If you’re flying during the holiday season, this is something you should know. And it doesn’t just apply to tourists: As more women travel for business, these differences are being noticed by both airlines and hotels. While men still outnumber women frequent fliers, it’s getting close to half and half.
Men complain that women pack too much. She likes to check her bag, while he likes to carry his on. While bags are x-rayed (and sometimes searched), whether they are checked or not, women might like the idea that in a checked bag, no TSA agent is likely to confiscate her expensive cosmetic carryons.
Once in the plane, a woman will usually take the window seat, but despite this, she likes the window shade pulled down. Men like aisle seats and the shade pulled up. Nobody likes the middle seat, but in a mixed sex couple, the woman is the one who usually ends up sitting there.
She’s more likely to ask for a blanket, then curl up in a ball to avoid eye contact with other passengers. Women think the cabin temperature is too cold, while men like it that way. He sits with his elbows and knees splayed out and hogs the arm rest.
Women prefer to watch movies during the flight, while men like live news and sports (no surprise there).
Hotels are responding to the increasing number of women travelers by offering more "female food" (like healthy salads) in their restaurants and stocking nicer toiletries in their rooms (since it’s hard to bring your own along these days). Hotel restaurants are offering more "female foods," like healthy salads.
They’re also offering nicer bath products, since it’s so hard to bring your own these days.
They’ve discovered that men like to read in chairs, while women like to read in bed, which may account for the "lapdesks" you find in so many hotel rooms these days.
Men think that women get better treatment from plane crews. This may be because many of them are now male, in contrast to the all-female "stewardesses" of years ago. In the November 29th edition of the Wall Street Journal, Scott McCartney quotes frequent flier Egbert Simons as saying that his wife often goes from coach to first class to use the bathroom. "I try that and they take me away in handcuffs."
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