Air travel, to seasoned flyers, feels routine:
Boarding passes
Seat numbers
Overhead bins
Safety briefings
But to someone unfamiliar with it, flying is:
Loud
Rushed
Rule-heavy
Full of unfamiliar language
Paddy arrives at the airport already slightly overwhelmed, trying his best to follow instructions that everyone else seems to understand instinctively.
Airports: Designed for Speed, Not Clarity
One reason Paddy’s misunderstanding feels believable is because airports are not intuitive spaces.
Think about it:
Signs use abbreviations
Announcements are rushed
Staff assume baseline knowledge
Everyone is in a hurry
For a first-time traveler, it’s easy to feel like you’ve walked into a system where everyone knows the rules—except you.
Paddy isn’t ignoring instructions. He’s trying to make sense of them.
The Moment of Confusion
At the heart of Paddy’s Plane Misunderstanding is a moment where Paddy hears or reads something—but interprets it too literally.
Depending on the version:
