This Wildly Common Boomer Airplane Habit Hits Gen Z's Last Nerve (And We Can't Blame Them)

We all know the struggle: You take your seat for a cross-country flight, and not five minutes later, you hear the tinny sound of a mobile phone speaker a few rows back. Someone is playing a smartphone game with sound effects you can hear several rows away, sharing their movie-watching experience with every other passenger onboard, or taking a phone call — on speaker, no less! — while they wait to take off.

If you've ever been the person stuck sitting behind the noisiest person on a plane, you've experienced firsthand how irritating it can be when someone doesn't keep it down in flight. In fact, this kind of unwanted ambient noise is such a frequent complaint among travelers that United Airlines made using tech without headphones grounds for removal from your flight. And as debates about conversational and phone-use etiquette in shared spaces rage on, the younger generations frequently take to the internet to lay the blame on one particular group of travelers: the Baby Boomer generation.

And it's not hard to find a litany of Boomer tech-misuse complaints online, from the X (formerly known as Twitter) user who sat near an older man who spent a whole flight "doom-scrolling on TikTok" without headphones to the Redditor who caught two Boomers on camera watching a movie on an iPad, sans headphones, at their airport gate. Loud conversations are a common complaint, too, with some Gen Z travelers complaining that Boomers treat the airplane like a phone booth and don't seem to care who hears their conversations. If the internet is to be believed, the Boomer generation does not concern itself with fellow passengers who might be bothered by their noise.

Noisy in-flight behavior isn't the first issue on which Gen Z and the Baby Boom generation have clashed, and the blanket animosity between the two groups is a well-studied phenomenon. So it makes some sense that fed-up Gen Z flyers would be quick to notice the annoying habits of some Boomer passengers, with plenty of reported cases to back up their claims. But the refusal of some to avoid in-flight behaviors that other passengers find annoying isn't likely as simple as a generational clash.

For one thing, culprits run the gamut in age. Plenty of travelers online have complained about young children on their flights not using headphones properly. Loud conversation isn't a Boomer exclusive, either. If you've ever found yourself wondering how to avoid unwanted conversations with a chatty seat partner, you know that it's anyone's guess who might make the plane privy to their entire conversation.

There are certainly plenty of firsthand reports out there of Boomers being loud on flights, and those incidents grate on Gen Z travelers for good reason. But annoying and inconsiderate plane habits know no age limit, no matter how easy it may seem to call out a specific group of travelers as the worst of all. What we're really seeing here is a clear need for better plane etiquette across the board, and the only thing you can do about that is to plan ahead. Invest in some of the best noise-canceling headphones you can find, lead by example, and if things really get out of hand, don't be afraid to call your flight attendant in to assist — it's a part of the job.