Air travel stories nice or nasty (lighthearted)

[HappyAgainOneDay]

I was on a long haul flight and a stewardess flight attendant was serving redwine out of a bottle. Someone jogged her arm and wine was spilt onto my light blue, cotton blouse. A wipe didn't help so the conscientious stewardess took the blouse away to rinse it (I was wearing a tee shirt underneath) but it made no difference. To keep me warm overnight, I was presented with a First Class cabin sleepsuit pair of pyjamas. I was so pleased.

PS the red wine stain did come out of my light blue blouse

OMG that's terrible, what a revolting man ??

(Mind you, the guy who threw up on your head doesn't sound great either...)

Long time member but nc for this one as it will definitely out me.

I was on a 10hr flight to Atlanta with Delta. The flight was rammed and as I anxiously waited to see who would be sitting next to me. I noticed that there seemed be a disproportionate amount of elderly Scottish ladies and I vaguely wondered what delights Atlanta held for ladies of a certain age.

After a while one of the ladies in the Scottish group took the sit next to me and I mentally tapped danced down the aisle as she was tiny, this meant she wouldn't invade my space nor I hers.

The flight took off and the tiny lady informed me that they were the Scottish Daniel O'Donnell fan club. He was apparently trying to crack America and asked his fans to support him and come and see him in America. Tiny lady was more than happy to do this as she said Daniel always gave back to his fans.....

Tiny lady then proceeded to interrogate me for an hour and then relayed my answers back to the rest of the club. At this point I said I was going to read and listen to my iPod.
Tiny lady then spent the next 15mins offering me every sweet known to man.

Then she produced a Scottish sweet, hard but not chewy and tastes like toffee - cant remember name. She had a block of the stuff and it was too hard to break, so she stood up and bashed it off her food tray. The lady sat in front of her jumped forward and hit her head of the seat in front! FA had to give her a cold press.

The FA and the concussed lady kept glaring at me thinking I was with tiny lady and because tiny lady was next to me I couldn't say otherwise. By this time I was a bit pissed off, and my answers became more yes or no.

Then they served the meal and tiny lady started to cry. I asked what was wrong and she said her husband had died. Mortified I expressed my condolences and asked if it was her first holiday since his passing and she said "no, he died 5yrs ago"

When I went to the toilet tiny lady came too "to keep me company". When I tried to sleep she "accidentally" nudged me every few minutes.

10hrs later when we landed, I all but kissed the Tarmac then I ran to border control, I practically hugged the passport man when he stamped my passport and said I was free to go.

"a Scottish sweet, hard but not chewy and tastes like toffee"

That'll be tablet.

Or butterscotch??

Tablet! It was tablet, well done hemlock

I was in a small exploring group at Maun airport in Botswana. We were all booked on a flight to Johannesburg. We all got on a fully booked 75 seater 'plane, waited for while and then had to get off because there was something wrong with it. We all trooped back to the shack small terminal and waited for a replacement aircraft. It arrived after a while and we were then asked for volunteers to stay behind because it would hold only 70 people. Five volunteers were asked for.

After half an hour, my husband and I looked at each other and both put up our hands to a round of applause (we were going no further than Johannesburg at the time). We were aware that some of our group had connecting flights to Heathrow so didn't want them to lose out. Three other people followed us.

Luggage was still on the 75 seater so we had to go to look for ours. Unfortunately, ours was on the 70 seater which had now taken off. That meant that we had absolutely nothing for the night. We were taken to a fairly nice hotel for the night but we really needed some urgent things that the hotel could not provide and I'm not talking about toothbrushes. It all worked out all right in the end though thanks to a Swiss couple who had joined us as volunteers.

Again unfortunately, some of the people who had taken off in the 70 seater had no luggage with them - it was still in Maun on the 75 seater and they had to wait about 3 weeks for it to be delivered to their homes in the UK. At least I could e-mail them to say where their luggage was. I loved Botswana with their relaxed attitude to things. Won't suit everyone though.

I saw a bad one. A woman with a very young baby asked the AS if she could hold her baby on take off instead of strapping it into the basinet. The AS, a young man, said to her that if the pressure dropped her baby would fly up and hit the ceiling. But he didn't just say it, he acted it out with his hands, smashing his fist up into his open palm. The woman went and sat down near me and I watched her slowly dissolve into tears. Then she went and had a go at the AS for his communication skills...

I fainted on a flight from Tokyo to Frankfurt once. We were about an hour away from Tokyo, they found a Chinese Doctor on board who examined me and decided I was ok and there was no need to turn around. I was moved into business class where I could lie down and Dr+his wife were upgraded as well so he could keep an eye on me. I was fed lots and lots of Haegen Daz ice cream.
The only worry was when the Japanese flight assistants wanted to call a wheelchair for me after landing. I was flying home for the first time since I had moved to NZ and it had been 1.5 years since I had seen my family. No way was I going to be wheeled out in a wheelchair to see my unsuspecting family. I had a word with the German FA and she sorted it out for me. I was perfectly fine by that time anyway.

Aldinator, that was silly of the AS anyway.
When I flew with DS they gave me a second safety belt to hold DS to my seat belt. I never flew with bassinets. Just held him.

Three of my bad ones....

1/ The first time best mate and I travelled together to USA aged 18 and 20. Two flights. She got put next to an elderly obnoxious old git who even when asked nicely, wouldn't move so we could sit together, 'on principle', he said (he was travelling alone). He ordered cheese and later removed his false teeth and spent ages scraping the cheese off. and again later. and so on. she nearly puked. And when he snored bits of cheese would shoot out

2/ Going to USA alone as a teenager. Put luggage in overhead locker. It fell out onto the head of a tiny little Chinese man in the next seat. His tiny little wife screamed at me for half an hour in Mandarin, shaking her fist. I felt awful. For the whole journey she kept peering round at me making head rub gesture and pointing at her husband and obviously swearing at me. When we disembarked she screeched at me again inc at luggage collection , I couldn't even ask if he was ok because of the language barrier he looked fine but I hope he didn't have banging headache

3/ Last time I travelled back from USA, 7 or 8 years ago. Sat next to a cheery, chatty american girl (well, young woman). Started chatting , she was on her way to Africa to work with kids, on a mission from her church. Asked me about my job; told her I was manager of a 'mind body and spirit' type shop that sold crystals, incense, oils, jewellery, meditation cd's - you know the kind of shop . At this point her friendly persona changed. You see, crystals ARE the work of satan. Obviously, God had put her next to me to save me because otherwise I was going straight to hell with flaming pitchfork up my arse . She kept saying 'i'm really worried about you . I know you WILL go to hell, I won't because I am a Christian and going to Africa. I know I'M safe'. (note..at this point,... i hadn't told her anything about my religious beliefs, or lack of....but merely what I did for a living). I didn't even tell her I am a pagan.. not because I 'm ashamed but because it would've been red flag to bull. Best friend was lucky enough to have head phones and be on my side i.e. two away from this girl. I had nine hours of biblebashing.

Oh good grief, alltoomuchrightnow - I think I'd have thrown myself off the aircraft, altitude or not

I can't help feeling you should have mentioned the paganism, though; you were going to get grief anyway, so it seemed a shame to miss the chance of a real wind-uo!!

Loving this thread! It's taken me all night (been up with newborn) to read it, but it's kept me sane through the sleep deprivation!

I remember flying to Australia with a Chinese airline many years ago, it was very basic (no tvs or films provided) and I had forgotten to pre-book a veggie meal. No problem I thought I will just mention it to the FA when they come round with drinks, they're bound to have a spare one or two on board right? Luckily the man in the row in front of me had done the same thing and I witnessed him asking the FA if they could change his meal to veggie. We were all horrified when the FA started screaming at him in mandarin and then in English, the gist being that there would be no veggie meal for him. He could have what everyone else was having or nothing . Needless to say I said nothing and just starved for the duration of the two flights, too scared to say anything!
Another time I was flying back from a girls package holiday in Turkey with monarch. The flight was packed with British holidaymakers, in flip flops and shorts. The cabin air con was on at freezing temperatures, literally people were shivering in their seats. I was okay cos I've done a lot of travelling and always bring warm clothes for flights as I find them a bit chilly usually. But this was something else, I could practically see my breath! There was a mum with a baby and two young dc next to us and she asked for a blanket for her toddler and was told she would have to pay 5euros for a comfort pack inc a blanket! She obviously didn't have it, and we didn't have any change as had dumped it all in one of those airport charity buckets. This was in the days before card pymts on planes were the norm otherwise I would have paid for one for her. It was a total racket, they made a fortune out of passengers buying blankets, I think the air con was deliberately set to 'encourage' this! To this day I refuse to fly monarch anywhere!