An airplane passenger was initially baffled as to why it “smelled so bad” on his flight, until he saw what was under his seat.
Francesco Treu, an Italian living in Vienna, Austria, took to his TikTok, @trueee_francesco, to reveal the source of the midair stench. “Who raised you?” a caption posted alongside the video reads. In the clip, which has been watched over 4.3 million times, Treu can be seen sitting in his seat on the plane with his right hand covering his mouth and nose.
He is being filmed by another individual sitting across the aisle from him on the flight and, initially, it is not clear what is causing the smell. “I was wondering why my flight smelled so bad …” an on-screen caption says.
While the more-observant viewers may initially pick up on the cause of the stink, the person behind the camera decides to ram the point home by zooming in just under Treu’s seat.
If there were any doubts to what was causing the smell, this zoom-in extinguishes them, with the camera focusing in on a pair of bare feet visible under Treu’s seat. It would appear from the video that the person sitting behind Treu has opted to remove his shoes and socks for the duration of the flight.
Newsweek reached out to Treu for comment. He gave permission for his clip to feature online but has yet to respond to the request for further comment.
While there is no way of knowing conclusively that the person’s feet were causing a stink, the removal of all footwear in midair is something that tends to be frowned upon.
In 2023, a survey commissioned by travel website Kayak on the “unspoken rules of air travel” revealed 76 percent of respondents felt it was wrong to take socks off on a flight.
It was a closer call when it came to shoes, but the practice of removing them was still frowned upon by the majority with 56 percent of U.S. respondents of the opinion that shoes should stay on during a flight compared with 44 percent who had no problem with it.
Bad smells were another source of ire among respondents. The survey found that 92 percent of people polled said it was wrong to bring any food with strong smells on a plane.
Tinned fish (89 percent), hard-boiled eggs (74 percent) and a rack of ribs (84 percent) were among the most vehemently opposed.
Could an unseen block of cheese be the true cause of the smell disrupting Treu’s flight? It is entirely possible, but if the comments left under the video are anything to go by, it would appear situations like this are common enough in society.
One viewer wrote: “A few weeks ago I stepped into a train and asked my bf [boyfriend] a little bit too loud: ‘that air conditioning smells like horrible cheese.’ I sat down and saw a man next to me without his shoes on, looking at me. Didn’t even take the hint. I didn’t mean to be passive aggressive, it actually smelled like that.”
Another commented: “I was at the library reading a book and this guy came in a sat nearby, took off his shoes, it was like an atomic stink bomb went off, it was epic, my eyes started watering, I couldn’t breathe.”
Beyond the smell and hygiene concerns, taking shoes or socks off on a flight can pose other, more practical problems.
In an interview with the website Afar, aviation safety expert Christine Negroni said that passengers should be advised to keep their shoes on as part of the safety briefings at the start of every flight.
“Most airplane crashes are survivable and don’t have fatalities, but when a plane lands in an unexpected place or at an unexpected time, there are lots of things that can cause you trouble as you try to get out of the airplane, including broken glass, burning fuel, asphalt, mountainous terrain, or whatever,” Negroni said. “If you don’t have shoes on, you’re more likely to have your feet injured. It’s as simple as that.”
TikTok/trueee_francesco