Flying is one of the fastest modes of travel around the world, but it's not as easy as it used to be anymore with the rush of life and increased risks. Flights are becoming more stressful now with problems like lost luggage and your flights being canceled at the last moment. Peaceful travel in the skies has become more of a myth.
But as difficult as it has become for us customers or passengers. It's no easier on the flight crew or the pilots, either. Going back and forth on long flights and dealing with unpleasant customers and situations is difficult for them too. Here are some of the most annoying and enraging passengers; these people have shared a flight with.
Baby blues.
I am a pilot, and once I was flying from Chicago to Milwaukee and back. The team and I were eager to finish the four-day journey and return home. Because it was snowing, we were all boarded and waiting for the de-icing vehicle to arrive and spray us. They eventually sprayed us down after more than an hour of waiting for the truck, and we immediately began moving back.
And as we were pushing back, the flight attendant called up and told us that a woman wanted to exit the plane. When we told her she couldn't, the woman made a strange claim, telling the flight attendant that her baby was experiencing a medical emergency and hence she had to be pulled off the plane. She was being really assertive, so we decided to let her go. We drove back to the gate and released her. Even though the baby appeared to be alright, we nevertheless questioned if paramedics were necessary.
She refused to take the baby to the clinic that was 50 feet away and refused medical care. Since they had checked baggage, we had to ask the ramp staff to search the cargo hold for their luggage. At that point, we were almost two hours behind schedule, but we had finally given them the day off and were getting ready to go. And as we were getting ready to close the door, the gate agent ran up to us.
What she told us made us nothing but mad. She claimed that the woman asked us to board the next available flight to Milwaukee after finding out that this was the last flight back she wanted to come with us. The gate agent was told that she would not be boarding the plane again, and the captain and I exchanged startled looks before leaving.
It was a sickening experience.
I once sat next to this man, who was probably in his mid-30s, on a flight to Boston. He looked like he was quite ill, maybe with the flu. He had an aisle seat, whereas I was seated near the window. I put on my headphones once we were at cruising altitude since I had a long flight and wanted to take a nap. When I had both earphones in, I was unable to hear anything.
I was about to fall asleep with my eyes closed when I suddenly felt my leg become hot and wet. When I opened my eyes, I noticed the most horrifying scene: He was vomiting a load and had his head between his legs. I had no idea that much liquid could fit in a human gut. I was terrified as I sat there. The man had vomited all over my calf, his legs, his shoes, and even inside my shoe.
The smell filled the cabin of the plane we were in, and I had nothing I could change into in my carry-on. After that, I always carried a spare set of clothes with me.
Two peas in a pod.
One time, when I was traveling to someplace, I remember sitting next to a mammoth-like man. He was a ginormous 6'6", 400-pound linebacker. He was so big that our armrests wouldn't go down, and even though my body was extending out into the aisle, his legs were still almost on top of mine.
After the takeoff, I got out of my seat and stood in the plane's rear until the final approach. The flight attendant was sympathetic and said, "Sorry about that. I don't know why they put the two biggest guys next to each other". I smiled at first, but then it hit me—it was then that I realized that other than being sympathetic to my situation, it was also a backhanded comment that implied that I was the second FATTEST person on the plane.
Walk the line.
I was once flying standby from Des Moines to visit a friend in Mississippi. The flight was booked, and the departure time was 5:45 am. Since it was so early, I had hoped that someone could forget to set their alarm and arrive late, allowing me to grab their seat, but no such luck. I felt bad when I saw the final woman being wheeled onto the plane.
I then experienced a brief moment of hope when security informed the gate agent that the woman was being wheeled there because she was trashed and that it was up to the gate agent to decide whether or not she should be let on the aircraft. The gate agent claimed she could travel if she could safely navigate the terminal to the plane. I waited, hoping she would trip and fall so I could take her place.
Right at the point when she was almost at the plane, she face-planted, and I lucked out and got my seat on the plane.
All fired up.
I used to work for a company that allowed standby passengers to travel for free. When I was traveling to New York one day, a girl who worked as a gate agent for our airline was on board with a number of her friends. When you fly like this, the airline imposes a lot of regulations on you in order to protect its reputation.
These girls boarded and started behaving stupidly straight away. It was obvious that the APU had not been connected in order for the plane's electricity to operate the AC because the cabin was warm. The AC was switched on as soon as the APU was connected and turned on, and stuff began blowing out the vents. People were still loading items into the overhead bins even though the plane was completely loaded.
What looked like steam, dust, or mist started coming out of the vents. That's when the girls ruined everything. They started yelling, "FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE ON THE PLANE"! Needless to say, the flight attendants did not find this hilarious, and they were all removed from the plane.
The attendants had to weigh in on this case.
Once when I was flying back from Hawaii, the overhead storage was almost entirely packed when everyone boarded. This elderly man, who had a bitter attitude, had just boarded and was sitting in a front-row Economy Plus seat. Because it was overflowing, the bin over his seat was shut. The elderly man unlocked the bin and took a suitcase out of it.
Holding it up, he asked, "Whose bag is this"? The guy who owned the bag spoke up. The old man's next move had everybody's jaws drop. He threw it right in the middle of the aisle and yelled, "Well, find a new place for it! I paid $60 for this seat"! Meanwhile, there was still a line of people behind him waiting to get to their seats. The two men began arguing, and someone finally flagged down an attendant who diffused the situation.
The other guy's bag was placed among the possessions of the flight attendants, but they left the old man's bag where it was. In exchange for having to put up with that nonsense, the attendants later served the guy the first-class supper.
All revved up with no place to go.
I took my first flight from England to the US when I was about eight years old and moved there a year and a half later. The midnight flight departed at around ten o'clock. I was eight years old, and I couldn't sleep because I was so bored halfway through. Since the plane was only about halfway filled, I decided to explore. There was a reasonably huge man who was still awake about five or six rows up.
There was nobody else nearby, so I struck up a conversation with him. He was nice and friendly; he cracked jokes and had candy too. It was nice that the flight attendant continued to bring us beverages and snacks long after they had finished serving everyone else. They also kept apologizing to him and asking if he wanted them to make me leave him alone, which I thought was funny.
Later, I found myself dozing off close to him. He brought me a blanket and let me sleep. I was shocked by the scenario when I awoke; my mother took me to the rear of the plane after profusely apologizing to him. She lectured me for embarrassing her when we got to our seats, and we didn't speak again for the rest of the journey.
He approached my mother as we were exiting the plane and assured her that everything was okay and that I had kept him entertained. He admitted to her that he hated traveling alone. He hugged me and then wrote something for her. She didn't reveal to me that the man from the plane was Meatloaf until a few years later. This is still my favorite "I met a star" story, especially once he became famous once more a few years later.
She was out in a flash.
We were struck by lightning on the day we were traveling to St. Louis because of the poor weather. It wasn't something very unusual there; it happens. So because of that were given the go-ahead to land since it was unclear what damage had been caused. I took a look around once I was on the ground and noticed the damage. The plane was down for what I assumed to be obvious reasons, so the outgoing flight—the final of the evening—was canceled. Since we were scheduled to board the jet back out, we were left without a motel for the night, which meant no place to stay.
So, we were assisting the gate agent as we awaited word from crew scheduling. People requested that we go because they were furious. I gestured out the window at the plane's enormous scorch mark and burned wingtip that it wasn't a call out of personal reasons but rather because of the damage to the plane. One of the women then came near me and started shouting at me, "Do you think I give a hoot about your paint job?! Get me on that plane and get me home, or you'll be sorry"! Needless to say, the woman didn't board any of our flights the following day, as this behavior couldn't be tolerated.
Citizen sane.
My father worked for an airline for more than 30 years, and it's safe to say that he had seen a lot of crazy incidents, but this, however, was crazier than them all. After 9/11, on a trip from JFK to Heathrow, a woman begged to be allowed off the aircraft while the plane was approximately the fourth or fifth in line for takeoff. Since the doors were locked and they were getting near the runway, the attendant obviously declined. That upset the woman so much that she went crazy and called the emergency services from her cellphone.
She said that she was an American citizen being held on a foreign plane against her will and that they were ready to take her to a different nation forcefully. She was removed from the aircraft, and the flight was halted while an inquiry was conducted after three minutes of police and FBI vehicles surrounding the aircraft. And after the investigation, she was ultimately simply an idiot for us and the emergency services who wrecked everyone's flight.
Short haul flight.
I used to frequently fly those little commuter planes with just 14 rows, with one seat on one side and two on the other. I would reserve one of the first few seats on the side with single seats, and most of the time, that was alright. On one journey, though, I had the bad luck of having the window seat on the first row of two. I am 6'2" with a wide football player physique, so that was bad.
I asked the woman in the aisle if she would mind moving into the window before I sat down. She gave a sharp stare in response. After much crying and wailing, she finally stood up to let me pass. She tried to push me off the armrest as soon as I sat down by poking me with her elbows. It was useless because I couldn't sit up straight on that side of the plane due to physical restrictions.
The whole time, she didn't say a word to me. Finally, she became so angry that she punched the call button and started insulting the flight attendant about how rude it was to have me occupying her space and how she couldn't sit like that for the whole 45-minute trip. She still hadn't said anything to me at this point but was just howling at the flight attendant.
The flight attendant grinned after being belittled. She was completely conscious of how to handle her. She relocated the woman to the very last row of the plane after telling her that there was an open seat. She whined nonstop about how pointless this was and how she was going to sue everyone.
The perils of flying.
I spent five years working as a flight attendant, during which I received insults over the quality of the ginger ale I served at the time, was hit right in the face, pinched in the rear, spit on, and punched, additionally on top of all that I sometimes even had to deal with passengers trying to place their bags on my jumpseat just before landing and couples trying to get it on in the galley. People at times also left their bare feet on the bulkhead walls.
But what was the worst thing I've ever gone through? I had trash dumped on my food tray while I was still eating from it. I sometimes feel that even though my job demanded patience even then some people took it too far by not even treating me as a human being or being courteous in any way.
It's a crab crab crab crab world.
I was on a plane in the late 1970s when I saw a very little child, maybe five years old at most, traveling alone. Her loving grandparents brought her to her seat. They bid farewell while sobbing and holding tissues to their eyes as they placed a padded cooler beneath her feet. She had just left Maryland and was traveling back to California.
She was quite calm and well-behaved, and the attendants frequently checked on her. She continued to unbuckle her belt as she knelt down to open the cooler and peek inside. With each minute of the journey from Maryland to California, she appeared to be becoming more anxious. After a while, I smiled and asked, "Do you have a pet mouse in there, or maybe a rabbit"?
She looked up at me she said, "No, it's Maryland crab cakes." Then she burst into tears. She told me, "Mommy said to bring home Maryland crab cakes, so Nana packed them. Mommy told me not to lose the crab cakes, or she'd spank me forever. What if someone takes my crab cakes"? Then, she just started to sob, saying, "I can't lose the crab cakes. I can't lose the crab cakes".
I felt so bad for the kid who was under enormous pressure to bring her mom's priceless cargo to her. I said, "Let's lock them up with a magic key. "We closed the cooler case with a zipper, and I pretended to lock it. There, I whispered as I slipped my invisible key into her pocket. Your crab cakes are yours to keep. You are now free to read or take sleep as you like. Okay, she replied. You must keep an eye on them for me as well. You bet, I said.
Her mother was at the gate when we landed, and she was carried from the plane by the attendant. "Come on," she said as she seized the girl's cooler. The mother did not hold the girl's hand or do anything else as she turned around and went in front of the girl while carrying the cooler. The girl turned around and waved at me as she followed her crab cake delivery while she was many strides in front of me.
Navigation situation.
I worked as a pilot for a small business in Canada's north. The planes I fly have only eight seats, so when flying a full load of people, it was necessary for a person to sit up front with me in the right seat. Once when I was traveling with a heavy load, the passenger sitting next to me was one of those arrogant, unpleasant men who believed they were always correct.
He asked me if I knew where we were five minutes after takeoff. After I gave him our specific location, he informed me that we were traveling in the wrong direction a short while later. I double-checked my GPS and other navigational devices to be sure I was on the right road to my destination. I corrected him and indicated the direction we should be traveling by pointing straight in front of us.
After that, I assumed he would leave me alone, but he pushed. Then he suggested that we should be turning around, thereby pointing over his right shoulder. At that point, I already knew this person was an idiot. He simply continued shaking his head the rest of the trip while I made repeated attempts to ignore him. I just gave him the "how about you just let the pilots do the navigation from now on" look after we arrived at our location.
She didn't have a leg to stand on.
Flying from Miami to New York City. Given that I hadn't actually slept in three days, I was excited that the seat next to me appeared to be vacant. The person in front of me started moaning to the flight attendant just as everyone was settling in. Her life or death was at stake? She insisted that her seat didn't have the extra legroom that she had paid for.
She was asking to sit farther toward the front of the plane. She was told that they couldn't move her up by the flight attendant; they didn't seem to know what she was talking about. The girl eventually gave up after much whining, and the flight attendant continued with her takeoff responsibilities.
Shortly after the girl moved to the emergency exit row, the flight attendant returned. The attendant went and asked if they would be willing to participate in the brief speech about what to do in case of an emergency. This girl refused, saying that she wouldn't. She probably believed that doing this would position her closer to the front of the plane.
The flight attendant offered the girl shift back to the vacant seat next to me if she objected to being close to the emergency exit. She then went completely crazy. She freaked when she was made to move to a seat further back on the plane. She yelled so loudly that the pilot emerged. She needed to be taken off the plane, and the entire crew agreed.
She raised a stink.
My husband was returning from Hawaii via plane. He noticed a strong body odor when he was standing in line to board the aircraft. He was terrified and unsure if it was him. He attempted to sneakily scent his armpits when he saw that several of the others waiting were also doing the exact same thing. He paused to reflect on it until they boarded, concluding that it was either someone else or that there was a mound of raw onions nearby.
He was traveling in first class with an aisle seat thanks to all of his frequent flyer miles. He took a seat and opened a book. He saw that the window seat next to him was vacant and continued to be so for some time. "A vacant row" Then, as boarding was coming to a close, an awful, overpowering odor suddenly permeated the cabin. The reactions were comical; it was so terrible that each first-class passenger responded by jerking their heads up to see what in the stinking world had just strolled into the plane.
It was a woman, perhaps in her late 20s or early 30s, dressed extremely hippie-chic in a flowing top over a tank top. She smelled as though she hadn't had a bath in days. My spouse was right next to her when she sat down. My husband was an experienced traveler, so he was used to a lot and had a reasonably good tolerance, but the fragrance of this woman made his eyes instantly begin to water.
When the flight attendant arrived, the woman placed her order for a Mai Tai. She then took a book out of her bag and began underlining sections. Call buttons were blaring nonstop, and nearly every other passenger on the flight was griping about being forced to go from Hawaii to Los Angeles in a metal cage with someone who smelled like she hadn't showered in ages.
My husband observed as the poor flight attendants were having many nervously hushed talks at the front of the plane over the course of the following fifteen minutes as this woman sat there reading. When he wasn't staring at the attendants, my husband would text me in dread. They were nodding and wide-eying him in response as he gave them his trademark "big eyes of dread."
The scent was so overpowering that my husband was afraid he was going to get a migraine. Neighbors were covering their faces with their shirts to block off the smell. The gate agent finally arrived. She motioned for the lady to accompany her to the entrance, where it appears that they gave the woman some soap and a new blouse and sent her to the restroom. They were so mistaken in believing that would make it better.
She reappeared a little while later with a fresh blouse on but her foul odor. She quickly sat back down and placed another drink order. Another several minutes passed as my husband continued to give me quiet "help me" glances as other passengers in the area started to become less silent with their concerns. Finally, it became clear that there would be a mutiny in the first-class cabin if nothing was done.
Two agents came up to the argument. My husband had to awkwardly sit in the center of the conversation, leaning against his seat back, because this lady had the window seat and he was in the aisle. The officers leaned in and informed the woman that she was unable to board the aircraft due to her unfitness to fly due to how horrible she stank. She said, "Just because you think I smell," incredulously. And "To me, this seems like a lawsuit."
The agents were as accommodating as they could while explaining that although they would be happy to put her up for the night in a hotel so she could take a shower, they couldn't let her board another Delta jet until she had showered and changed into new clothes. They all packed her belongings and left together after she didn't cause too much of a fuss.
She mumbled just before getting up that she had to leave that afternoon due to an important meeting she had back in Los Angeles. We're sorry we can't help you, but I believe there may still be space on a United aircraft, said one of the staff members. One of the most bizarre vacation experiences, according to my spouse.
Mind your manners.
I was a flight attendant. I was seated next to an extremely unbearable woman on a trip to Montreal. She started by making a crude remark about how little the plane was. When I informed her that her roller luggage wouldn't fit on the plane and would have to be gate checked, she threw a major tantrum. When I informed her that she was not permitted to use a seatbelt extender in the exit row due to FAA restrictions, she assumed I was trying to harm her.
Following then, it just got worse. When it was time for the service, I burnt my palm on the coffee maker while pouring her cup, but she insisted on another cup since the coffee wasn't hot enough for her. I assured her that I was powerless to raise the temperature. Additionally, she muttered something negative about me as she passed me on her way to the restroom since I was chatting with the two guys in the bottom row.
Sometimes people leave their manners and basic humanity when they leave their homes and fly to some other place.
Wrestlemaniac.
When on a plane, you see a lot of different kinds of people, and on one such regional flight, there were a few WWF—then WWE—wrestlers. The flight was almost ready to arrive, too one of them had the urge to use the restroom. The flight attendant advised him that he couldn't leave his seat since he couldn't while the plane was close to land.
Even after being asked not to leave his seat, he made the decision to act on his own impulse and stepped in the aisle instead. The wrestler was detained and prohibited from traveling on airlines.
Go on, get out.
My mother worked as a pilot for Northwest Airlines for a long time. And once, upon entering her aircraft, a guy said the most demeaning and sexist thing to her: "Ugh, a woman captain. I'm departing. Hearing that, she didn't even take a second and responded, "Good, get off my airplane. There are people waiting on the standby list to get on".
The man immediately made a U-turn and re-boarded. We then figured that he wanted her to submit and ask him nicely to come back, which she wasn't about to do under any circumstances. Can you imagine what some sexist people would do to soothe their own insecurities and wild thinking?
In poor taste.
Some poor person passed away on the trip from Vegas to Boston while I was on board. He was removed from the aircraft by emergency services after we made a detour to New York. His widow was also removed from the aircraft. It was a tense and difficult situation, and just before we took off to resume our flight, an insensitive douchebag in the front row questioned the flight attendant, "Do all get free drinks now?".
The flight attendant was obviously distraught and taken aback by this behavior. It's repulsive how people can be so repulsive and inconsiderate of other people's problems.
Nicotine fit.
I had a nonstop flight from Phoenix to London. Before we boarded the aircraft, a fellow passenger and I struck up a discussion at the gate. This young man apparently had never been abroad but had chosen to board this plane after finding a decent offer online. He enquired about the flight's duration. I informed him that there were 12 hours.
I also told him that smoking on aircraft had been prohibited for at least 15 years, which made him quite anxious. He started acting tensely after we were on the plane and over the Atlantic; he would pace up and down the aisles while obviously having a nicotine fit. He was instructed to sit down several times by the flight attendants. He eventually vanished.
I got up to use the restroom just as he came from the room with a huge cloud of smoke. He had written on the bathroom mirror and covered the bathroom walls with hand soap, as I could see through the door. The flight attendants were talking to him as I exited the restroom and were attempting to calm him down. He wasn't aggressive, but he was nonetheless persistent.
He stood up and began pacing the aisles once more as we neared Heathrow. He was shouted at to sit down by the flight attendants. But he didn't. The pilot announced over the loudspeaker that everyone should remain seated while the authorities arrived to remove a passenger as soon as the plane had landed. Officers arrived, but everyone remained put. The man completely lost it at that point.
He kicked the second cop after firing a shot at the first one. In no time, they were handcuffing him and removing him from the plane. Some of the other passengers began to applaud as they brought him outside. Over the years, I have witnessed similar things, but that particular experience was the strangest.
Diamond medallion dimwit.
My experience of the worst flight ever came from one of Delta's "Diamond Medallion." Our plane experienced a mechanical issue in Memphis. We had just been informed that we would be late due to maintenance from the gate agent. A call had been made, and the mechanic was just leaving. There was no known estimated time for the repair because the mechanic would have to do some troubleshooting, and only then would we know how long it would take to fix it.
I got a call from this guy, and he had the most condescending attitude ever: "I'm a Delta Diamond Medallion member, so tell me exactly how long this delay is going to be." I was like, "What"? I told everyone EXACTLY what I knew, and I couldn't care less about someone's airline status. But for some reason, this guy thought that just because he is a Delta Diamond Medallion member, I would magically know the estimated time for the repair.
There was no shaving cream.
Once when I was on a flight, I witnessed a woman in her 20s visiting her significant other. She used the restroom to shave because she needed to. But what was meant to be a smooth ride quickly became turbulent, and she severely cut herself as a result. She had to be taken out by paramedics, who had to be called. And just after we unloaded the flight, the co-pilot noticed a trail of her blood down the jetway.
Turns out, she hadn't cut her leg—it was actually just her time of the month. I felt so bad for her, and I hope she's doing okay.
A minor inconvenience.
Once when I was on a flight, I had two unaccompanied minors traveling together. And just after we pushed back from the gate, the eight-year-old boy started to have a panic attack and said he couldn't fly, so we pulled back to the gate. The pilot announced that we were returning to the gate so that paramedics could come on and take a child off the plane. He only mentioned that a kid was ill without focusing on his medical condition.
Everyone appeared to be sympathetic, with the exception of one lady who really irritated me. She quickly pressed her call button and rudely advised that because we were already going to be late, we must make sure to hold the plane for her in Atlanta. There was a 30-minute delay overall, and no one lost their connections as a result of the boy's panic attack. And even though the plane managed to reach the airport just in time, it was one of only a handful of times I wanted to punch a passenger.
He got called out.
My mother had boarded a plane that was waiting to take off from the gate while it was on the tarmac. A typical businessman who was shouting at someone on the other end of a phone conversation was seated next to her in first class. My mother was leaned over by a very kind flight attendant, who then said, "Sir, you're going to have to switch the phone off. The doors to the cabin are shut.
The man calmed down but remained on the phone. The plane was then backed up while the flight attendants delivered the safety protocol speech. The man suddenly began shouting on the phone once more. He was requested to put the phone away by another flight attendant, this time in a more serious manner. When the man turned to face her, he swore at her. She made a "humph" expression before vanishing from view.
The pilot exited the cockpit as a door slammed open, which was then heard by my mother. His facial veins were clearly visible due to his extreme rage. What did you say to her?!! He shouted indignantly, his eyes widening. Because it is my plane, I expect all of the passengers to heed the instructions of the crew in case of an emergency. When you treat her poorly, you treat me poorly, and it puts everyone on this plane in danger.
This huge, angry ex-soldier pilot was now barreling down on the man. He ducked, put his phone away, and mumbled an apology. The pilot added, "You can take your sorry and shove it! "without skipping a beat. You are standing still. You may inform whoever was so essential on the other end of the phone line that disobeying an order from your aircrew is illegal after speaking with TSA.
The pilot pushed the jet back to the gate after returning to the cockpit. A group of cops in uniform entered and removed the man. Onboard the aircraft, there was utter quiet. Then, in a motion reminiscent of Indiana Jones' "tickets" moment, everyone simultaneously pulled out their phones, waved them in the air, and demonstrated that their devices were definitely turned off.
This flight went down the toilet.
As I was an aircraft engineer, I had to travel a lot on many different airlines. But the experience I had flying on a low-cost airline in Nigeria is the one that will stay with me forever. The majority of the passengers, if not all of them, had likely never even seen a toilet, much less used one.
They were urinating into water bottles, and I even saw a couple of "presents" in the aisle. Fortunately, I had a jump seat on the flight deck, but the scent nearly made me throw up a few times. Those were the three worst hours of my life.
Move it.
Once when I was on a flight from Frankfurt to Montreal, there was a man sitting in the middle section of the aisle with a vacant seat in front of him. He was respectfully informed that his seat and the one next to it were their seats by this mother and her small daughter, who was perhaps seven or eight years old. But the man stood his ground. He was kindly requested to relocate once more by the woman, but even after listening to her multiple times, he just didn't budge, and after that, things only got worse.
The man began sulking and crossed his arms like a child because he didn't want to move. The mom requested him to allow her two seats adjacent to each other so she could sit with her daughter because she had never traveled before, but there was no such luck. As they continued to quarrel, the man shouted at the woman, calling her a terrible human being. We got up to give the woman our seats, but she flipped the gentleman off before we could say anything. And frankly, the guy deserved it.
Stow rude.
I once experienced a lengthy layover of around three hours. And I discovered that my gate was conveniently located across from a pub. So I decided to relax and enjoy myself. When the boarding started, I realized I was at the wrong gate and proceeded calmly to the plane. And as if that wasn't awful enough, I soon realized something far worse: I wasn't even at the right terminal. And just as I arrived at the gate after booking it, I heard them page me by name.
As I walked down the aisle, I stumbled upon a woman who insisted her luggage would fit; I was panting. She apparently had a back condition that prevented her from checking her luggage. However, despite her small size, the flight attendant was trying very hard to heave the extremely heavy bag but was unable in her attempts to lift the incredibly hefty suitcase. I eventually caught my breath and took control. While the flight attendant and I were attempting to stow the passenger's belongings, she had taken her seat, belted up, and pulled a book out of her bag as if she was on a vacation while we were her butlers.
The travel companion was bananas.
My mother was a flight attendant for TWA since the 1960s, so she had witnessed many things that people today would never be allowed to get away with. A man approximately 5'2" tall who was sporting a tweed suit and round spectacles once boarded the aircraft. He latched his backpack on the chair in front of him. Seeing that he was told to put the luggage in storage by my mum.
He very politely showed her that he had a ticket for it. When she came back later, she was disturbed by what she saw—in place of the bag was a deceased stuffed monkey that the man was having a conversation. He politely asked my mom for a banana, which he then attempted to feed to the monkey. This went on for the whole trip. He then packed up the monkey at the end of the flight. My mother was too stunned to speak and couldn't understand the man's denial and guts.
Flight attendants flip out.
This one time, after boarding, everyone was getting comfortable when a woman asked for the flight attendant from across the aisle and a few rows up. She apparently went to put something in the airsick bag, but as she reached in to put her hand in, it was covered in vomit, and she got it all over her hand. I could hear everything because I was only a few seats behind.
She respectfully requested some napkins from the flight attendant. After being rude to her, the guy left. He left for over five minutes without returning, and in that time, this poor woman had vomited all over her hand. The flight attendant FLIPPED OUT when she finally called for him. This woman seemed quite laid-back, considering that she had vomit on her. He must have been having a horrible day or something.
She was ultimately expelled from the flight by the attendant. The man was genuinely raving at this poor woman because she had requested some napkins, which made for quite a commotion. No one else wanted to deal with this crazy individual, so the rest of us just sat there in startled silence. We were all concerned that if we said anything, we would all be expelled.
One wine day.
Once I was traveling from Lithuania to the UK by flight. A young woman wearing a gorgeous white dress was stopped by the flight attendant five to ten minutes after takeoff and asked whether she needed any medical assistance. On her shoulder, there was a crimson mark that spread out and appeared to be blood. The woman appeared to be somewhat shocked.
Later it turned out that someone somehow had managed to sneak in a few bottles of red wine, which cracked and started slowly dripping onto the people sitting beneath. The attendant hauled the package away since nobody claimed ownership of it.
No empathy here.
At the time, I was attending X-ray school, and my instructor and I were traveling home from a yearly conference in Las Vegas via plane. A woman started having a seizure two rows behind me. Nobody appeared to care, and her husband had no idea how to assist. My teacher quickly got up from her seat and asked me to assist her. She weighed close to 300 pounds, so we made an effort to raise her and move her to the aisle, where she was resting on her side.
We got no assistance. Everyone was just gazing. I can absolutely accept that someone can't or doesn't want to assist since I understand their reasons. But it's not even the thing that truly grabbed me. The pilot requested us to stay in our seats when we touched down until the EMTs helped her and her husband out first. Before she was fastened to the backboard, they made an attempt to exit the aircraft and were unconcerned.
A guy stood up and shouted at my instructor as she and I were assisting the EMTs in telling everyone to be seated. We were in awe. I was astounded by these people's lack of compassion.
Mother of all brats.
When I was a little kid, I was coming home after a few weeks spent with my grandparents, who graciously dropped me off at the gate. Aside from the excellent flight attendants who fussed over me, the journey was uneventful. When the plane touched down, one of the flight attendants led me outside to the gathering of people who were eager to see their loved ones—including my mother, who hadn't seen me in a while.
As soon as I entered through the exit door, she started jumping up and down and waving with excitement. I was questioned if it was my mother by the flight attendant when she noticed her enthusiasm. She instantly asked me," Is that your mother?" and I immediately turned around with a hilarious yet brutal answer, "I've never seen that woman in my life." In the subsequent 20 minutes, security questioned my mother about her identification and our connection in order to establish that she was, in fact, my mother.
She never forgave me for that, but the laughs within the family from the story were well worth it.
No rest for the wicked.
One I was traveling from London to Egypt on a low-budget flight. Because of this, there was almost no room for legs, and the seats wouldn't even recline. And as a 6'4" person, this was awful. I was doing my best to make the most of the situation when suddenly I felt someone pounding my chair from behind. Not pushing, but straight-up punching. When I turned around to see what was happening, a young woman, who appeared to be between 18 and 20 years old, started yelling and shouting at me.
Her words made my blood boil. "Do you mind? I've been trying to sleep for the entire flight with my head on the tray, and you keep moving your seat and waking me up"! I looked around me, and everyone seemed thoroughly confused except one guy who just shrugged. Everyone I saw as I looked around was visibly confused, with the exception of one man who simply shrugged. She started verbally abusing me when I kindly explained that the tray was not a headrest but rather was for placing food on.
She was warned to cease cursing and yelling by the flight attendant, who then came because it was upsetting the other passengers. She made an attempt to excuse herself by claiming that I forbade her from sleeping since I was shifting in my chair. The flight attendant struggled as she was trying really hard to hold her laughter.
The far-out smell.
I once boarded a trip that lasted for more than three hours, and by surprise, I was seated in the middle of three rows of the filthiest hippies I had ever seen. These guys put my experience working in unpleasant environments where I often smelt rather ripe at the end of the day to shame. It was impossible to describe the stench. It was like that of a rotting, decaying organism that was still alive and breathing. The smell was so bad that even the skunks that were three countries over were wailing over it.
I have smelled the stench of a rotting human body, and these people trumped that smell. So one can imagine how bad the smell must have been. After trying really hard to endure it, I gave in, and I called a flight attendant over and pointedly asked her if there was a hygiene rule for passengers. She understood my concern immediately and quickly went to the captain and told her all about it. The captain hadn't even made it past the curtain between first class and business when I heard him exclaim, "Oh heck no. Kick them off the plane. This is a 15-hour flight; no one deserves to be subjected to that".
I didn't feel bad or guilty about having them kicked off the flight. I just avoided having to endure the human equivalent of a sewage treatment plant for 15 hours while seven standbys received discounted flights to Sydney. It was a win.
A chimp off the old block.
My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law were traveling by plane to Texas to look at schools. They had been promoted to first class and were traveling for miles. A bigger woman with an extravagant haircut like that of Amy Winehouse was walking ahead of them into the first-class compartment. She spoke with the flight attendants and other passengers and was outgoing and entertaining.
They didn't give it much thought since she looked like just another Dallas housewife returning to her rhinestone-encrusted mansion and 20-foot-long Cadillac with bull horns. We had no idea how much havoc she would shortly bring about. The peculiar keening sound, which sounded like a baby about to throw a tantrum or a wounded rabbit, was first observed by my sister-in-law forty minutes into the two-and-a-half-hour journey.
She took a brief peek around but saw nothing, so she went back to reading. She heard the same sound a little while later, but this time it was louder and appeared to be coming from behind her. She took another glance around but saw nothing and went back to work. Since 9/11 had not yet occurred, there was not exactly the same level of panic as there is now.
But after hearing the noise three times, she began to get a little frightened. She caught the eye of the gentleman across the aisle who was frantically typing on his laptop by turning to look around once again. She asked him, "Do you hear that noise"? Without looking up from his screen, he simply said, "Monkey," and gestured with his head behind him.
When my sister-in-law turned her head, she witnessed a surprising sight: a grey baby monkey wearing diapers, covered with hairy limbs and legs and crying for a bottle, was emerging from the enormous woman's beehive hairstyle. As if to complete the scene, the woman removed the monkey from her head, grabbed a bottle out of her enormous Louis Vuitton bag, and began feeding the monkey on the plane as if it were a real baby. It is truly amusing to see the peculiar interests some people have.
Blinded by the light.
When I was flying night helicopter tours up and down the Las Vegas strip, people would regularly take flash photos during the flight despite being told several times that no flash photography was permitted.
It just blows my mind that people would think it's okay to temporarily blind the pilot who's flying them and not realize the severity of their actions.
He was a total headcase.
Once, I was on a full flight and watched a guy pitch a huge fit when the flight attendant put someone else's bag in the overhead compartment above him. Because he feared being hit in the head, he insisted that the area be kept clear. The aircraft was packed, so the luggage ended up there. If anything happened to him, he vowed to file a lawsuit against the airline, the flight attendant, and the bag's owner.
He got up at the end of the trip, unlocked the overhead compartment across the aisle, and took his own luggage out. He didn't care if his bag knocked someone else's head off. The irony and hypocrisy of this situation are what appalled me.
Seat swapper.
Once when I was returning from a business trip, I saw a middle-aged man occupying my seat as I boarded the plane. I pointed out to him that he was in the wrong seat as I glanced at him. He looked at me and said, "That's my seat there, directly across the aisle. Does it really matter"? He was telling me that I should just take his seat.
Even though I was a little furious, I only said, "Not really." Then, when I took a seat, I understood that his taking my seat wasn't a mistake. The seat adjacent to where this person should have been seated was occupied by a man wearing ragged clothes and hiding his longer, dreadlock-like hair behind a hat. At that point, I understood what this jackass was doing.
He didn't steal my seat by accident. He just simply didn't want to be seated next to the other man. I sat down, greeted the man in the shabby outfit politely, and then glared at the person across the aisle. Not because I had to sit there but more because of the unfortunate man next to me who had to tolerate that idiot's actions. I had to use a lot of restraint to refrain from swiping that guy's arm across the aisle and thrashing him.
He was berry irate.
We used to serve special meals on transcontinental flights. One had to place the order online at check-in for both directions. There were many problems with that, but usually, people understood and accepted whatever we could offer as a replacement. However, this one time, one guy threw a fit. He then made the wildest claim and said that we were either feeding his food to someone else or eating it.
I showed him the list, and his name wasn't on it. And even after showing him the proof, he kept shouting obscenities like "What is my daughter going to eat," etc. We had one fruit platter left over after we had fed everyone else, and we felt bad. Since his kid was probably around three years old, we handed it to him for her. But what he did next set our blood on fire—he started eating it himself after making great claims about his care for his daughter and what she was going to eat. He then continued to berate us for the remainder of the flight about what his daughter was going to eat.
Four to five hours is a long time to deal with one passenger on a transcontinental journey. Additionally, the staff was not supplied with food, so unless we wanted to buy food at the airport, we hoped that something would be left over from the meals served to the passengers. And that fruit platter I gave to the man was meant to be my fruit platter.
It was a kick in the rear.
My acquaintance was traveling by air. Seconds after landing, a woman in the back unbuckled herself and rushed to the front of the aircraft as it was taxiing in order to exit first, despite the flight attendants who were belted in ordering her to stay in her seat. She continued insisting that she needed to leave quickly to catch her connecting flight. The pilot decided to politely teach her a much-needed lesson after reaching the gate.
He announced over the intercom that the jetway had an issue, and the plane would be de-boarding from the rear doors. The looks of satisfaction on all the other passengers' faces were delightful.
Infantile behavior.
On a long flight from Hawaii to Denver, a father who was in the row behind my family and I noticed that we had exit row seats that had lots of legroom. Meanwhile, his seats had barely any. He was not happy that we had these seats and decided to tell almost all of the flight attendants to switch his family to our seats because he had no legroom. But that wasn't all.
He also asserted that my brother and I were too young to assist in an emergency. But he was so blinded by the glory of our seats that he didn't notice the issue and irony in how he was accompanied by two infants. Therefore, his logic was completely illogical. After some time, the flight attendants had had enough and simply ignored him. When we got off the plane, he gave us a distasteful glance, but I just grinned at him and chuckled.
Nailed it.
Every week I have to take a flight. Once on such a flight, I noticed a man approaching me while I was pleasantly seated in the aisle seat. I smelled him from about three rows away. He had a middle seat right next to me and smelled strongly of sweat and profuse. I noticed an elderly hippie standing across the aisle. She was wearing a long skirt, and I saw that her feet were propped up on her seat.
I then noticed that she was trimming her toenails by using a nail clipper. The most awful thing happened at that very moment—my sweating neighbor was struck by a toenail that flew across my face in front of me. He became enraged, and an argument ensued between the two most disgusting people ever about who was the most repulsive human being. I was laughing so hard that I forgot about the stench as I saw the sweaty gentleman become furious at her rude behavior.
Under pressure.
Years ago, we were flying a bunch of rich kids to Chicago for a football game in a Citation jet. They were in the back, boozing it up and getting rowdy, which is usually fine, but after a while, they got so loud and unruly that we started to have trouble hearing the radios and holding a heading. Seeing this and their inappropriate behavior, my captain looked at me, rolled his eyes, and put on his oxygen mask.
Then, we proceeded with our brilliant plan—we turned the pressure down in the cabin and put them all to sleep. The rest of the flight was peaceful and quiet, and they never even had a clue.
Pedicure prima donna.
Once when I was traveling from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, some little twit on the row behind me kept applying or removing her nail polish. At first, I didn't know where the smell was coming from and thought to myself, "it smells like acid in here." Then I understood that it was nail polish. The entire plane could smell the odor since the air was not filtering it.
The flight attendant came over and told her to put it away because it was making other people nauseous. The girl then said, "Just let me finish my last two nails." The attendant was in disbelief seeing her attitude and ordered her to put it away. The attendant then announced on the loudspeaker that the smell was coming from some passenger who insisted on doing her nails on the plane and took a little poke at her.
Case closed.
When I was around 13 years old, I was returning from a family vacation traveling from the Bahamas to Miami. The flight was short and swift. I got on the plane with my father and my brother, who was 17 at the time. We sat down and waited for the plane to take off after my dad placed all of our carry-on luggage in the overhead compartment above us.
Just as they closed the cabin door, a young couple entered the plane. As they searched for a spot to store their bags, they sat across from us. The man quietly removed my father's suitcase, set it down on the floor, inserted his own bag, and then closed the overhead bin because there were no more spaces available. Then, as if it were acceptable to make such a move, he just sat down with his girlfriend. My father was not amused by it.
My father, a native of the Bronx who was in his 60s or 70s, didn't think much of it. The man pulled the man's bag out of the overhead compartment, slapped it onto his lap, and yelled, "THIS IS YOUR BAG!" while he stood outside the aisle. Then, he yelled, "THIS IS MY Luggage," shoving his own bag back into the overhead compartment and slamming it shut. Everyone remained silent throughout.
I was surprised, shocked, and terrified since I had never before seen my father transform into the Hulk. The guy then shamelessly and clumsily persuaded a flight attendant to make room for his bags. He avoided any eye contact with everyone and essentially flew the whole 50-minute trip with a magazine over his face. Well, if you ask me about it, the guy had it coming.
That shore was a close one.
Some time back, I used to be a flight attendant. Once on a trip, a woman who was obviously insane tried to open the bathroom door next to door 4R when we were over the Atlantic and in the middle of the night. She was tugging the plane door handle, but she was unaware that she was risking her life. She succeeded in raising it all the way. I was observing her at the start of coach class.
Although the cabin was completely black, the light from the rear galley showed me this astounding image of the woman attempting to unlock the door. Fortunately, it was impossible to open the door in such conditions, but that scene stayed in my head for the rest of my life. I proceeded to the cockpit to report the situation once we had secured the passenger and lowered the lever.
The only upside for me was looking at the pilot's blanched face when he left the cockpit after watching an alarm going off about the lock on door 4R right in the middle of the Atlantic.
Here kitty kitty.
Since the late '80s, my godfather had worked as a flight attendant. He had some wonderful tales throughout the years. One day, a passenger of his carried her cat in a pet carrier. This woman first gave off the impression of being the usual crazy cat lady. She did, however, take crazy cat lady behavior a step further, especially when it came to feeding time for the cat.
One would imagine that the woman must have given her cat food or, in the worst-case scenario, even the food from her own plate, but instead of cat food and a bowl of water, this woman pulled out her breast and proceeded to breastfeed the cat. I don't even want to think about how much that must have hurt. Needless to say, my godfather was unamused and firmly asked her to stop.
She was in hot soup.
Older Southwest planes usually had lounge seating up front with two rows of seats facing one other where first class would ordinarily be. That would entail spending hours gazing intently at a stranger. The plane was fully packed, and before 9/11, one could carry a ton of different kinds of stuff on board. The flight attendant was circulating the aisles asking passengers to store their belongings in the overhead compartments because the floor was already crammed with everyone's luggage.
The woman in front of me had a lunch cooler-type bag. The attendant asked if there was any liquid in it, and the woman said, "No," so the attendant put it above my seat. The woman across from the lunch cooler lady had a massive floor-length fur coat on her lap. The flight attendant told her it had to go in the above compartment.
The woman suddenly lost it at that point. And started yelling loudly about how fitting her coat into a tight place would damage it because it cost as much as a car. The woman reluctantly gave up just as the flight attendant was about to summon the captain over to resolve the issue. The attendant gave her the assurance that she would take great care not to squeeze it. It also was placed in the storage space above my seat.
The passenger next to me suddenly perked up thirty minutes into the trip and asked, "Did you feel something?" And I did a second later. Something was dripping upon us. I looked up, and there were lines of fluid all over the button area and what started as an occasional drip was now a drip a second in several places. The attendant came over and searched through the overhead. What she found made her gasp in shock.
The lunch cooler bag contained a huge thermos full of chicken soup. The large thermos of chicken soup was inside the lunch cooler bag. Because it was in a sealed container, the lunch cooler lady said she didn't count it as a liquid. Then, out came the coat, completely soaked in chicken soup. Imagine a coat that costs as much as a car, all soaked in chicken soup. Thus began the great stare-down between the two women who were sitting across from each other.
What a drip.
Once when my dad was going on vacation. Everyone was well into the flight when this guy in a nice suit had this liquid pouring onto him from the overhead cabin. The man exclaimed, "WHAT IS THIS?!" This small elderly lady with a strong southern accent spoke out without skipping a beat.
The strange reality was soon made known: "Das, my shrimp"! She had managed to bring frozen shrimp aboard the aircraft. That poor man and his suit had a difficult day.
