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?

I can because I am the worlds worst flier. I will do it if its that or miss a great holiday, but if its a European trip I would rather drive there than fly!

Having a friend or partner with me means that the other poor sod in the row doesnt have to deal with my vomitting and panic attacks! But....I would definitely pay to have that. Although thinking about it, 10 minutes into me going bananas and yakking up would have whoever is next to me desperate move (including my beloved, ever patient and long suffering sister!) so maybe I should just chance it next time.

I work for an airline but I heard this from a friend who works for another airline.

A very well known singer/somg writer bought a business class long haul seat and an economy seat for her companion. At check in she said he was her security and so he had to travel with her. She wanted a free upgrade and was told no. This is an airline that rarely upgrades and never 2 classes from economy to business class.

She boarded and with only a few minutes before take off threw a tantrum and said she felt unsafe without her security guard and if he wasn't upgraded she was getting off the flight. At that point her luggage would have had to have been removed, they would have lost their slot and passengers would have missed there connecting flights so it decided to upgrade the security guard which meant downgrading a staff member in business class.

She behaved appallingly throughout the whole flight, being loud constantly "do you knowwho I am" behaviour - around 12 hours and then it turned out the 'security guard' was actually her hairdresser.

Wikipedia says this singer has a net worth of £30+ million. She could certainly have afforded an extra business class ticket.

Back in the day of smoking on flights.

Was in the 'smoking area' with my then DH drinking a lot and smoking. People were asking to borrow our seat for a quick smoke as they didn't get smoking seats as they were full.

All one row behind the 'non smoking' seats. Inches away ...

So CF!!

I was on a plane that allowed smoking on board, was 1988. It was a very short haul from the EMA to Guernsey so a teeny tiny plane. But half the seats were smoking, half were not. I mean, why?! OK so you wouldnt be sat next to a smoker but you would be still sitting in the fug!

Even my father (a long time heavy smoker then, has quit now) said that he would have preferred a non smoking flight.

Do you think this lady might have been the nanny? I've seen Nanny's on flight deal with the unruly kids in economy whilst parents enjoy business/first class many times. Nothing wrong with that no judgement but deal with your offspring's behaviour ffs.

It does cost the airline money for passengers to select their own flights but I honestly cannot be bothered to explain it all at 22:23 at night as it's long winded & complex but it very much does cost them.

My experience is a smoking one too, not exactly CF but looking back
Seated in smoking Long haul - Vancouver to Heathrow. Or maybe it was technically non smoking but it was literally next to smoking - the same cabin, no curtain even. I asked to be moved, flight full. Smokers were coming and standing in the aisles to smoke, as it was SMOKING! and then returning to their nice non smoking seats. The air was a complete fug. Even the smokers didn't want to sit in smoking.

@BreadInCaptivity That is by far the most CF plane story I have ever read 🤣

Family did it on our flight today. 6 yo DC in my row. Him and Dad were window seats one behind the other. Dad in front (he should have been behind!) closed eyes and ignoring child’s requests. Didn’t bother strapping his son in - I had to by reaching over my 6 yo from the aisle seat!

But your airline would go out of business because everyone sees the headline figures of flight for £10 and would never consider a £1000 flight even thought the discounted amount and £10 flight plus extras might end up the same

A few years ago now I was travelling back from a Far East country with my female colleague following a business trip. We were booked in business class, Row 1.
As boarding was announced for business class, myself and colleague moved forward to board. Then suddenly, I was pushed really forcefully into my colleague by a man as he pushed his way through in front of us. When we both commented to him to be careful, he turned round to us and snarled ‘I’m in business class, wait your turn’ and continued barging through to board.
When we got on the plane and found our seats, Mr Pompous Arse was stood by his seat directly behind us in row 2. Just as we were getting organised and were about to sit down he pipes up loudly to the flight attendant ‘I think you need to help these ladies find their seats, they appear lost’. He had a huge smirk on his face. Flight attendant asks to see our boarding passes. I glance at him as we dig into our bags for the passes and he has the biggest look of triumph on his face.
The flight attendant looks at our boarding passes and says ‘You’re here 1A and B. I’ll let you get settled and I’ll bring you both a glass of champagne’.
The look on his face was priceless. Arrogant arse!
Later during the flight we were at the bar on the plane (Emirates) and the same flight attendant came over to us and said ‘You two just made my day. I could have burst out laughing’

Yes but flights were a lot more expensive and ppl didn’t fly as much

I've never been asked to move but coming back from lanzarote last year we got moved to an empty row. As we had dd who was 1 at the time. She could sit in the seat but had to be on one of our knees for take off/landing. Although it was a faff moving us. They'd have been better moving the couple that was across the aisle beside us to the row and leaving us.

Going to tenerife in 2 weeks and we've not booked seats but we've got 3 in a row together.

@Cedricsmum
Oooh I can guess who this could be but won't say in case I'm wrong........

@RaspberryWhirls I’ve actually no idea who he was, just a pompous arse who obviously thought that two women travelling together (dressed down as we’d finished working the day before) couldn’t possibly be travelling business class 🤷‍♀️

I was on an overnight flight from San Francisco. I paid extra for an emergency exit row seat for extra legroom for my very tall DH with the hope we could sleep in the flight. (Little did I know that the seats were very narrow due to having the entertainment system in the arm and my size 16 arse wouldn’t fit!)
A woman was sitting in the middle section with two small children, aged about 3 and 5 I’d guess. She sits down, puts headphones in, and eye mask on and ignores them for the entire flight. She didn’t even put their seatbelts on, cabin crew had to do that. As the plane is taking off the younger one undoes the seatbelt and starts running up and down the aisle. A meal came round and me and DH ended up having to open packets and the like for them. Thankfully they went to sleep too eventually.

I’ve told mine before, business class to Canada, 3 kids all under 12. We book early so get good deals and I always book seats. This time a row of window seats for the five of us.
get on sit down, open stuff.
I’m sat in front and DH at the back of the row when the air hostess informs DH that Canadian regulations mean that each child under 12 needs an adult sitting next to them, or immediately in front, but because of the way the plane’s seats in business, some of the seats aren’t configured correctly and it’s not as simple as just moving some people - basically they had to re-seat the whole of the left side of the cabin. All of whom seemed to be on their honeymoon, or with an elderly spouse.

it took ages, everyone was very pissed off with us, the airline, we missed the taking off slot.
i did call the airline when we’d got there to let them know that they’d have the same issue on the way back and they did sort it before we flew this time.

Those who aren’t exec card holders have to wait until check in, it’s usually worth it!

that said, I travel for work, even to Portugal, I just book the earliest aisle seat I can get, it’d be different if trying to book for a family tho, get that, yes

I'll admit that I was one of those mums that didn't book seats together with my dc aged 4 and 2 on a budget flight because I really had no idea they wouldn't sit us together.
I had flown long haul with the dc a couple of times where this wasn't an issue and genuinely didn't realise this happened on budget airlines.
I got comments of "there's always one, isn't there" and so on
I felt like crap tbh but then some strangers were so nice to us (probably because some others had been so rude) so that restored my faith in humanity.

Some people are crackers. My friend worked on the check-in desk at Tenerife, and obviously the vast majority of her clients were British tourists over for a quick holiday. So she was checking in a couple who had spent their holiday there and they were the first ones to the desk for the flight. Friend said “we’re not full, do you have any preference where you’d like to sit?”
Woman says “yes, next to each other and both by a window.”
Friend says “You can sit one in front of the other next to a window, or one of you gets the window and the other of you is next to them, in the middle.”
Woman says “No, we would like next to each other and both with a window.”
Friend says “Listen love, it’s the same shaped plane you flew out on. Remember what the seating was like? Well it’s like that.”
Woman says “Yes and we would like next to each other and both with a window.”
Friend says “Aye alright, yeah that’s fine, away you go.Whatever.”

Utter loons.

I commuted for a bit from Gatwick to Glasgow and you’d see the same faces, except at Christmas when there was a lady who had been Christmas shopping and was insisting that the overhead locker above her seat was HERS and went with her seat and all her shopping had to go right there and refused to let anyone past her until the cabin crew stepped in and told her to zip it. The entitlement was unreal. We were all queuing down the aisle and down the pissing freezing steps whilst she was kicking off. I’m fairly sure she got a wee dig off plenty of regulars as they could finally board.

We were flying to the USA in club class on air miles . Some snooty woman got on and complained she couldn’t have her “usual seat”(we were sat there). She then started sounding off about how it was quite clear people had been given an upgrade (ie us in comfy clothes for travel) The look on her face was priceless when the stewardess came up to introduce herself to us and welcome us on board ( DH is guest list for the airline).

We’ve also had stewards asking our children to move seats ( because someone wanted the window seat which we had booked for them). They were primary school age at the time and cabin crew wanted to put them the other end of the cabin from us on a long haul flight. The steward seemed perplexed that we didn’t think it was a great idea because they were “only children”.

The difficulties some couples have in being separated for a short haul european flight drive me wild.

Meanwhile my most frequent travel companion and I often sit separately as I'm an aisle person and they are seemingly camel who doesn't need to go to the loo ever and like a window.

And the worst CF was the woman who grabbed my bag off the carousel at Naples last summer and then refused to even acknowledge/ consider it might not be hers. Admittedly it was a boring black samsonite case, but it had two very distinctive luggage tags on it. I was completely sure it was mine, and as one was an old points scheme card for an airline that went bust with my name on it a quick glance would have told her that too.

There was absolutely zero language barrier either - she was an upper middle class Brit travelling to Italy with her family. I learnt quite a lot about them as I tried to convince her to relinquish her grip on my suitcase.

I was really worried she was going to try to leave the airport with it but fortunately one of her brighter/ less entitled travelling companions twigged that I didn't look like a crazy bag stealer (slightly less posh similarly aged woman) and that maybe I was on to something. They then sheepishly looked at the bag and realised that it was actually mine....

No apology was forthcoming.

Of course.

Am I the only one prepared to admit to being the annoying passenger one time?

We had booked front rows with a bassinette on long haul flights. Three out of four times that was fine. The fourth time, the airline messed up and reassigned them to someone else. That left us behind the exit row seats in a plane configured with very little leg room. I had a 13 month old. The couple in the exit row were heading on honeymoon. 13 month old very hard to keep still and did periodically bang the seat in front. Not hard but it doesn't have to be to feel it. I was doing my best. Couple wanted to sleep. I decided to keep toddler entertained with books as I'd run out of other options and toddler was restless. I turned on my light to see the books. That got a scowl. I just decided not to fret because that's economy for you. They didn't actually complain but, if they had, I'd have happily offered to swap seats. Would have worked out so much better.