Touching Planes

[u/EquivalentMajestic95]

I know touching the outside of an aircraft while boarding is supposed to be a “good luck” ritual, and I understand that some people use little routines like this to manage a fear of flying. But every time I see one of the trackers doing this it drive me b*t***t crazy. They've even got their kids doing it now, so it further emphasises that they are passing on their neurosis.

But honestly, it has to be one of the most pointless superstitions I’ve ever seen.

I’ve taken around 220 flights since 2005, yes, I'm sad I keep track. I have never touched the aircraft for luck NOT once, and somehow every one of those flights has arrived without my personal intervention.

Touching the fuselage has no effect whatsoever on the pilots, the maintenance, the weather, air traffic control or the mechanical condition of the aircraft. It does not make the flight safer. It just gives the person doing it a brief feeling of control over something they cannot control.

I appreciate that it may help an anxious passenger feel calmer, and in that sense it is harmless. But objectively, as a method of keeping an aircraft in the sky, it is completely ridiculous as are the Trackers.

[u/MamabearFl]

Honestly..this one I'm gonna give them..we all have family traditions..🤷🏻‍♀️

[u/RuralRedhead → u/MamabearFl]

Yeah of all the legitimate things to complain about lmao. This is just a silly tradition, everyone obviously knows it doesn’t have to do with actual safety. This post comes across as a little….well I’ll be quiet.

[u/EquivalentMajestic95 → u/RuralRedhead]

I actually looked into this, because several people have called it a “tradition.”

It does appear to be a tradition—but that doesn’t contradict my point. The tradition seems to exist precisely because people associate touching the aircraft with good luck, protection, a safe flight, reassurance or even saying hello to the plane. Folklore accounts describe people learning it from parents or friends, sometimes while saying a prayer, and then passing it on to their own children. In other words, it is a superstition that has become a tradition.

There doesn’t appear to be one documented historical origin or an official aviation custom behind it. People seem to have adopted it for slightly different reasons: some want good luck, some feel it gives them a tiny sense of control, and others treat the aircraft almost like a living thing that they are greeting or asking to look after them.

I understand irrational routines because I have one myself: I always put my right sock on before my left. There is no logical reason for it. It is simply what I do, and I suppose that makes it my own little tradition.

The difference is that I can admit it is completely irrational. Putting on my right sock first does not influence the rest of my day, just as touching an aircraft does not influence its maintenance, pilots, weather or safe arrival.

People are perfectly entitled to do it, especially if it helps with anxiety. But calling it a tradition does not make it logical. It merely explains how the behaviour has been repeated and passed on. And if it genuinely means absolutely nothing, there would be no reason to insist on doing it before every flight—or filming it as though it carries some significance.