Forget armrest battles and overly reclined seats.
The behaviour Australians find most irritating while traveling is letting children kick, grab or climb on the seat in front of them and coughing or sneezing without covering up.
The findings were revealed is a new 17-country survey commissioned by travel eSIM app Saily.
Unsupervised children and coughing or sneezing without covering up were cited by 50% of Australian respondents.
Moreover, 49% were irritated by loud arguments, while reclining their seat too far annoyed 48% of respondents.
Yet Australians also admit to habits that some of their fellow travellers find annoying.
Nearly half say they chat with passengers they do not know, 37% take off their shoes and 23% stand up immediately after landing.
The five travel habits Australians find most annoying
* Unsupervised children – 50%
* Coughing or sneezing without covering up – 50%
* Arguing loudly – 49%
* Reclining their seat too far – 48%
* Talking at full level – 47%
The five holiday habits Australians can’t stand
* Leaving trash on the beach – 51%
* Unsupervised children – 43%
* Talking loudly in quiet places – 40%
* Playing music loudly in public spaces – 36%
* Claiming pool chairs with towels for hours without using them – 34%
“We surveyed more than 16,000 people to find out which travellers test our patience the most,” said Vykintas Maknickas, CEO of Saily.
“Most people don’t think they are the problem, but many of us admit to habits that could easily become somebody else’s story about an awful flight.”
An analysis of responses across all the behaviours included in the survey found that Australians were around the middle of the list of countries in how easily they were annoyed. At the same time, they were fairly reserved about speaking up.
Around one in eight Australian respondents (12%) said they would always ask someone to stop an annoying behaviour – a relatively modest “always” rate compared with other countries surveyed. However, 34% said they would never intervene.
