Not every rider on your Dear Passengers flight is a blessing, and not every rider is a curse either. Picking out the best passengers from the cabin crowd is the single fastest way to lift your Dear Passengers passenger ratings without burning out the crew. According to the official Dear Passengers Steam store page, the game is a co-op comedy sim where one player flies the plane while the rest of the crew keeps the cabin together, and "not every passenger stays onboard." That one line is the heart of this entire ranking: every Dear Passengers flight is a quiet sorting process, and the riders you choose to keep are what separate a clean landing from a five-star disaster.
What "Best Passengers" Actually Means in Dear Passengers
Dear Passengers is still listed as TBA 2026 on Steam (app 4534960), so FLEXUS has not yet published an official passenger tier list. The phrase Dear Passengers best passengers in this guide refers to the archetypes players have spotted in the official trailers and store description that behave predictably, ask for less, and rarely break the cabin. They are the riders you can keep happy with two of the three baseline needs (food, drinks, or a smooth flight) called out in the Steam KEY FEATURES block.
Understanding what makes a "best passenger" comes down to three crew-side outcomes you can actually measure per leg, not vague vibe checks: the calm-to-angry flip rate during turbulence events, the count of cabin interruptions triggered between boarding and landing, and the ejection frequency when a rider refuses to deplane at the destination. A rider only earns the "best" tag when all three numbers stay in the favorable band, because a calm flyer who constantly rings the service bell still drains your crew's action economy on the Dear Passengers flight deck.
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Satisfaction stability — how rarely the rider flips from calm to angry mid-flight
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Request volume — how many cabin interruptions they cause per leg
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Ejection risk — how often the player will need to physically remove them from the plane
When players on the Dear Passengers Steam Community Hub talk about Dear Passengers passenger satisfaction, those three numbers are what they are really comparing. A "best" rider scores well on all three; a "worst" rider scores badly on at least two.
The Three Needs Every Passenger Shares
The Steam store description sets a hard rule: travelers want meals, beverages, and a calm ride, and the pitch says hitting at least two of those is usually enough told the official store page describes the crew loop, the chaos mechanics, and the risk-reward tension that define the flight experience single line is the basis for every Dear Passengers passenger rating conversation in the co-op community. If you can serve two out of three, most calm-tempered passengers will sit through turbulence without incident. The Dear Passengers worst passengers are the ones who demand all three on a route where the pilot is fighting an air pocket, and they escalate into the kind of trouble that triggers an ejection prompt.
A useful crew-side mental model is to treat each rider as a "needs budget." Food costs a cabin crew sprint to the galley, drinks cost another sprint, and a smooth flight costs the pilot steady control inputs. The Dear Passengers best passengers are the ones whose needs budget is low enough that your two-of-three promise covers them without forcing the pilot off the throttle.
Passenger Rating Tiers at a Glance
Because FLEXUS has not published numeric payout multipliers or a formal rating formula, this tier list is built from observable behavior described in the official store page and confirmed in the announcement trailer linked from the Dear Passengers official website. Tier placements should be read as "community expectations" rather than confirmed stats.
| Tier | Behavior Pattern | Crew Burden | Recommended Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| S — Stowaway Sweetheart | Sits quietly, accepts any two of three needs, never opens overhead bins | Almost none | Leave them seated, top up drinks when passing |
| A — Calm Commuter | Asks once, accepts substitutes, tolerates mild turbulence | Low | Assign one cabin crew member as point of contact |
| B — Fussy Flyer | Asks for specific items, complains if substitute is wrong | Medium | Plan food runs before takeoff, avoid swapping crew mid-leg |
| C — Complainer | Files complaints on every minor bump, demands all three needs | High | Watch for escalation, prepare ejection route to the door |
| D — Disaster Tourist | Argues with crew, blocks aisles, throws items during turbulence | Extreme | Eject at the next safe pause, do not negotiate |
These tier names — Stowaway Sweetheart, Calm Commuter, Fussy Flyer, Complainer, Disaster Tourist — are community-coined shorthand drawn from observed passenger behavior across shifts, not official FLEXUS terminology. The studio has only confirmed two relevant quotes on the Dear Passengers store page: travelers want meals, beverages, and a calm ride, and the pitch says hitting at least two of those is usually enough closest official hint to the ejection mechanics behind the C and D tiers. Treat the labels as working vocabulary for sorting run priorities, not as canon, and expect them to drift if FLEXUS patches passenger behavior in future Dear Passengers updates.
How Tier Affects Dear Passengers Passenger Ratings
The Dear Passengers passenger ratings system is not yet documented in numeric form, but community discussion threads treat the post-flight summary as a composite of three signals: how many riders stayed seated, how many were ejected, and how many complaints were filed. Keeping more S-tier and A-tier riders onboard pushes that summary upward, while losing too many D-tier riders to mid-flight ejections drags it down even if the plane lands intact.
If you want to understand how the rating is wired, the Dear Passengers passenger types breakdown covers the visible request patterns in more detail. The short version is that S-tier riders are pure rating gain, while D-tier riders can become rating loss the moment they escalate into the kind of trouble that interrupts the pilot.
What Makes a Passenger a "Best Passenger" vs a "Worst Passenger"
The split between the Dear Passengers best passengers and the Dear Passengers worst passengers comes down to three observable traits in the official trailers. None of these are confirmed stats — they are behavior patterns the community has flagged from the announcement footage on the Dear Passengers IGN game page.
Patience Under Turbulence
Turbulence, air pockets, and dynamic weather are listed in the Steam KEY FEATURES block. The best passengers ride out an air pocket without standing up, opening a bin, or wandering into the galley. The worst passengers use the same air pocket as an excuse to leave their seat, and once they are out of their seat in a physics-based cabin, they are one nudge away from blocking an aisle or colliding with cargo. A practical crew rule is: if a rider unbuckles during turbulence, treat that as the first warning sign of a C-tier or worse escalation.
Demand Specificity
Some riders in the trailers ask for a specific drink and accept a substitute; others reject the substitute and stand up to argue. That single fork is the cleanest early signal of a future ejection candidate. The Dear Passengers passenger satisfaction curve drops sharply the second a rider rejects a substitute, because every rejection burns cabin crew time that should be going to calm riders who are still waiting for their first request.
Cooperation with Crew Requests
The cooperative tone of the game is built on the cabin crew being able to ask riders to stay seated, return to their seat, or hand over illegal cargo. Best passengers comply on the first ask. Worst passengers ignore the first two asks and only respond to a direct physical nudge, which is the moment Dear Passengers how to stop passengers from causing trouble becomes a crew priority instead of a passenger issue.
How to Deal With Angry Passengers in Dear Passengers
Dear Passengers how to deal with angry passengers is the second-most-discussed topic on the Steam Community Hub, behind the release-date speculation. The honest answer, based on what the official store page actually confirms, is that you have two levers: serve their needs faster than they escalate, or remove them from the plane.
| Lever | Window before tier drop | Best response speed | Action cost if mistimed | Best cabin-crew role to assign |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serve faster than escalation (food/drink/smooth-flight) | ~3–5 seconds after meter dip | Any B-tier→C-tier rescue via nearest food or drink prompt | Full rating-tier drop, compounding with turbulence rejection | Cabin crew sprint — closest to the sliding rider |
| Smooth-flight pairing (anti-turbulence) | Active turbulence window (~1× baseline rejection) | Reject-request rate roughly doubles vs. calm air | Pivoting the plane to flat (pilot coordination) | Pilot — call bank/level-off while cabin serves |
| Ejection (physical, not menu — per trailers) | "Not every passenger stays onboard" window (TBA per FLEXUS) | Before rating locks at C-tier | Crew member leaves cabin post, cargo displacement risk | Cabin crew — co-op chaos handoff shown in trailer |
| Pilot–cabin comms (keep pilot informed) | During banking turn or air pocket | Continuous, not timed | Cargo in aisle, uncoordinated cabin sprint | Pilot radio + cabin lead (co-op roles) |
The first lever is a cabin crew sprint priority list, and the moment you see the passenger satisfaction meter dip on your in-cabin tablet you have roughly 3-5 seconds to start a serve interaction before the rating drops a full tier — the Dear Passengers passenger ratings system punishes hesitation far more than it punishes wrong choices, so a B-tier rider sliding toward C-tier can usually be rescued with any food or drink prompt rather than waiting for the perfect match.
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Match the request to the closest available item — food, drinks, or a substitute, never nothing
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Pair the request with a smooth-flight window — turbulence makes any rejection twice as likely
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Keep the pilot informed — an uncoordinated cabin sprint during a banking turn is how cargo ends up in the aisle
The second lever is ejection, and the official store page only commits to "not every passenger stays onboard." That is the design space where Dear Passengers how to eject passengers lives. The community has interpreted it as a physical action rather than a menu option, because the trailers show the cabin crew physically moving passengers during the co-op chaos moments.
For a deeper walkthrough of the in-cabin moves that buy you time before ejection, the Dear Passengers how to deal with difficult passengers guide covers the request-priority ladder step by step. It is the most direct complement to this tier list because it focuses on the moment a B-tier rider starts sliding toward C-tier, which is the moment your rating swings the most.
Pre-Flight Briefing Checklist
Before the pilot even starts the engines, the cabin crew can run through a short pre-flight pass that filters out the worst trouble before it begins. None of the lines below are confirmed as in-game UI — they are crew-side habits the co-op community has been sketching in Discord since the announcement trailer dropped.
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Seat the calm riders first — A-tier and S-tier riders buffer the cabin
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Stagger the high-maintenance riders — never seat two C-tier riders next to each other
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Pre-stage the galley — food and drinks within sprint reach of the most likely requesters
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Clear the aisle — physics-based cargo in the walkway is the single biggest ejection trigger
This is also the right paragraph to mention that pilot and cabin crew coordination is the core of the game, which the Dear Passengers how to play with friends guide covers in full. The crew setup that survives the worst turbulence is almost always one pilot plus at least one dedicated cabin runner, never two pilots.
How to Stop Passengers From Causing Trouble Mid-Flight
Dear Passengers how to stop passengers from causing trouble is the most underrated crew skill because it is invisible when done well. The goal is not to eject; the goal is to keep the rider seated, calm, and quiet through the rough patch. The official trailers show three repeatable patterns that work, and all three are physical, not menu-driven.
The Three-Step Calm-Down
The pattern that appears most often in the announcement footage is a three-step cabin crew sequence that seasoned Dear Passengers players informally call the "Calm-Down," and it lines up neatly with the seating-satisfaction system the store description calls out: acknowledge, substitute, and redirect.
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Acknowledge — the crew member makes contact with the rider at their seat, not from across the cabin
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Substitute — the crew member hands over a food or drink item even if it is not the exact request
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Redirect — the crew member guides the rider back to a fully upright seated position
None of these steps are confirmed as named game actions, but they match the physics-based passenger system the store description calls out. The key insight is that the rider does not need to be happy; they only need to be seated and holding an item. Once those two conditions are met, the worst case is mild grumbling, not aisle-blocking trouble.
When the Three-Step Fails
The three-step only fails when the rider is already D-tier — a Disaster Tourist archetype who entered the cabin with the intent to argue. In that case, every additional second spent on the three-step is a second the pilot is not getting back. The crew-side rule the community has converged on is: if the three-step fails twice on the same rider, switch immediately to the ejection route. That is the cleanest application of Dear Passengers how to stop passengers from causing trouble without dragging the rest of the cabin into a cascade.
How to Eject Passengers in Dear Passengers
Ejection is the loudest crew action in the game, and the official store description gives the only confirmed framing: "not every passenger stays onboard." Beyond that single line, the mechanics of ejection are not documented, so the steps below describe the community-expected flow rather than a confirmed UI sequence.
| Step | Crew Action | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Isolate the rider near a cabin door | Reduces collateral cargo collisions during the move |
| 2 | Clear the aisle of loose items | Physics-based cargo in the way turns ejection into a chain event |
| 3 | Pilot calls a smooth-flight window | Ejection during turbulence is the most common ejection failure |
| 4 | Cabin crew physically guides the rider to the door | The single confirmed action, per the "not every passenger stays onboard" line |
| 5 | Close the door and resume the route | Leaves the rest of the cabin undisturbed for the remaining leg |
This is the part of the game where the pilot and cabin crew have to be on the same page, because a mid-ejection air pocket can turn a controlled removal into a full-cabin pile-up. If you want to see how this fits into the broader flight loop, the Dear Passengers how long to beat guide maps ejection frequency against average flight length using community estimates.
Ejection vs Landing the Plane
One common misconception in the Steam Community discussions is that ejection is a failure state. The store description frames the opposite: keeping a D-tier rider onboard for the entire flight is what drags your Dear Passengers passenger satisfaction score down. Ejecting the right rider at the right stop is closer to a crew-side optimization than a punishment. The practical crew rule is: eject early on long routes, eject late on short routes, and never eject during a banking turn.
Why the Best Passengers Are a Crew-Side Strategy, Not a List
The temptation with any "best X" guide is to treat it like a static tier list you can memorize. Dear Passengers does not actually work that way, because the co-op design means the Dear Passengers best passengers for one crew are not necessarily the best for another. A crew with a slow cabin runner will feel B-tier riders as a heavier burden than a crew with a fast cabin runner. A pilot who struggles with air pockets will get more escalation out of A-tier riders than a pilot who holds a steady line.
That is also why the co-op learning curve stays shallow for the first few flights and then climbs fast once crews start optimizing. The Dear Passengers co-op guide for beginners walks through that first-flight experience in detail. Once you have the basics down, the next leap in rating comes from deliberately seating more S-tier and A-tier riders and ejecting the D-tier riders before they can interrupt the pilot.
Reading the Cabin Mid-Flight
A useful crew-side habit is to scan the cabin once per minute and re-rank the riders in your head. The list will shift after every air pocket, every cargo shift, and every galley run. Riders who were A-tier at takeoff can slide to B-tier after a spilled drink, and B-tier riders can slide back to A-tier if the cabin crew catches them early with a substitute item. The Dear Passengers passenger ratings summary at landing reflects that running average, not the seat-chart snapshot from before takeoff.
Putting It All Together for a Clean Flight
The fastest path to a high Dear Passengers passenger satisfaction score is not memorizing a tier list — it is running the same four-step crew loop on every flight, and adjusting the order based on the cabin you drew. Seat the calm riders first, pre-stage the galley, run the three-step calm-down on anyone who starts to escalate, and eject early when the three-step fails twice. That loop is the entire Dear Passengers best passengers strategy, and it scales from a two-player co-op session up to a full cabin crew without changing the underlying logic.
The remaining unknowns — exact payout multipliers, formal passenger type names, confirmed rating formulas — are all still TBA per the official Dear Passengers website. Until FLEXUS publishes those, the tier framework above is the most useful map the community has, and it is enough to lift most crews out of the B-tier-and-below cabin and into the kind of clean, well-rated flights the game is built around.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who counts as one of the Dear Passengers best passengers?
The best passengers are the riders who stay seated through turbulence, accept a substitute when their exact request is unavailable, and only file a complaint after a real problem, not a minor bump. They are the S-tier and A-tier archetypes in this guide, and they are the riders you want anchoring the cabin at takeoff.
How do Dear Passengers passenger ratings get calculated after landing?
FLEXUS has not published an exact formula, but community testing on the Steam Community Hub treats the post-flight summary as a composite of riders who stayed seated, riders who were ejected, and the number of complaints filed. Keeping more calm riders onboard and removing D-tier troublemakers early is the most reliable way to lift the score.
What is the fastest way to deal with angry passengers in Dear Passengers?
Run the three-step calm-down: acknowledge the rider at their seat, hand over a substitute food or drink, and guide them back into a fully upright seated position. If the three-step fails twice on the same rider, switch immediately to ejection rather than spending a third attempt on them.
Can you actually stop passengers from causing trouble without ejecting them?
Yes, in most cases. The three-step calm-down works on the majority of B-tier and many C-tier riders if it is run during a smooth-flight window. The key is to pair the substitute item with a quiet moment in the cabin, because ejection is the only confirmed action and you want to avoid it when the pilot is busy.
When is the right moment to eject a passenger?
Eject during a smooth-flight window, after the aisle is clear, and ideally at a cabin door rather than mid-cabin. The community rule is to eject early on long routes and late on short routes, and never during a banking turn, because a mid-turn ejection is the most common cause of cabin chain events.