergency’ then wait your turn to get off the plane,” said one flyer. Another added: “Aisle lice slow things down, delay people and cause so much more headaches.
” Several commenters blamed the airlin.