I’ve always assumed that there’s a high correlation between low cost carriers and air rage. The logic is simply that low cost carriers make travel more affordable and accessible, and I generally assume that air rage is at least somewhat correlated to infrequent travelers who get disproportionately stressed on planes. There are of course exceptions, but in general someone less familiar with something is more likely to overreact.
That was my assumption, at least. Well, a new study is out, which suggests an interesting correlation between air rage and the existence of a first class cabin.
This CNN article has the results of the study which was conducted by the University of Toronto, including that passengers in economy are 3.84x more likely to have an air rage incident if there’s also a first class cabin, and are 2.14x more likely to have an air rage incident if they had to walk through the first class cabin during boarding.
Here’s the logic for that:
“Psychology (research) tells us that when people feel a sense of deprivation and inequality, they are more likely to act out,” said Katherine A. DeCelles, associate professor of organizational behavior at the University of Toronto.
Passengers are probably not even consciously aware of the deprivation and inequality, and how much it is stressing them out, DeCelles said.
There’s more. Passengers in first class are 12x more likely to have an air rage incident if all passengers boarded through first class, rather than there being separate jet bridges for first class and economy class passengers.
Here’s the logic for that:
“When people from higher social class backgrounds are more aware of their higher status, they are more likely to be antisocial, to have entitled attitudes and to be less compassionate,” DeCelles said.
Subconsciously I can certainly see why the above is the case, though the study doesn’t reveal which airline’s data was used for the study, making me wonder whether there’s more to this. I imagine there are other possible triggers, especially since reports of air rage often go unreported.
It sort of reminds me of this clip from “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” where Larry goes to economy to use the bathroom there, where he gets into a confrontation with an economy passenger over “class:”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si9gZc0vouE
Either way, I thought the study was interesting, since it made me consider air rage in a different light. I can certainly see why subconsciously the existence of a first class cabin may factor into air rage, both from economy and first class passengers.
What do you make of this study?
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