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

Flew from gatwick to Orlando a few years ago in early January. The flight should have been half empty hut several flights that week had been cancelled so it was almost completely full.
I was sat right at the back of the plane next to a woman I did not know. The first thing she said to me was would I mind checking her shoes to see if the bottoms were dirty... What?! Then she was a massive pain to the FA. Watched them get the dinner trolley ready, wheel it down the aisle then as soon as it was parked next to our seats, she made them move it so she could go to the loo. While she was in there I apologised profusely, and made sure that they knew I wasn't with her! They let me move onto the next row of seats which were the only empty ones on the whole plane. It was bliss.

I flew with dd aged 4 recently. I packed her leap pad and lots of healthy snacks, but the crafty devil managed to beg lots of sweets from other kids.

On the flight she sat next to a friend. They were as well behaved as one could expect from children that age, but lively.

Nearing landing woman in front who had consumed 11/2 bottles of champagne started screaming like a banshee about did making noise.

I told her that she wouldn't be behaving like this if she wasn't drunk. Cue more screaming.

Wibu? If she had asked for the noise to be kept down then fine, but to just start screaming is not right.

Flying Yugoslav Airlines many years ago (when there was still a Yugoslavia). They asked if I wanted a smoking or non-smoking seat. I asked for the latter, got on, only to find that the left hand side of the plane was non-smoking and the right hand side smoking!

You can't boil water at thirty thousand feet, they explained
Um, this seems a bit randomly wrong. Of course you can boil water at 30k feet, and that isn't the cabin pressure anyway. Suspect they couldn't actually boil an egg...

Have I been getting it wrong for years: on a plane where there are free seats and a chance to spread out after takeoff, I don't ask crew if I can move, I just do it. Obviously move back for food and landing etc. I'm not known for moving very quickly, but I can beat anyone to an empty four-seater when the seatbelt light goes off...

My anecdotes:

1. BA crew will serve alcohol to under 18s.
2. Singapore staff will give up their packed lunch to make sure you eat.
3. Monarch staff, when confronted with the alternative, will let you go to the loo, five mins before landing with the seatbelt lights very definitely on, and are particularly mollified when you help to haul the rubbish bags out of the cubicle.
4. Virgin get very annoyed when a doctor wants to have a few drinks, even when you tell them that you are not that kind of doctor. But they do give you exit row upgrades willy-nilly.

flew domestic Aeroflot in the 80s and so many people ran onto the plane about 20 people were standing. it did cost the equivalent of 2pence

partner sadly on a flight and person next to him died. and he had to remain there for hours. with a dead man leaning on him.

Singapore A380s have a vertical cupboard for dead bodies. Not sure if that's a Singapore or an A380 thing? Suspect other high-end airlines will do similar?

maid
Water boils at a lower temperature at altitude. So the water would boil but the egg would take an hour to cook. Even if you go skiing you have to add a minute on to egg cooking time because you are above sea level enough.

Re the egg boiling - we used to have a contraption for boiling eggs, but it was a nightmare, took ages to cook an egg and difficult to judge the end result. Thankfully the powers to be realised this, and we no longer offer this option!

14 hour flight last year, sat in economy with a random man in the aisle seat who popped a sleeping pill and slept almost all the way. Couldn't get out without climbing over him. One drinks service all flight and waiting over an hour when pressing the buzzer for a FA. No meals left apart from the curried eggs, so didn't eat at all.

16 hour flight back from same trip on same airline, sat on the back row near the toilets (due to bowel issues I always choose this seat if I can't justify business class), and the stewardesses were in and out of the toilets, smoking, all the way through the flight. I complained to them that all I could smell was smoke, they carried on, I emailed when I got home, nothing. When I tweeted the airline, tweet was deleted. Never flying with them again despite them being the biggest airline in the country I live in, and being mentioned as fabulous many, many times on this thread.

I did get thanked profusely a couple of years back by a dad flying alone with 2 sons and a daughter. He was doing the last leg of Australia to Manchester, and I was alone just doing that flight. He'd booked the back row of an A330 which is 2-3-2 - he and 2 sons in the middle on the 3, and daughter who was about 6 in the seat next to me. I admit - I was expecting the worst. He loved me though, the daughter noticed I was watching Tangled. She asked me why I was watching that cos I'm a grown up. We ended up having a 6 hour conversation about the best and worst Disney films and how even though we're both girls, cars was our favourite. The dad apologised, I said no worries, and thy all ended up stood near me at baggage claim. He hauled my 2 cases and my golf clubs onto my trolley for me and told his sons (about 8 and 10ish) that that had to push it for me until we met whoever was picking me up, as a thanks for entertaining his daughter. He said he was going to put the kids together and sit with the stranger until he saw I was a woman travelling alone and decided it would be better for the majority if he was in the middle of his knackered children to keep an eye on them all, so decided that his daughter would be ok with me.

Nicest thing seen - 3 blokes of around mid thirties heading to Thailand for a stag do. Grown up blokes going to the beach, not Bangkok type stag do. First leg is Manchester - AUH. I was checking in at business class, and there's a huge queue for economy check in. These guys are behind me, and one of them says 'I don't think we're allowed to check in here'. 'Its ok, 'mate' who works for the airline who it turns out they are meeting in AUH for the next leg has sorted it as check in is always a nightmare, so we don't have to queue. I go off to the lounge. These three blokes are in there too. One looking bemused, and thankful to other 'mate' who got them into the lounge as well. Comes to boarding, there's a separate queue for business with only 7 of us at it. Stewardess who's boarding us, pulls this bloke out of the economy queue and says you and your mates may as well come through this one, save you waiting.

The guys face was a picture when he got on board and realised his mates had arranged business class from MAN to AUH and they then told him they were going first from AUH to Thailand!

Just flew Cathay pacific from heathrow to Auckland. Great service great flight. We had the two seats at the back of the section originally booked. Get in the plane and discover that there is a family in front of us. Or there should be. Family were not sat together. Hostie asked whether we could move to different seats. I was already feeling a bit stressed, as don't like to fly, and said that we'd only move if we were seated together (hearing the family's story three were together and the other 2 were split up around the cabin). Hostie went away. Came back and seated the family together in our seats. We were moved up to business. Yippee.

Worst flights:

Flying from Dublin to Milan on a 7am flight sitting near the back of the plane. A rowdy group of young men early twenties sat all around us and the stink of stale alcohol and stale cigarette smoke was making me retch. Asked the FA if myself, DH and DD could move. We were taken to the front an given seats as far away from the lads as possible.

A flight out of Milan back to Dublin, different trip. A storm passed over the airport but hadn't quite cleared by the time we took off. There was lightning all around the plane and it was bone rattling turbulence. As it was dark outside the cabin was being lit up by the lightning. People were audibly scared. Cabin crew turned on all the lights and assured us that it looked and sounded scary but it was ok that they did this all the time

Best flight:
Valencia to Paris, the plane was a quarter full. I had an entire row to myself. Cabin crew were giving out orange juice and chocolates freely. I slept stretched out over the row. Was bliss.

Many years ago DH and I took a transatlantic flight to Philadelphia. As the plane taxied on the runway before takeoff, the most astonishing noises started to come from behind us. They sounded like a person doing a very loud and accurate impression of a dog barking.

Turned out there was a man in the back of the plane who a) didn't like flying and b) had Tourette's. It made for a very surreal flight.

Why is this in Aibu?

Who cares mardy its a fab thread and i am enjoying reading everyones stories...bad and good.

is it in aibu? I hadn't noticed actually..I'm addicted to this thread. maybe it's for more traffic

One flight I had the turbulence was so bad I thought it was the end. Totally terrifying.

I have flown over 200 times. This terrifying flight was13th flight my children had taken. It was on Friday 13th. The flight took off at 13.00 hrs. We were seated in row 13.
We unexpectedly hit a storm over Germany, we had to drop several thousand feet but it didn't help. Everything was flying about inside the cabin- people were screaming and crying- even a stewardess was screaming. My 13 yo son though he was going to die.

I have never been so glad to see a concrete tarmac as I did that day.
I am now a very nervous flyer.

1st April 2000 DH and I were flying back from Melbourne to heathrow. On checking in we were told the plane was now going via Perth. Why? Because we were picking up the Queen and Prince Phillip. At Perth we sat on the plane watching the Australian prime minister saying goodbye to them and waving to the assorted photographers and journalist that were in attendance. Landed to refuel in Singapore and the they both went off somewhere with thier flunkys. I grabbed my camera as they headed back to the plane and the Queen paused and smiled for my photo.

Worst flight was to the Dom rep. The doors to the hold had frozen shut and despite blasting them with steam they couldn't open them to get the luggage out from the previous passengers. Six hours later they got permission to fly with the luggage on board. We got on the plane, and the bloody doors finally opened. So now they had to get the luggage off. Another hours delay sat on the plane, with a screaming baby and a drunk bloke who was getting aggressive with the babies father. Nightmare.

You know BigBlue every Friday 13 there are many flights that take off at 13:00 hours all over the wold. Most of those flights will have people seated in row 13 and some of those flights are going to hit turbulence. So except for the 13th flight for your children, what you experienced was something that has happened to quite a lot of people. Just because there is so much flying.

I'm not saying it's not terrifying, just that you may be reading a bit too much into the "bad omen" aspects of the flight. Just thought putting that bit into perspective might make you slightly less nervous, though I understand really bad turbulence could make anyone nervous all by itself.

Worst flights:

Night flight from Doha to Manchester. Lovely parents of a 3 year old child decided to go to sleep and allow their child to run up and down the plane. Everyone was huffing and puffing, so I grabbed said child, marched him back to his parents and woke them up.

Rio to Manchester. Bloke next to us in the window seat decided there was not enough leg room, so he spread out across his seat and put his legs across my space and his feet in my footwell. Pulled a right face when I asked him to move. Half way into the flight, he decides to fall asleep on my shoulder! When he trie to take my blanket, that's when he got my elbow in his face.

Best flight:

Travelling from Manchester to Abu Dhabi and I will never forget the look on my sons face when we arrived at the gate. He is a huge Man City fan and the plane sat on the Tarmac was the Man City Etihad plane. Painted blue, with the City crest on and the words 'Blue moon' on the side. He was so excited I thought he was going to pee himself. The flight crew were amazing with him when they saw his City shirt and took him on a tour of the plane to show him all the City photo's.

boom- I am not at all superstitious. I thought this was a discussion thread?

Best ever, ever, ever. First class with Emirates, UK to Australia. (and back).
With an actual shower in the bathroom. Nearly died of pleasure and while I'm usually anxious to get off a plane they nearly had to get a crowbar to prise my off my seat when we landed.

Yes, I think bigblue's story was told with tongue firmly in cheek, boom. Probably no need for the (very well reasoned and earnest) explanation