Should you take your shoes off on a flight? Etiquette experts advise. Photo / Getty Images
Etiquette experts advise keeping shoes on during flights, especially in emergency rows.
Imagine settling into your economy class seat on a 13-hour flight, only to find a stranger’s shoes occupying the space beside you.
That’s what happened to Jaskaran Gautam when he was flying from Tokyo to New York recently. The passenger next to him had switched seats but abandoned his foul-smelling footwear next to him.
“I complained to the flight attendant that the passenger had left his shoes,” says Gautam, who works for a technology company in Kyoto, Japan.
Almost nothing gets passengers more excited than the topic of shoes on a plane. Should you take them off or keep them on? What if you have foot odour? And how do you handle a passenger with smelly feet?
Foot skirmishes are becoming a regular problem on planes. Most of them are low-level, resulting in a complaint to the airline. But sometimes, people go too far when they remove their footwear. Back in 2018, Spirit Airlines diverted a New York-Fort Lauderdale flight to Myrtle Beach after the odour of smelly feet developed in part of the aircraft. They even had to call a hazmat team, which failed to find the source of the smell.
Passengers have been debating whether it’s acceptable to remove shoes on aeroplanes. Some argue it’s a matter of personal comfort, while others cite hygiene and safety concerns. But there’s some agreement on the question of whether to remove your shoes on shorter flights.
“It’s a non-issue,” says Jodi R.R. Smith, an etiquette expert with Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting. “On short flights, you should keep your footwear on for the entire flight.”
For longer flights – anything over four hours – it’s okay to take off your shoes, especially if you’re trying to sleep.
“But only if your feet have zero odour,” she says.
But one group of passengers should never remove their shoes, says Rosalinda Oropeza Randall, an etiquette expert.
“If you are seated in the emergency exit row, your shoes should always be on,” she says. “You have elected to take on the responsibility of calmly and expeditiously being ready to assist. There’s no time for a shoe search, untying the shoelace knot, and putting them on.”
Also, always, always keep your socks on. And if you need to use the bathroom, put your shoes back on. Because that’s not necessarily water on the floor of the lavatory. But you already knew that.
So, bottom line: keep your shoes on if you can. But if you can’t, then keep your socks on. Absolutely no bare feet on the plane!
So let’s say you’re on a plane on a marathon flight. The guy next to you steps out of his sneakers, releasing noxious gases strong enough to choke you.
How do you know if, you know, it’s you?
“You know your feet and you know if they smell,” says etiquette expert Nick Leighton, who co-hosts the weekly podcast Were You Raised By Wolves?
If you have a foot odour problem, or think you might have a foot odour problem, you’ll want to keep your footwear on at all times or find a way of neutralising the smell, for the sake of other passengers.
Susan Sherren, who runs the travel agency Couture Trips, says the recent confrontations are no surprise to her. Airlines just don’t give passengers enough guidance on footwear etiquette.
“These days, people need more specific instructions on how to behave,” she says. “We are guests aboard these flights. With specific rules of engagement spelled out, we all could have more enjoyable and civilised flights.”
Or at least, a better-smelling one.
Confrontations between passengers who violate the unspoken rules of footwear and those who are having trouble breathing are never, ever easy.
I’ve been stuck sitting next to a passenger whose foot odour was strong enough to summon a hazmat team. It was an attractive young woman whose shoes smelled like rotten eggs.
“A brief, polite question, such as, ‘Can you please move your shoes?’ Or, ‘Would you mind putting your shoes back on?‘, might be all you need,” says Clara Burke, who teaches business management communication at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business “Focus on the outcome you want: getting their shoes back on.”
But I did what most polite airline passengers did; I quietly endured the trip. But I shouldn’t have, according to etiquette experts.
“I would contact the flight attendant to handle it,” says Rachel Wagner, an etiquette trainer.
What would a flight attendant do? Your cabin crew has been trained to handle situations like this. They can calmly request that the passenger put the offending footwear back on, putting a cork on the smell, at least until the plane lands.
That usually works, although in Gautam’s case, it did not. You’ll recall that he was on a marathon flight to Japan when his seatmate dropped his shoes next to him and then moved seats. Gautam asked the flight attendant for help, but for some inexplicable reason, the airline employee refused, saying the customer was a “regular” with the airline and that it was okay.
Only, it wasn’t okay.
“I avoid flying on the airline now,” he says.
Good call.
With the northern hemisphere summer travel season coming up, and many Kiwis flying long-haul to Europe to escape the NZ winter, it wouldn’t surprise me to see more fights over footwear breaking out in midair. I’ll try to remember the advice of the etiquette professionals – keep my shoes on, especially when I’m using the bathroom. Take them off only if it’s safe (and by safe, I mean it doesn’t affect the cabin air quality).
But maybe a solution is up to the airlines. Instead of blanket bans on bare feet, perhaps it’s time to tell us what is – and isn’t – allowed when we’re flying. Isn’t that what in-flight announcements are for?
Christopher Elliott is an author, consumer advocate, and journalist. He founded Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organisation that helps solve consumer problems. He publishes Elliott Confidential, a travel newsletter, and the Elliott Report, a news site about customer service.