The Shocking Reason You Should Never Fly While Wearing Black Socks

There’s always something magical about flying. We spend most of our lives simply walking or driving from one destination to another. Once you get on an airplane, though, you get to fly high above the land. It’s the closest you’ll ever come to feeling like Superman, and let’s face it: that’s pretty darn cool.

However, flying can also be intimidating because there are so many rules, and accidentally violating one of them could lead to delays or even getting your flight canceled altogether. Making matters worse, there are even a few unspoken rules…the kind the TSA doesn’t care about, but that everyone working on the plane considers sacred.

One of the biggest rules is, weirdly enough, to never wear black socks when you fly. What’s up with this rule? What’s the worst that could happen, and why is it such a no-no in the first place? Keep reading to find out!

When airplane passengers get a little too comfortable

Before we get to why you shouldn’t wear black socks on the airplane, we need to address the elephant in the room. Namely, why the heck would anyone even see the color of your socks in the first place? And it comes down to something that’s a core part of human nature: the need to get comfortable and relax when you are stuck in place for a very long time.

By the time you board the plane, you’ve likely been in the airport for at least a couple of hours. And you have probably been on your feet for a long time, especially if it’s a busy travel day. Once you get in your seat and the plane is in the air, you will likely be tempted to take your shoes off, letting your feet out for some much-needed relief.

Now, unless they’re super stinky (more on that in a bit), nobody cares about you taking off your shoes mid-flight. But if you’re wearing black socks, flight attendants warn that you’re probably going to cause a special kind of “turbulence” for yourself and everyone else on the plane!

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Black socks can lead to accidents

So, here’s the deal: it doesn’t matter if you wear black socks as long as you keep your feet directly in front of you. But on a long flight, passengers tend to stretch their limbs, leading to their feet being in the aisle. This also happens when they fall asleep, their feet sticking out while they are snoozing the flight away.

That snoozing is far more likely to happen during night flights, when the lighting inside the plane is low. And that’s exactly why you shouldn’t wear black socks: in the dim lighting, your dark feet will blend right into the shadows. Someone walking past you might end up tripping over you as they are walking down the aisle. Obviously, it would be bad enough to simply trip a fellow passenger. But in a worst-case scenario, you could end up tripping a flight attendant or other staff member while they are trying to tend to an emergency!

Black socks can lead to your own injuries, too

Hopefully, the above provides enough incentive for you not to wear black socks on the airplane. During night flights (and remember, enough delays can turn any flight into a night flight), dark-colored socks will blend into the shadows, potentially tripping anyone who doesn’t see that your feet have fallen into the aisle. But if the prospect of hurting others isn’t enough to make you keep the black socks at home, consider this: you could very easily end up hurting yourself, too!

Remember, even in First Class, planes just don’t have that much room inside. So when somebody ends up tripping over your feet, where do you think they are going to end up? More often than not, they’ll fall right into you, potentially causing major pain (especially if they land on a wrist or an elbow). If they are carrying anything when they trip, those items will probably land on top of you. Even if nobody ends up tripping, someone rolling the food cart down the aisle could drive right into your foot, not seeing you until it’s too late.

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Some shoes are meant to stay on

Now, the tips above are perfect for keeping your feet safe after you take your shoes off. Long before that happens, you need to determine whether you should take your shoes off in the first place. The answer to that can be found in the answer to another question: just how stinky are your feet right now?

If you must take your shoes off on a flight, it’s important to take a bath or shower before you leave the house and to wear fresh socks on your feet. That may sound simple, but plenty of passengers never get this memo, and they end up stinking up an entire flight with their nasty feet. As long as you keep yourself clean and don’t wear black socks, however, you can take your shoes off on the plane as often as you want!