I sat next to a very fidgety lady on the plane home from Perth recently. She had that impatient air about her that left me convinced she’d climb out on the wing and flap her arms if she thought it would help us reach our destination sooner.

As someone who loves travelling and, more specifically, air travel, I found her behaviour just a little odd. But there was one thing she did that I found odd for all the wrong reasons.

Not long after take-off my neighbour was lucky enough to have a special meal delivered straight to her seat. As an avid fan of in-flight dining, I looked on in frustration, and envy, at her bounty. Particularly as the food trolly delivering my meal was quite a way off.

In the 10 minutes that passed between her meal being delivered by VIP courier and mine arriving battered and bruised by snail mail, she did not touch her meal once. She didn’t so much as lift the lid on her meal for a sneak peek. It was the only time during the flight that she sat patiently watching the world fly past our window.

It wasn’t until after my meal was delivered and I’d started devouring it like a cave man that I realised what she was up to. She’d been considerately waiting for me to receive my meal before even contemplating touching hers.

Manners like that are few and far between these days. I found it so refreshing that when her elbow slowly started staking a claim on our shared armrest a little while later, I was more than happy to surrender.