Best CF airplane stories

[BreadInCaptivity]

Inspired by another thread.

About 5 years ago we were flying back from the USA. We'd booked Premium Economy seats on Virgin. Configuration is 2-3-2.

Our two late teens were in front of us and we had the 2 seats directly behind. All settled in when a family of 4 embarked with 2 young children (around 5 and 7 at a guess).

They proceed to the 2 seats behind DH and I and start putting their bags down when the mother asked (politely to be fair) if we would mid swapping seats so they could sit together as a family.

Given our two were older (and once headphones were on were not going to be engaging with us) we decided to be nice and said ok.

Can you guess where this is going?

Asked where the other seats were, looking around the PE cabin a bit baffled as it appeared to be full....

Yep - they'd only booked 2 seats in PE and wanted us to take their 2 seats in economy 😂.

Clearly we said, no (with rather incredulous expressions on our face's) and sat back down. Parent then both start calling us selfish (oh the irony) and demanding we move. DH made the point that if sitting together was so important, then booking in the same cabin might be a good idea for the future, but as stands he was sure if they went down to economy the people in the seats next to those they'd booked would be very happy with a free upgrade 😀.

The response from the Father "I'm not giving up a better seat I've paid for"....to which DH deadpanned "I couldn't agree with you more"...at which point DH and I couldn't stop laughing enough to respond further.

Cabin crew eventually had to get involved as the parents had an argument over who was going to sit where. Mother won and spent the first 20 mins of the flight making loud passive aggressive comments to her child about "mean/selfish" people until crew got involved again and told her to pack it in or they'd be moved to economy if they didn't stop harassing us.

Thankfully the rest of the flight was uneventful but DH and I still chuckle about it now and again 😃.

Anyone got any others?

Cos it’s REALLY annoying, to the point that there are threads in Site Stuff begging @MNTowers todo something about it.

With respect and all that, just stop for a second and consider this:, if there’s ONE post that literally every single person opening the thread will already have read it’s the OP.

it never ever EVER needs to be repeated/reposted/quoted.

I was the CF on my last flight. I didn't book a seat because I was on my own and didn't care where I sat. I got a seat right at the back in a corner, no window!! It felt really claustrophobic so I managed to get the only other spare seat on the plane. Tbf, I did not know there were seats without windows.

The jumper was the flight equivalent of the dressing gown of doom

I once offered to watch the baby of a woman sat in front of me whilst she ate her dinner. I was only 21 and very inexperienced with kids.

This woman then proceeded to take her sweet ass time. Once she finished eating she started touching up her makeup and even got the tweezers out. She must have faffed for 30 mins at least after her last bite.

I was in disbelief! The baby was cute luckily.

Yep…final row of at least some of the Airbus 320 family can be windowless, certainly on the LHS, possibly the right as well.

Not true. Certainly on short haul low cost carriers I much prefer the middle seat. I feel hemmed in at the window, and exposed on the aisle, and the middle seat has a much bigger underseat space than either window or aisle!

My brother is a pilot for easyJet and he tells me all sorts. One observation he made is how passengers often get their elbows out when he’s going/up down the stairs to check the plane. Obviously not wanting him to cut! Or they make a big song and dance when he requests to pass. How far do they think they will get without him? Throw a plane into the mix and folk start acting very odd 😂

He’s a young looking 30 year old and apparently often gets asked about his training credentials lol

I hope the crew member apologised? I'd go feral!

i was once talking to an ex cabin crew for virgin. she said matt damon was a total joy. ditto danny devito. and apparently dawn french was on a flight once and sent her steak back. TWICE.

this woman was totally not lying and we were talking about knobhead celebrities and nice celebrities.

Same as the people who take the time to point out grammatical errors 😉

@Another2Cats Great links, thank you!

I was on a flight recently from Chicago to Manchester (New Hampshire) and we had to do an emergency landing in buffalo niagara air port because a man took his penis out and urinated in the aisle of the plane.

He was told he needed to wait until the seatbelt signs were off before he used the toilet

He was arrested and removed from the plane

He made the news

amp.tmz.com/2024/07/12/man-pees-plane-aisle-photos-american-airlines-flight-jack-cokes-layover/

I think you have possibly misread things.

Yes, she did pay for it. That is literally how business class works in Europe.

Here's an earlier reply that I made on this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5143509-best-cf-airplane-stories?reply=137588209&utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

I said the following:

I'm sorry but this really is how business class works on intra-Europe flights.

You mentioned travelling on an A319, was it with Lufthansa? If you fly with any major carrier within Europe (well, with the exception of Moscow until Russia invaded Ukraine) then Business class is simply standard economy seats but with a blocked middle seat.

All that separates business from economy is a movable curtain. They move this up or down the plane depending on how many business class passengers there are.

So, yes, that other passenger was right to object.

Lovely lady

She hadn't booked/paid for the middle seats? Or had she?

Sorry, what?

Travelling back from our holiday I sat in between dd1 and ds. Dd1 had been ill at the start of our holiday but had recovered a few days before the end of the holiday. Dh and dd2 were sat across from us. I was snoozing and woke up to a child around the same age as my toddler trying to sit on my lap. She was cute but I told her to go back to mummy or daddy. She'd climbed over ds to get to me. She went back to them and then made 2 more attempts to get back to me whilst I was sleeping. On the 3rd attempt I stood up and looked around for her parents. The dad was asleep with a baby in his lap and the mum remarked that she was trying to rest while her dd was playing with me. I told her to look after her own kid and that whilst my own 3 were asleep I was attempting to do the same. I would never have allowed my own dd2 to disturb someone else on that way. She seemed so shocked that I had the audacity to tell her to take care of her own kid.

Cuts it too fine on a packed flight though if you want to be sure you’ll all be together. I still think seat allocation should just be included in cost of long haul.

The last couple of short haul flights I've been on it's been musical chairs with people wanting to move to sit beside partners despite not pre-booking seats. I just sit there (in my pre-booked paid for seat) willing them to just sit the fuck down in their allocated seat and/or the staff getting them told.

On a flight back from Saigon my mother had her food delivered first, she's a severe coeliac, and I asked the guy in front of her if he could put his seat upright while she ate. He said no, I tried to reason with him saying that his own food would be delivered soon and he'd have to sit up...Nope, I have every right to recline he said. Anyway, mother ate her food as best as she could and then the rest of us got our food. I made sure that I got up every few minutes to go to the loo and jiggle his seat. He turned around and gave me a mouthful and my reply was a grin and a fuck about and find out!!

@BreadInCaptivity - no, as another poster said, we're referring to when in European short haul business the config is 3-3 with both middle seats blocked out. That's what business class is. BA put in a rigid shelf that makes the middle seat into a table

"In the future I’ll be booking the aisle seat across from him, I hate the middle!"

Yes, that's what we ended up doing when travelling with just two of us - we both preferred the aisle seat anyway.

A few years ago my hubby who doesn't fly paid for me to take our 2 grown up sons to Florida, he wanted to be a memorable trip for us so had booked us into upper class, lovely flight there but on the way back, a family that were very loud and very rude boarded and began shouting how one of them had been in an accident and the insurance paid was for the upgrade, as well as a nurse to fly with them, cabin crew checked the fit to fly etc as the injured person was screaming about being in pain whilst being loaded. As soon as they were sat in their seats, the injured person demanded a large G and T. The main person then proceeded to say he was going to drink the place dry and demanded champagne. He said how many free stuff they got from Disney etc because she was in a wheelchair and called them muppets As we were flying along they began demanding extra freebies, bottle of wine, food, extra little bags, more salt and pepper airplanes, you name it they wanted it! The final straw was when they called my autistic son a mug for paying for upper class. He hadnt spoken to them the whole journey The crew were aware my son was autistic and he had a named stewardess this was something we had arranged before we left. This very beautiful lady who was from Liverpool and had a very strong accent, came over as I got up to say something and said let me, she refused them anymore drink and refused to supply them freebies all very politely. As we came to the end of the journey she came with a massive bag of everything you could get mugs, sweets, bottles of drinks and gave them to my son and said these are for being such an amazing person, then turning to the horrible family said in a very scouse accent and you will have to wait till everyone is off the plane before we move ya and we aren't rushing!
Made my day!

On a short haul flight back from Europe that had already been delayed by hours so desperate to get home. In front of me a family with parents and a young child. As plane was getting ready to land the air steward told the mum to put the young toddler / baby on her knee (clearly far too small for its own seat) and the kid starts going ballistic and the mum then starts getting hysterical and saying she “can’t force him”.

Three different air stewards tried to persuade her and I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. She was just insistent she couldn’t possibly move her small child onto her lap because he clearly wanted to stay in the adult seat even though it was dangerous for him to be there!

In the end the air steward in charge shrugged their shoulders and said it was on her if anything bad happened and I completely agreed!

Having now got young kids myself and been on the receiving end of multiple tantrums and I can say that even in the midst of a terrible tantrum there’s no way I wouldn’t think of my child’s safety on an airplane the way this woman went on.

I think I was quite restrained actually...