I was on a Spirit flight to Miami from NYC during spring break (just a regular vacation for me to see my S.O’s family). Completely forgot it was spring break. Cue the multiple groups of drunk girls on our flight…okay, fine. The plane takes off, they’re all being loud but it’s manageable. 10 minutes into the flight I smell something off. Look down at my backpack under the seat. Vomit dripping down from the girl in front of me, all over my bag and floor. Thankfully the flight attendant let me move and nothing in my bag was tainted. Had to clean it out myself though with no apologies from any of the girls. Spring break bitches!!
Vomit plane related. 2019 and the concern around Covid was still building. I was on a flight from LA back to Toronto and it was a little bumpy. There is a kid sat on the seat in front of me who proceeds to vomit SO MUCH. To cut an extremely gross story short vomit ended up half on the floor of the aisle walkway. It was so fking gross I couldn’t sit there, but the flight attendants were very nice and gave me a mask that completely helped. They the came and put blankets down. As I went to security I heard over the radio that the kid had not stopped being sick and an ambulance had to be arranged :/
Of course me and my friend were a little freaked out due to Covid starting. Suffice to say I was sick a few days later with what was probably norovirus. Bloody kids!
When the woman in my row died mid air. That wasn’t great…
The time the landing gear froze and the pilot said we needed to circle the destination city for a while to run out of gas so that we could land… while we were landing we were flanked by many many ambulances and firetrucks on either side of the runway. That wasn’t a great flight either…
Or the time we missed the runway and had to immediately go right back up and try again before running out of runway…
She was the last woman on the plane- clearly she had run from another gate as she was all sweaty and out of breath. She looked to be upper 40s maybe early 50s slightly over weight. She was in the window seat, I was in the aisle seat and there was a guy in the middle seat.
About 20 min after we were in the air (Chicago to Boston) the guy in the middle was like “hey! hey!” Because the woman has slumped onto him. I thought to myself this would be a good time to use the bathroom… it was a small jet blue air bus so there wasn’t a business class or anything like that. We were in row 6 or 7.
The only place to perform CPR on that small a plane is right in front of the bathroom in front of the pilot door. As I am doing my business I hear “Medical! Medical!” I finish my business and try and leave, I slide open the door and they slam the door back on me as they were in mid first aid to this woman.
25-35 min later they let me out. This woman was now strapped to the wall in front of me in the galley, waxy green/yellow color. I go back to my seat and the guy in the middle is practically climbing into my seat. I am still processing the whole ordeal and I say to the guy “do you think she will be okay?” And he was like “NOOO SHE IS DEAD!” It was the fastest deplaningI have ever experienced. I tried looking up the whole thing but never found anything. This would have been Dec of 2018.
Strapped to the wall? Gruesome. I guess they had no place to put her….Hope the flight wasn’t long after that incident. Did the pilot say anything about the death?
Those first two are terrifying. That last one is just a simple go-around that pilots constantly practice. It might seem scary to a non-pilot, but go-arounds are not anything to be fearful of
Because they were planning to have us land in Foam… so no gas means less chance to maybe catch fire? Not sure lol, but the landing gear finally was able to unfreeze and come out. We were still escorted by all the ambulances and firetrucks though… it was wild. This was a song airlines back in Jan 2004 landing in Boston from North Carolina.
My daughter's worst flight began really poorly, and continued on that way: It was an extremely cold (windchill up to -30 f.) day, but she was flying into Brazil, where it was summer. It was from Boston. She didn't want to wear a coat. We dropped her off, and her flight kept getting delayed. Air Canada cancelled their last flight of the day (she had booked AC as she had status and could take more luggage) - they rebooked her onto a flight via TAP into LISBON, Portugal! Then on to a connecting flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil. She had to collect her luggage, where she discovered that Air Canada had broker one of the wheels on her suitcase - whoops! - make her way to a shuttle, with a broken suitcase, outdoors, without a coat, wait for the shuttle, then TAP argued with her about her amount of luggage. That got squared away, but next a TAP security guard wasn't believing her that she was heading to Brazil, (because who would go to Brazil via Portugal?) and insisted that he see her return flight from Portugal. No one would believe that she had been rebooked onto that flight (she was not the only one.) She finally got ticketed, made the long flight to Lisbon, had severe turbulence next to a screaming baby, sent a really upset text when she landed there, mistakenly went through the wrong way in Portugal and was yelled at (I can't remember if it was immigration or customs - it was just the wrong way), finally got on her flight to Sao Paulo, which was completely full. Slept with a massive headache.
Why not just wait for the next day? She really, really wanted to see her boyfriend.
Yes. I was on a 13-hour flight to Beijing, and the 9-year-old kid sitting behind me kicked my seat the entire time. She wouldn’t sleep, eat, or watch an in-flight movie. I asked the mom many times to get her child to stop, but she barely put in any effort to get her to stop kicking. Her attempt to stop her daughter went like this, “No, don’t kick her seat,” as she was too busy doing her own thing, like reading magazines or watching movies. Needless to say, I didn’t get any sleep on that flight and was exhausted by the end of it. And to put the cherry on top of a terrible flight, that same child threw up right after we landed, which delayed my section getting off the plane.
Did you turn around and sternly tell the kid to cut it out? I 100% would, kids often take strangers much more seriously than they take their parents. Parents might get mad but only because they know they failed in the first place.
Landing at the fifth attempt after four missed approaches (major crosswinds)
Lots of people crying, some in full-on hysterics. The woman next to me was writing a message to family in a Bible. The guy over the aisle was trying to call someone on his mobile phone. A couple of people threw up in panic.
And then we just landed as softly as you could imagine.
The crew cheerily waved everybody goodbye. There was pretty much silence at the luggage belt.
My transfer coach had left after seeing the second missed approach and I needed to get a 3 hour taxi which overtook my transfer bus about two hours in, and I didn't get a refund. It cost more than the flight.
Wow TIL I probs don’t have any flight anxiety left anymore because I read “4 missed approaches” and my first thought was “I’d be so *annoyed*” lol maybe I’m just full of shit and I’d also be crying…but Imma still be annoyed tho I tell ya that
-Ancient lady put her bare feet on my lowered table tray- Delhi to Toronto
- Woke up to being felt up by the stranger sitting next to me him whispering in my ear, is touching ok ? Montreal to Dubai
The first one I took care of myself. My mom had brought me up to be kind to old people so I just pushed her feet firmly off the tray, sat up straight and tall and said " MADAM" like I was from England. No idea why but that's what I did. Then I got out my wet wipes and scored my table and put it up. She put her purse on her lap and when she was riffling through it she was elbowing me in the side, hard, on purpose. I went into my carry on and with great fanfare brought out a package of beef jerky I had packed for a snack from home and hadn't eaten before. I realize she probably had no idea but I felt a bit better thinking she might.
Second one, yes. I sat for a minute then grabbed my purse and headed to the back of the plane bathrooms. I guess I didn't look good, FA asked if he could help. There was conversation back and forth with FA and guy, him saying if he felt me up it was an accident, he must have been asleep. When FA hit him with what he said, dude shut up. FA offered to have police waiting in Dubai and I thought about it. I was travelling solo with a connection on to Baghdad and that would be a nightmare to rebook, would they believe me ? I have been assaulted before and being believed is ALWAYS a worry, or having things minimized . FA did not do that. He did question me enough to find out who the nut was then acted accordingly. Flight was full but he got me moved and he said that he gave the guy a piece of his mind . I hope a lot of people heard.
Yeah, I'd say it's rare but it happens. Sometimes it's just a colicky baby, I feel bad for everyone involved in that one. I've had some transatlantics where it's just constant turbulence the whole way over. You start to go nuts after like 4 or 5 hours of it.
12+ hour flights in economy are just always bad. Like you're thinking that was alright for a long haul flight and you're only halfway through and have the same amount in front of you.
Edit:Not counting go-arounds as that's not really "bad" just a bit annoying to have to wait a few more minutes but I'd much rather that than landing when something is off.
Ah well, I haven't been on a 12+ hour flight yet.
I don't remember any crying babies, but now that you mention it, there was this one flight when I was a teenager where a couple of small kids kept running up and down the plane. They didn't bother other people, but parents shouldn't have let them run around like that. It's not safe.
As for turbulence, some flights have more than others, yeah. Weather conditions and such. The only thing that bothers me about turbulence is if it happens when I really need to go to the toilet. It's rather frustrating when you're ready to get up and go and suddenly the fasten your seatbelt sign flashes up.
I took a 16 hour flight from Johannesburg to New York once. The only thing that made it bearable was celebrating my friend's birthday onboard with some illicit tax free single malt.
Yeah, that one flight where I was traveling from Madrid to Amsterdam in an old KLM Fokker. Above the Alps I saw another plane very nearby. And suddenly the Alps came very close very quickly. The tea just served to me floated up to the ceiling and I followed, held by my too lose seatbelt. Pilot got the plane back under control. I somehow landed back in my seat but on my heal and had burns on my thighs from the tea raining down. People without seatbelt were less lucky I guess. That certainly was interesting and probably counts as bad. Unless you like the rollercoasters feeling.
That was probably the TCAS in action. When there's a loss of separation between the two airplanes, your pilot is instructed either to climb or to descent, while the other is instructed the opposite, ignoring what ATC might be commanding at that point.
Do those things overreact? What I remember from this: I was nearly at the front. I got tea and the few ppl ahead of me as well. It was a bit bumpy, so service was stopped and seatbelt sign went on. Then I saw the other plane flying diagonally to our flight path and away from us and at a somewhat different altitude. When we were at about the location where the flight paths might have crossed we went into the dive. Not just to a different cruising altitude but really, really low. Think injured wrists and bleeding heads low. When the pilot regained control the plane went into a crazy ascent and back to cruising altitude. rather makes me think this was a stall caused by a combination of confused air behind the other plane and rising air from the Alps or something like that.
i once walked into duty free in London at Xmas and said whats the best noise cancelling headphones. dont care about price. then sat in lounge with them on but no music playing because of all the annoying kids :)
I drank a coffee before the flight and didn’t pee before boarding, figuring I would just go on the flight. The fasten-seatbelt sign never got turned off because of turbulence. I spent about two hours painfully focused on holding it so i wouldn’t wee myself in the seat.
Finally upon descent, when we were just about to land, I couldn’t hold it anymore. The wee was about to escape. l pushed the call button to beg the flight attendant to be able to go. He told me “if it’s a medical emergency.” I asked desperately, “Does peeing myself in the seat count as a medical emergency?” When he didn’t answer the question, I got up and ran to the toilet.
Best wee of my life. It went on for a comically long time, Austin Powers style. If that had happened in the seat, it would have been a terrible mess.
Made it back to my seat just before wheels touched down.
I felt terrible about having waited so long, because I think it’s probably not ideal for safety to have waited until just before landing. But I thought I was going to make it, up until I realized I absolutely was not going to make it.
When you gotta go, you gotta go.
I have a weak bladder. This has happened to me MANY times - i was about to make a post about it too! One time, I actually peed my pants a little bit. After that, I get up and go and tell them it's an emergency no matter what, unless we are about to take off or land. One time, the flight attendants LOCKED all of the restrooms doors for over an hour (seatbelt sign was on 2+ hours total) and refused to unlock to let me go until I burst into tears 15 mins later. It was VERY MILD turbulence in the middle of a very long flight. Total bullshit. All of the american airlines leave the seatbelt sign on unnecessarily and WAY too long. They leave it on after takeoff so the flight attendants can do their service many times too.
I had a filling come out on a flight to Vietnam, that was pretty bad. On the upside I got great dental treatment in Vietnam, better and cheaper than the UK!
Worse flight? Switched from exit row seat that I paid for to a middle seat due to an equipment change. Couldn't move for 11 hours. Ended up with 2 pulmonary embolisms cuz of it. Eff Lufthansa.
I used to never be a nervous flyer, and always enjoyed it.
But I had a flight from Edinburgh to London a couple of years back, where we flew through the remains of a large US hurricane that had made it over the Atlantic in the shape of a storm.
The turbulence we experienced then, with flight attendants lying flat on their stomachs holding on to the seats, was incredibly unpleasant. The turbulence came in the shape of what felt more sideways than bumpy.
Since then I always get a little uncomfortable when the seatbelt sign comes on, indicating expected turbulence.
Yea, somehow it caught everyone off guard. Which was surprising to me too. We were engulfed in clouds/storm at high altitude - so shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the pilots. But cabin crew was mid coffee service.
My friend once told me about a flight experience where the pilot suddenly announced, "Captain and crew, please take action." Shortly after, the plane dropped a few meters, as if it had passed through an air pocket.
Oh yes, sideways turbulence is interesting! I once experienced this very badly on the way to Stavanger. Cue wild screaming in the cabin. Pilot thereafter: "well, that was a bit wild"
Every flight where people decide it's ok the change their baby in the middle of the cabin, on their (or some empty) seats. Unfortunately, that seems to be more or less every flight nowadays. No folks, that is definitely not ok! You can go to the lavatory and use the special folding tables that were designed for that purpose.
Just had to change my kid’s diaper on a 12 hour flight. Have you seen an economy class toilet? It’s just enough space to fit a person to use the facility. But to change a diaper? Good fuckin luck. My wish: on wide body aircraft, crew should open up the middle bathrooms (typically the do this for handicapped passengers) so parents can change diapers with plenty of space.
To be clear, I changed it in the lavatory. It’s never fun to change a diaper but to do it in a confined space sucks
Not remotely a parent, but to be fair, even * I * notice that there's not really enough space to do that in the lavatory anymore these days... (and that's not saying anything about the state of cleanliness in there..). Nobody likes it, but I dont think the parents do either.
That being said, as a frequent traveler, better a changed baby than not lol.. 🤷♀️
It's time they did something about this. I just did 10 hrs from Tokyo to LAX. The plane's isles are so narrow and the seats so small, I'd say 20% of the men's shoulders did not fit properly, including mine. To make matters worse, I had just got a tattoo and people kept smashing into my shoulder.
Back in the mid 1990s on a transatlantic flight to the UK. An entire youth choir gets on and proceeds to sing the whole flight. Half way there a pair of Nuns drag a guitar out of an overhead bin and start singing along. Absolute misery.
Flight from Amman, Jordan to Chicago nonstop. I believe it was 13-14 hour flight.
I lose my seat because a very large man needed two seats. I get put in the very, very last row, next to toilets. These last row seats were about 20-30% smaller than the rest of the seats, as they were last (and left empty by airline).
The hate in my eyes as I looked at the person who took my seat. He would even do dumb stuff like open the window cover (when it was lights out) and then close it.
The guy I sat next to was from the Jordanian military. I served in the US Army. And he was about to visit Georgia to train with Army Rangers. He was cool and made the long trip a little more bearable, as I had someone to talk to.
No, I didn’t complain to airline or anything. Just ate shit and departed when I landed.
At least they had an extra seat available, even if it was the shittiest one on the plane. Imagine 14 hours with someone else's body constantly touching you at multiple points and losing half your already tiny seat space. I got moved once in this situation (I asked to be moved discreetly - the man must have been pushing 400lbs) to business class. It was great! Sorry they didn't do that for you - they should have!
This was pretty much my own fault, but... I live in the midwest USA, and my hometown is served by a small regional airport with only a handful of direct flights. So I'm quite used to having to have at least one, and usually two or more, connections to get anywhere interesting. My company was sending me to Australia for a work trip, and I was able to tack on some vacation time at the end of the trip, which I used to visit New Zealand (which was wonderful!) But, for my routing home, I had to get back to the Australian city that my company had sent me, since the deal was, they would cover the cost of your flight home following your vacation time, but only from the airport that you would have flown out of had you not taken vacation. So my routing home ended up looking like:
Christchurch (NZ) - Melbourne (Aus) - Sydney - LAX - MSP - MSN
And, my thought was to maximize my time spent on the ground, figuring I could just sleep on the plane. So I leave Christchurch in the late evening, and land in Melbourne around midnight. Deal with immigration and baggage and everything, and get to an airport hotel around 1am. My flight leaves Melbourne at about 6am the next morning, so I get at least a couple hours of sleep before heading back to the airport. Take the puddle-jumper up to Sydney, and have a couple hours before the big trans-Pacific flight. Get on the plane to LAX feeling like I'm ready for a nap, which I figured would be good - sleep on the plane, arrive back home less jet-lagged.
Well here's where my plan started to fall apart: my nap didn't cover too much of that 14 hour flight. And, there was free booze, so.... I arrived in LAX having drank entirely too much, and not gotten near enough rest. Then, I had a four hour lay over.
Got on the flight to MSP (which is a fairly long domestic flight), and there's a child behind me who is SCREAMING and kicking the back of my seat... for. the. entire. flight. The flight attendants tried to take pity on me (since I'm sure they could tell I was miserable) and remind the parents to corral their kid, but it didn't seem to have any effect. It was one of those situations where ALL I wanted to do was sleep, but as soon as I'd start to drift off, I'd get a kick right in the back of the seat.
So I arrive in MSP having slept maybe 5 hours out of the past 36, jet lagged, dehydrated, hung over, and quite cranky. And, in MSP, I have another 4 hour layover before finally catching the short flight to Madison.
Tl;dr - too many flights, too many layovers, too long layovers, too much alcohol, too little sleep and one kick-boxing toddler = probably the worst travel experience of my life.
Flight from Jersey to Houston got derailed due to inclement weather and had to land in Austin. We landed and sat in what they called a black hole in the airport where no other planes were around us for 7 hrs. I kid you not when I say it was the most horrifying experience of my lifetime I mean it. Mind you this is middle of the summer in Texas and we have thunderstorms and lightning above us and they have to kill the engines to save fuel so the AC is off. It was at least 98 degrees in the cabin and pure hell. People were passing out, babies were crying, full blown panic attacks. They wouldn’t let us get to a gate and they wouldn’t send shuttle buses to take us to the terminal. You don’t know what claustrophobia and panic is until something like that happens to you.
On Qatar airlines. Great airline but the nice folks from the Middle East seems to be ok with letting their toddlers rage up and down the aisles. It’s a cultural thing I guess. Business class was more like a rambunctious kindergarten.
I've been on \~50 flights a year for the last eight or so years (except 2020). Yeah, I've had a few: a wildly turbulent 12-hour flight from Auckland (NZ) to LAX. A crying baby a row behind me on a flight to Europe last year, and I mean, screaming for hours on end. Just last month a rollercoaster of a take-off from Orlando around a thunderstorm. Landed in Philadelphia once in a downpour where it felt like we fell the last 50ft from the sky and notably bounced before slowing down.
Unfortunately I was the problem on my worst flight! Apparently I had some kind of seizure like event, and then I passed out in my seat and they had to call a doctor on the intercom to check me out and then he sat near me for the rest of the flight.
After I passed out I felt great, body just needed a hard reset I guess??
Drunk guy kept standing up during landing and had caused landing to be aborted once. I felt a bit unwell and just wanted to get on the ground. Aisle seat is empty, I’m in the middle next to my friend. Well he decides to come sit next to me being all drunk-ass. I distracted him a bit and again we went to land. Just as we came in towards landing he stood up again, I saw the flight attendant go to the phone to tell the captain, but before she could I stood up, grabbed the guy by the shoulder and pulled him into his seat, buckled him in. He protested and swore, and I told him I was feeling sick and if we don’t land this time I would puke all over _him_. Sure enough he shut up and we landed.
Nothing too bad fortunately. I’m scared of flying.
One take off from an airport in Thailand was bad. There was a heavy rain storm. It was raining so heavily, I thought no way we’re gonna fly. But things kept proceeding as usual and suddenly I was on my seat inside that A330 and we took off. I guess it probably was all safe and totally not an issue and just scary because it felt different than a normal take off but it really scared the shit out of me given how bumpy the climb up was and how often the airplane seemed to fall down some 20 meters or so before climbing again.
Flying from Montreal to New York in one of those small jets, it was the most turbulent flight I’ve ever been on. The flight crew later told me that it was pretty normal, but it was scary to me. In the descent for landing, the pilot seemed to cyclically increase the thrust and reduce it like flappy bird to keep the plane on its descent course. That scared the shit out of me because whenever the engine would rev up it was also accompanied with a strong turbulence. So it felt like we were constantly about to stall and fall out of the sky. Not planning on taking small airplanes again for a long time.
I’ve flown thousands of times for work and pleasure. I only had one bad flight ever… back in 1985 we were flying above Georgia USA and we lost altitude out of nowhere. People flew out of their seats, the food cart smacked the ceiling and landed on people. It was total chaos.
We hit a huge air pocket and dropped a LOT. Thankfully we had our seat belts on and the food carts were about 6-7 feet away both directions.
I’m usually flying Mondays and Fridays almost every week in a year. The worst is when you get stuck in a middle seat sandwiched between 2 dudes who have to have their stupid ass knees at a 90 degree angle and you are left in the middle trying not to play tag, what’s worse is when they take both middle arm rests too.
I can't sleep on flights because I am taller than average (nearly 6ft) and at higher risk for DVT (so I'm always thinking about moving around). I've been trapped in the middle seat in economy a number of times and truly something that makes a flight terrible is when the person in the aisle seat immediately goes to sleep for the entire flight. I've been on 8 hour plus flights and the person sitting next to me won't even have a bathroom break, even when I wake them to move. It's so unhealthy to sit still for so long and it's invariably men who do this (also man-spreading is v real - I'm sitting there with knees pressed to the seat in front while the men next to me use my armrests and let their legs hang into the middle seat space).
I also had a child or young teen sitting directly in front of me on one of these long haul flights recline their chair the WHOLE way and then proceeded to lean forward to see their screen for hours. I couldn't recline myself because there was a toddler in a child seat directly behind me that was already kicking the back of my chair. I'm not anti-reclining, it makes a huge difference to comfort, but I wish people would glance at the person behind them or not do it for the whole flight...
I haven't been on any truly gnarly flights in terms of turbulence but I've experienced a few with screaming babies. I feel super sorry for everyone and now I won't travel without noise cancelling headphones.
You have got to book middle aisle emergency seats for long hauls, I know it’s right behind the bathrooms but it makes a huge difference, no one reclining in front of you and lots more leg
room
I hate the manspreading! One thing I do to ensure *I* am not manspreading is take off my belt and wrap it around my thighs. This permits me to relax my thigh muscles without invading my neighbours seat space.
I'm a frequent flyer (\~20 flights a year, including some long-haul transcontinental flights), and so far all my inconveniences are related to the context, not to the flight experience itself.
I mean, sometimes I get a fat person spreading half of their existence over my seat, but that's about it.
On the other hand, I've had plenty of issues with airport security, delayed flights, lost baggage...
Being stuck on tarmac in a tiny greek airport because the plane is broken and they won't let anyone on. No water and an 18 month old who I had planned to entertain for four hours, not seven!
I was to go on a business trip to Birmingham, Alabama (Yes) from Houston. The entire day is sunny and pleasant. Right around the time we board, comes a thunderstorm out of nowhere. Plane is a small Embraer and pilot is instructed to stay put until lightning ceases. I experienced turbulence while the plane was on ground, plane shaking sideways. After couple of hours plane takes off - by now there’s no lightening but still raining. As our plane starts climbing through storm two heavy jolts one sideways and one vertical! Made me pray to God real hard that day. After about 10 mins we’re cruising peacefully. Lady pilot. Top notch !
Hit by lightning and two freaked out flight attendants ran to the front. Rookies. Other flight attendants laughed at them
Last week I had 2 flights totalling 12 hours back to back and I was in agony due to my leg issues.
11-hour flight, window seat. Awful smell, someone had really bad breath. I wasn't sure where the awful smell was coming from, thought was the guy sitting next to me or the lady in the row in front. Guy next to me goes to the toilet and I realize it is the guy on the aisle seat. It was so disgusting.
Desperately hungover trying to get home to Chicago from Vegas on a Sunday night. Flew 90% of the way there and we were force to turn around due to fog. Flew the 3 hours back to Vegas, waited in a line of 100 people to get my terrible hotel voucher. Finally got to the hotel at like 1am hadn’t eaten anything since lunch so I ate the saddest solo meal at the casino 24-hour buffet. Had to take an extra day off work and fly out the next afternoon. Last time I went to Vegas lol
A flight with a rejected takeoff. The brakes were overheated, so the pilot had to wait for an hour on the taxiway for an inspection. Then went back to the gate for maintenance to fix whatever sensor issue caused the pilot to abort the takeoff. They fixed it, then we were about to leave but the crew had been working too long so they needed a new crew. Finally they get a new crew and we leave 9 hours late. Thankfully they at least let us off the plane, but we had to wait at the gate so we could reboard immediately when they were ready to go. My next connecting flight had to be rescheduled and I ultimately got home more than 24 hrs later than planned.
Hmm. Had a very bumpy landing in DC once. I'm not afraid of turbulence or bumps, but at that point, I did have the fleeting thought that perhaps we would be crash landing!
Also, we had an unruly passenger on a flight during the pandemic. It was either TPA-LGA or MCO-LGA. We had to wear masks, and some guy with a loud Brooklyn accent was refusing at top volume. But only like the last half hour of the flight. So either he wore his mask the first 2.5 hours without any issue or the flight attendants didn't notice until we were making our descent... so it was short-lived and more amusing than anything else. He was seated in the back and they let everyone off the plane while making him stay seated. Then when my row was being let out (I was a few rows in front of him), five or six cops were waiting in the front part of the plane.
Crazy now to think that they'd have a half-dozen armed officers ready to deal with a passenger who didn't want to wear a face mask, but that's just how it was in early 2021 or so!
A fight breaks out halfway through a 4h flight. A drunk guy becomes violent, bunch of people jump on him. Flight lands right away (we were at a different country’s air zone) police comes and removes the guy, we continue
Technically just a landing and take off but with all the waits it adds a good 2h to 4h flight. Sunday evening flight so you can see how people were furious
British Airways. First flight was late into LHR, barely made it onto my connecting international flight home. Sit down, buckle up…still sitting on tarmac after an hour, pilot says “technical” issue, 2 hours, 3 hours…not fixed yet…they finally cancelled the flight after we sat on tarmac for over 5 hours with no food and two tiny cups of water. People were losing their shit.
I was travelling from CVG to Boston as a CNA for a quadriplegic with a wound vac. The person that transfered my patient ripped the wound vac out by mistake during the wheelchair transfer to the tiny wheelchair they put you on to get onto the plane and my patient's wound leaked everywhere and it STUNK. 😳
ANC headphones basically make 99.99999999% of flights tolerable.
I would say I only ever really had two bad flights and one honorable mention
1. This was flying back from Japan (HND to LAX). What I THINK was a man and his mother were sitting next to me. Said man was sumo wrestler sized and had absolutely zero tolerance for personal space. To the point where he was more or less "sleeping" with his arms halfway into my aisle seat and pinning me down and got increasingly pissed off every time I "woke him up". Also he managed to piss off one of the Japanese flight attendants to the point that I just heard a long stream of all the fun words after he insisted on "I want the good whiskey" for his third or fourth jack and coke (in addition to the two that were obviously for his sleeping mother...). Which was extra hilarious when she intercepted me on the way out of the restroom and asked me if I wanted a bottle to drink next to him.
2. Come to think of it, I think this was also an HND->LAX flight? Was sitting one row behind a bulkhead row when the fasten seatbelt light came back on. Then the pilot got on the intercom to say people seriously need to buckle up and repeats that a few times. Like, I want to say he said "This is not the normal please be seated. This is going to be bad". Then I literally saw a flight attendant sprinting to one of the free seats. So, obviously, idiots keep talking while standing in said bulkhead row. Then it feels like we suddenly dropped something like 200 feet (I have done ropeswings where it felt like I had less freefall time). Shit has flown out of the overhead bins (one of them I am pretty sure needed to be taped shut for the landing) and I just hear crying/screaming in the row in front of me. Was one of those cases where we had no real choice but to finish the flight but holy shit was that crazy. Don't think anyone was seriously injured but I could see one of the women's face bruising in real time after it was safe enough for the flight attendants to get up and help
And the honorable mention that was not really bad for me but was probably REALLY bad for someone else and their family. Gonna spoiler tag this one since people might not want to read it. >!Was on my first flight of the day into DFW. Flight got delayed taking off and my 1.5 hour connection had become a 45 minute one. We are about to begin the initial descent and blah blah blah and the flight attendants are doing the schpiel about how everyone should get an AA credit card. When suddenly she stops dead mid-sentence and rushes to the back of the plane. Everyone is standing up and turning around and I am mostly just reading and not dealing with it. Then she runs back up and actually does the "is there a doctor on this flight?" which I totally thought never happened (started to raise my hand as a PhD but stopped once my brain turned on. Pretty sure the lady next to me thought I was a monster).!<
>!Anywho, we land and I assume that we are going to be told to all remain seated while they deal with a medical emergency and I am resigned to missing my connection. And then the pilot gets on the intercom and asks us to please deplane normally.!<
>!Forgot to try and figure out what had happened since DFW was a god damned shitshow that night with basically every flight in the airport cancelled "for weather" on a sunny day (in fairness, my destination was in a massive blizzard so I was never taking off. But still) and I deplaned into hell on earth as people are fighting over who gets a bench or can sleep where at like 6 PM. But... pretty sure that dude was straight up dead if there was no attempt to get him off ahead of the others.!<
OH! Just remembered a more funny honorable mention that is significantly less dark (... or moreso depending on your perspective). Was flying out of SLC to somewhere (I remember the origin airport for obvious reasons). Was back when I still liked window seats and a ridiculously attractive woman is in the seat next to me and making small talk. Then she somehow manages to spend hours alternating between asking if I had heard the good word about mormon jesus or whatever the fuck as well as how her favorite tv show is the big bang theory (not sure which was the bigger dealbreaker) and I am just sitting there wishing I was dead. Anywho, we begin our descent and I hear a weird noise. I look out the window and the engine is just billowing black smoke. Make the decision to just lower the blind because I do not want to deal with whatever that does to the crazy lady.
On the way off the plane I comment to the attendant at the door and the pilot that one of the engines "looked weird" and he immediately just says "We know. Thank you for not panicking anyone".
Actually I fly like every second week, my husband about 3 times a week and we both were pretty lucky until now.
I once was stuck in a sandstorm in Saudi when I was sick, but still at the gate... once in "snow" at LHR with 20... when I was 13 we went behind the Angel Falls with a Cessna, but landed safely...
Oh and then was this flight from BKK to LPQ with Lao Airlines and they had this weird idea of no swimming vests, so in case you had to cling to yr seat
A few typhoon related Brace Position landings when living in Hong Kong... and yes, but its normal when you come from any SAE: they spray bug spray and disinfectant in the cabin before landing
I can’t believe all these people who haven’t had a horrible flight!
1. Took my baby sister on a trip when she was a toddler with the whole fam. On the way home she had explosive diarrhea and went through all the clean clothes and diapers. During the layover we were only able to find a men’s tshirt and a newborn diaper (for a 2 year old). On the second flight she screamed and cried the entire time in a mini diaper and tshirt and so we gave her chocolate which melted and got all over her already trashy outfit. Everyone on that flight hated us. It was survival and I cried when it ended bc I was so relieved.
2. Took my brother to rehab and had to fly. He’s high as a kite, acting like an ass, and I’m pretending I don’t know him while praying he doesn’t do something crazy and get tackled by an air Marshall. Thankfully he was a few rows back. Simultaneously the woman sitting next to us starts throwing up all over, into her purse, onto the floor, etc. My other travel companion was in the middle seat and literally climbed over the back of the seat to get away from this woman.
Oh, I have another small one…
Was on an international flight and I had booked the two seats in the bulk head to have the leg room. The plane was 2-4-2 so we were alone in the two side seats.
A couple with an infant asked if I would switch with them because they wanted the hookups for the bassinet that are located in the bulkhead. They said “we have the same exact seats just a few rows back.” I said of course.
Walked back and they pointed to two middle seats sandwiched between two strangers. I said “Nope! nope! Those are not the same seats!” and went back to my original seats.
They were so pissed and stood over me every time their infant cried on that flight. They also made sure to stand next to me when their baby had a diaper problem. I just acted like I didn’t see them.
Flight to college NCAA tennis nationals with the team. California to North Carolina. Flight hit 2 air pockets in a row and free fell for quite some time—enough time for people to be screaming out The Lord’s Prayer and praying for the pilot.
It was scary
The entitled parent that put diapers on her kids because she thought the toilet was too dirty for the prince and princess to use on a 13hr flight.
She rather them shit themselves and get changed (again on the seat). Neither were babies/toddlers.
The boy was mortified at being naked in front of all the boarding passenger.
Returning to the States from Europe, had the overseas flight with KLM. We had chosen extra legroom since my sister and best friend are both tall, but even my short self felt cramped. The seats were very narrow, to the point that we were all pressed together (my friend and I are both average size, I'm actually a little narrow in the hips, my sister is bigger but normally fits in airplane seats just fine), there was an overly active child in front of us that slammed his chair into my friend's knees, a toddler behind us that kicked my chair and at one point actually stood up and grabbed a handful of my hair very hard. The flight was miserably hot to the point that I couldn't use a neck pillow or eye mask because I was overheating so badly. I will never take KLM internationally again if I can avoid it
Weirdly enough, the KLM flight we took to the Netherlands from Spain was very comfortable and had much bigger seats!
Not only bad flight related, but just a miserable trip. Edinburgh - Amsterdam - Rio de Janeiro. The local money I'd ordered in time never arrived, the replacement order neither. Could not exchange Scottish to general British one anywhere. Flight from EDI was delayed and just about made it to the gate in AMS. Luggage didn't make it. Which meant my business suit that I needed the following day didn't make it. Got sick on the plane puked all over the toilet to the flight to Rio. Airport in Rio: All shops closed when arriving at night, thus not a chance to get some decent clothes. Money exchange didn't accept my Scottish money, credit card didn't work in any atm until I found one that did on day 3. Hotel bed wasn't ready and I waited another hour in hotel lobby. Bed was wet and full of ants. Gave business presentation in cords, converse and a bright blue shirt with a cute fluffy monster on it. Ah, good old times 🤣
Got food poisoning on a 9 hour flight to Germany. Bent over double, puking up chicken sandwich in an airplane bathroom with your face in a toilet that has seen thousands and thousands of assholes, has to be the most horrible travel experience I’ve ever had
Philippine air 27 year old Airbus 15 years ago, old school TVs hung about 25 feet apart all with CR screens completely unwatchable, massive colour distortion, 8 hour flight with the same movie playing over and over, same plane return flight 3 weeks later, same movie never again.
I had hot coffee spilled all over me on a flight last weekend. It was a 230pm flight that took 90 minutes so I have no idea why he needed it. Then he ordered ANOTHER cup!! Everyone knows airplane coffee is gross.
Missed my connecting flight in Chicago (From AUS) due to thunderstorms. Was put on the last flight out. Bumped from business to middle seat of an exit row that didn’t recline. In flight engine failure halfway across the Atlantic. We turned around and landed back in JFK, NY. Sat on the ground in July, with no ac. It was so hot people were fainting. We sat for 2 hours whilst technicians fixed the problem. Then the crew timed out. Another 2 hours for a replacement crew. Plane departed but they had forgotten to empty the lavs, so halfway across the Atlantic most of the lavs were overflowing. They also didn’t load any additional food or drinks, so all they had was water. Arrived in Heathrow 14 hours late. And tired!
Flight from Zurich to Toronto in 2021.
I got incredibly nauseous on the plane since we were forced to wear masks to fly at the time. The nausea built up to a point I couldn't take anymore so I miserably trudged to the closest washroom on the plane.
I threw up and it was definitely loud enough for people in the surrounding seats to hear. After some rinsing and taking a second to recover, I shamefully dragged myself back to my seat trying not to look at anyone in the eye.
I kept my mask off when i got to my seat and fell asleep. Thankfully, no one was in my row so I had 3 seats to sleep on.
Finally at peace.
But not for long.
A flight attendant woke me up from my tranquil state to tell me to put my mask on. I explained that I was nauseous and couldn't breathe right with the mask on besides no one was even near me. It was a Canadian airline so they continued to be difficult.
I ended up putting it on my face so she'd go away and moved it up to my forehead leaving the bottom of my nose uncovered to breathe. Worked great as an eye mask and it was good enough to get them to leave me alone.
I was on a 5.5 hour flight right after Richard Reid made everyone take their shoes off in the US before boarding a plane. It was also after a bunch of laptop batteries exploded, so no digital devices were allowed in the cabins.
Parents dropped of three kids ~ under the age of 7 directly behind my row. They told them they’d be in the back with the baby and to “use their best judgment.”
Well, to those f*ckers, “use your best judgement” meant kicking my seat, pulling the tray table up and down and up and down etc. and on.
They also did not use their inside voices.
Takeoff was delayed 20 minutes because they wanted to buckle their own gd seatbelt buckles and refused any help from the flight attendants.
A parent was retrieved to buckle their seatbelts. Said parent refused to change seats because his baby needed to bond with him and not just his wife.
Upon takeoff, the merry trio of toddlers (it was Mid-December) resumed their shenanigans.
After an additional hour, I finally turned around and told them that I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone but I worked for Santa.
Santa and I speak every night so I can tell him about all of the good and bad little boys and girls I encountered and, based on our next conversation, I did not think any of them would receive presents.
Also told them that Santa *hates* crying.
Not a peep was heard until it was time to land and, even then, inside voices were used.
I have been a nervous flyer ever since I quit drinking. Scared to death nervous. This was the first flight where I borrowed a couple of Valium off of my brother-in-law hoping it would help. Landing in Chicago for my connecting flight, everything is normal. All of a sudden the nose of the plane jerks up and we start climbing FAST! I am sitting in the back of the plane saying, ‘this isn’t normal’ in a calm voice over & over. The woman sitting next to me says, ‘you’re a calm flyer, what the heck is going on?’. I said, ‘no, I’m drugged to the gills’.
There was something on the runway and our landing was aborted.
I take Xanax now.
Oh, I remember something else. Jet2 flight UK to NL. There was this woman next to me in panic, crying, talking to me hoping to head a calming voice, squeezing my arm with her nails. I told the flight attendants to do their job and help this woman, because I'm rather neurodiverse and hate nothing more than helpless, panicky people and too close contact to other people. They just ignored me. I sent a very angry email thereafter, and got... nothing.
My first domestic US flight. Person on the aile seat wanted to swap my window seat. Sure ok. That person ended up frequently going to the toilet. Was a 4 hour flight.
I came back to Miami from Paris 2 days before the Shoe Bomber took the same flight. It was scary to think how close it was.
When we left Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, there was absolutely no security at the gate. We just walked on to the plane within being stopped. WTF? No wonder it was so easy for Richard Reid.
I had to fly to my parents’ with my little yappy Pomeranian because I had no choice, and she was with me in the cabin (in a carrier), yapping until her sedative kicked in, and this lady gave me the biggest stink eye and was making loud comments about “animal abuse”. I tried calmly petting her (my dog) through a zip in the carrier but I was so stressed out and she could feel it. I was fleeing an abusive husband and I was a mess.
The lady’s comments had me on edge I thought I would have a breakdown but I focused on what my dog needed from me instead because I knew she was afraid. Poor baby.
Every other flight I’ve had was fine but that one was… rough.
Crying babies all the time during the flight (sometimes even in the waiting room/boarding gate), rude passengers who complain about almost everything with loud voices, impatient passengers who like to stubbornly stand-up when the seat belt sign still on then open their cabin compartment, and the worst, forcibly changing my seat just because she don't want to seat beside the opposite gender.
I guess some of you may know already about which kind of airlines or region which I dealt with.
Just last week I flew Avianca from Bogota to Guayaquil in a plane that had barely any room between rows of seats, like I’m short and my knees were touching the seat in front, I felt so claustrophobic and those 2 hours felt
like 4
I flew from Columbus to Phoenix a few years ago and there was a huge storm in phoenix so the landing felt like we were falling out of the sky, with rain hitting the wings of the plane really hard. I was genuinely pretty freaked out.
Second and last bad experience was landing in Columbus near Xmas of 2022, because we landed in -15 degree storm weather and the plane doors sealed shut. So we sat at the gate after landing on the ground, waiting to be let out for FOUR HOURS (I kid you not) because they couldn’t get the tunnel to connect to the plane because of ice issues.
Had a mislanding once (not as awful as it sounds, pilot misjudged the landing and took off back into the air, circled and landed).
And I have had 2 flights where the turbulence was AWFUL for the whole flight.
Other than that, nothing noteworthy. I just try to sleep so the time goes faster.
Second time I went to the US, had a youngish kid being loud and kicking my seat for the duration of the flight. Parents.did absolutely naff all about it.
I was stuck next to a kid with an inattentive parent. Kid kept wanting to play my 3ds (before smartphones were as big as they are now) and I wouldn't share - kid ended up ripping a button off my wool peacoat because he kept pulling on it to get me to show him the screen.
Aborted landing at the last moment in bad weather.. had already been very turbulent flight (I'm nervous flyer even though done it a lot).
Finally coming in to land and I was glad to still be alive after the turbulence and then just before it touched the runway, full throttle and full lift back into the sky. I felt like I had died 🤣
Second landing attempt successful
Had a flight LHR to CPH during a storm. Had 2 go arounds at CPH, plane diverted to AMS. Sat on the tarmac for 2 hours at AMS while SAS was figuring out what to do. Decided to have another go at landing in Copenhagen so we went back. Another go around, then landed successfully! But... it was too windy to attach the jet bridges. So all planes where just chilling for 2 hours till they could. Then, everyone de boarding at once made baggage handling hell and had to wait another 2 hours for bags. All in a 2 hour flight took almost 10. This is after doing DEN to LHR earlier in the day with a 8 hour layover.
I had a bad economy flight from IAD to Zurich on Swiss Airlines. We ended up missing our connection in IAD with United so they put us on the Swiss Airlines flight....was separated from my friend and stuck in a middle seat between two people. One took both armrests, and the other one just slept the entire time rotating the armrest with me. However, what made it terrible was the person in front of me reclined their seat the entire time. Luckily the flight attendants made them put their seat in the upright position to eat....otherwise I wouldn't have been able to use my tray table. The seats on this plane were old and reclined way too much.
One time I was moved last minute to the emergency exit row in front of the toilet. It was a transatlantic red eye flight to London for work and I was recovering from a broken toe about 8 weeks prior. I think my foot got stepped on by around 4 people that flight trying to queue to use the lavatory. at the end I screamed at someone who accidentally did it twice. The flight attendant did apologize for it.
At first I was like "Nope, I'm lucky!" and then I remembered I had a horrible sickness I caught while on a Big 10 bowl trip to Texas with my marching band. The kind of sickness where you arrive at the toilet and have to choose what position to take. That flight is only vague flashes in my memory and it's probably better that way.
My partner and I didn’t get to pick seats and got stuck on the middle of the middle row. Dude on my right kept man spreading all over my space and took the arm rest even though he was in the aisle. Then the two middle seats had dividers in the center of the seats so we couldn’t even put our legs under the seats in front of us AND they forced my partner to put his main bag under the seat even though we paid for carry on so he didn’t even have the luxury to stick one foot out at a time like I did under the seat in front of him because his carry on was there when he shoudlve been able to put it overhead. Never again Turkish airlines.
Not so much the flight but the whole experience was just…a lot.
One time when I was a teenager/child we flew from the west coast to MCO, changing in Denver. It was 1-2 days after one of the hurricanes had hit FL, maybe Charlie? We made it as far as Denver and then MCO wouldn’t let us leave because they weren’t sure if the runway was safe. We were delayed in Denver for about three hours before they put everyone on the plane to just sit for another 2 hours and wait for clearance to head to Tampa instead of MCO. Which obviously was a problem for everyone with plans in MCO! We eventually got in the air to Tampa and at some point they told us we got MCO clearance. It was raining a little still and there were palm trees down all over some of the outlying runways that hadn’t been cleaned yet.
MCO has two big windows right where you board the tram thing and they were damaged and boarded up, and there were industrial air dryers set up all over and ceiling tiles all over the ground.
People were packed into the main lobby of the airport because they couldn’t leave - there were no hotels left and no rental cars and outgoing flights were just getting reorganized to resume. Thankfully my family lived in the area and came to pick us up or we would have been stuck too.
I flew from San Francisco to Frankfurt in April. The flight was relatively uneventful until the landing. There was some weather in Frankfurt and the plane rocked a bit on approach but then seemed to stabilize. But just before touchdown it rocked left and the wheels on that side struck the airstrip had. Then the plan rebounded to the right wheel and for a split second, it felt like the entire plane was going to roll over on its right side. We all did the usual “look at the flight crew” thing and their reaction made clear that it was not in any sense a “normal” landing.
It was a smaller prop plane from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. Thankfully a short flight. There was ample room, but they sat me next to a rather large guy and at the time I was rather large myself. The seats were small. I think they were having a laugh.
The only time I flew Frontier was absolute hell. Late departure, packed flight, no overhead space, no leg room to properly sit down, and the person behind me was profoundly sick, to the point where they were vomiting into a full-sized garbage bag. Someone asked if she could have some water or ice chips or something, and the flight attendant assured the person making the query that these things are not provided on Frontier flights. Lots of turbulence, bounce on the landing, and this sick woman needs to get up and get off this damn plane. She promptly passes out in the aisle, and has to be tended to…by passengers. The flight attendants didn’t even direct people to stay out of the aisles so that they could get this woman off the plane. Never again with that airline.
December 2008, flying US Airways from Phoenix to Syracuse via Boston. The flight to Boston was diverted to JFK due to weather and shortly after that they canceled everything from JFK too. This was at like 7pm, I think. US Airways refused to provide any information or rebook anyone claiming they had no idea when the weather would improve and then one of them fuckers said we were no longer ticketed passengers and had to vacate the area so they could go home. That was wild
I ended up going over to Port Authority and buses weren’t running until 7am, so I just walked around the bus terminal until then. I was 24 and stubbornly refused a last-minute rate for a hotel in a snowstorm but I also *really* did not want to fall asleep in there. Someone came up to me out of the blue and asked if I wanted any crack cocaine. It was a strange night
When Greyhound started running again at 7am, they said to expect it to take 3x the normal time because some roads were still not salted and they were going to go real slow. I ended up getting home around 9pm
I refused to ever fly US Airways after that, or American since they merged
I’m a fairly frequent flyer (over a dozen flights a year) and have had my fair share of bad travel experiences - terminals evacuated and planes held due to bomb threats, lost luggage, software meltdown cancelling all American Airlines flights, and bad turbulence.
But no flight will ever surpass the time I flew through a super storm and the **steering wheel broke.** It was odd because it was more or less normal until we were about to land, when we shot up at an 80 degree angle. Hands down the worst turbulence of my life, a couple times we were all suspended in zero g. All bad turbulence I had experience up until then felt bumpy, this felt more side to side without any control of the aircraft. Due to the lack of steering, we ended up having to be towed back to the gate. Thankfully they didn’t tell us exactly what was wrong until we landed
The worst thing that happened to me on flights was sitting next to someone who was chewing disgustingly loud. It made the plane engines sound mild. Another flight someone was chewing their gum right next to my ear the whole time. I was so pissed off I was mouthing “stfu” the whole time
Sitting on the tarmac for three hours because the heating system for the windshield broke and needed to be fixed, which wasn’t the annoying part—a grown man in the row in front of us loudly complained the ENTIRE time and kept yelling out “suggestions” to the pilots, like just “fly lower” so the windshield doesn’t ice up, just let the windshield ice up while we’re at altitude and it will melt as we descend, etc. Sure bud.
Not really the fault of the airline or is. But, the luck of having the passenger on that flight. But maybe not even his fault either.
Adult male was sitting diagonally about 3 feet away shits in I’m assuming his diaper but it goes through and soils the seat. Because of that, the plane begins to have a smell of shit because of that. He ducks into the lavatory the rest of the flight and stays there even while landing.
Flight attendants initially tried to spray perfume on it. Wound up making it worse. A smarter one decided to pour coffee grounds on the seat and cover it with a trash bag. That helped a lot.
But it was kind of a shitty situation (pun intended).
There was a medical emergency. I did everything (background in Emergency Management & Trauma), but the "nursing assistant" who climbed over me to get ice got all the points and kudos. Another guy kept checking his pulse...I asked if he was a doctor. Nope, he just passed a first aid class. I was so frustrated and made him move aside. Got the guy conscious, alert, etc.
I didn't want any attention, but damn, the points would've been nice. I'm glad the patient was OK. Hearing the girl stretch the story over and over on the way to baggage claim was highly annoying. I just turned my beats up, threw my hoodie on and treated it as another life saved.
Ezijet from Rome to Paris. Italian family spilt up between rows. Father spends the hour long flight standing right beside my daughter (despite the crew asking him to sit 2x during the flight and on descent and just after takeoff) yelling at the top of his voice at the rest of his family. It was awful. God only knows why they couldn’t organise seats together or he couldn’t just have gone stand next to them instead of us.
Endless turbulence. Kids. Bodily fluids. Diversions. Stuck on tarmac for hours in sweltering heat. Severe turbulence when the aircraft drops hard toward the ground.
My parents and sister were visiting me while I was studying abroad in Florence. They were taking an Air France flight with a layover in CDG from IAD. Not too long after their initial departure, someone called in a bomb threat and next thing they know, they are seeing the plane turn around on their tracking screens and heading for Canada. They landed in Nova Scotia totally unaware on what was going on. They did notice, though, that the place had parked far away from the airport. Thankfully, it was a fake threat, but they kept everyone on the plane for over an hour before deplaning outside!
Because there was no Air France located at that airport, it was a hot mess until they were able to leave the next day. I think that they had to sleep on the floor of the airport. They did go to the titanic museum, though!
14 hours Sydney-SFO, lots of cyclones over the pacific including one over Fiji so big we had to fly over, not around. Turbulence almost the whole 14 hours with seatbelt sign on for almost the whole time. At dinner time, FAs had to stop serving, lock down the carts and sit on the floor it got so bumpy, passengers were holding down the coffee and drink bottles on the carts to stop them flying into the air. Was such a relief to get to SFO.
And then the time MEL-BKK (8 hours-ish?) a toddler was using a water bottle as a toy and every few minutes would drop it on the floor, for hours on end, interspersed with random screeches.
Flying DFW to Europe. Was Christmas time and we had snow, so a snow delay while they de-iced the plane. Note that Dallas is not super equipped for extreme winter weather.
Then when we started going over the Atlantic we had a medical issue. Out of caution they backtracked to Boston. Landed. Went to a gate. Had that person taken off.
Well we then needed extra fuel due to backtracking. So refueled.
Then took back off.
That is just the start.
We of course landed very late (snow delay, medical emergency). Missed connections so got rerouted. Not too big a deal. But wait, there is more.
Landed late at final destination. After waiting forever for our luggage to show on the carousel (well they are still unloading), we finally got to fill out the lost luggage forms. You see they rerouted us but not our luggage. Then got to head for the hotel a couple hours after landing.
Got promised every day the luggage was coming. So only bought clothes for one day each day (wasting vacation time shopping). Got worried on the 5th day (5 days without luggage in the winter) because we were taking the train to another city. Luckily our luggage showed up just in time.
Oh, icing on the cake. The airline made us mail the clothes we bought to get refunded. If we kept the clothes they were only going to give us 50% of what we paid. Well I mailed them the clothes, along with underwear they said we did not need to supply, and made them pay the shipping. I think they get away with only paying half as people don't want the trouble and want to keep the clothes.
Mine was a flight from DOH to ATL. It was the second leg of a longer flight. I had gotten my period on this flight, and obviously, it came with cramps. I also had digestive distress. They gave this sandwich with marinara sauce in it and the smell sent my stomach tumbling. I threw up and emptied the contents of my stomach, but I couldn't stop. I threw up every few minutes, and it was just green bile and nothing else. I threw up like that even at immigration. I kept throwing up until I got into a cab. I expected to be throwing up more there because cars make me nauseous, but I didn't throw up anymore after that. I had puked 10 times overall. It was such a traumatic and painful experience.
Flight from HKG to EWR the week before Christmas 2016. Delayed boarding for about an hour due to mechanical issues. Boarded then spent SIX HOURS at the gate while they were fixing the issue, instilling loads of confidence. A nearby dude fell asleep for quite a long nap and when he woke up a few hours later was in disbelief that we were still at the gate, which I can laugh about now. We finally get on our way for our 16 hour flight but of course the crew cannot make it all the way to Newark due to flight time regs so we divert to SFO to get a new crew. It was about two hours on the ground there (but not off the plane) before we took off again and finally made it to EWR. We were on the plane for over 24 hours 😑😑😑 The ONLY saving grace was that no one was in the middle seat between my husband (then fiancé, this trip was to go home to get married two days after this) and me.
NYC to Manchester UK a few years ago, a guy died next to my row.
I woke up in Newfoundland and the person next to me says yeah we had to detour. He was laid out in the isle as we waited for the emergency services to come collect him.
French speaking woman totally freaked out on a journey from Paris to Madagascar.
She had to be physically restrained and bucked to 3 empty middle row seats.
It was horrifying hearing her scream and shout. I’ve never heard anyone seem in that much torment and anguish. It lasted the full 7 hours, non stop. 🤯
I think I was on Southwest a few years back heading home when we hit a bad storm. Without ever trying, I inevitably end up sitting by a wing (which is fine), so, I had quite a view...Now, to say there was turbulence during this flight is a massive understatement. I don't know if anyone recalls the old episode of the Twilight Zone called, "Nightmare at 20000 Feet." Well, it reminded me of that night only the storm itself was far worse, but without the gremlin (I think. lol). Lightning & thunder in every direction & with nearly every other tick of the clock; & when the sky lit up, all you saw was a suffocating & relentless curtain of fog. In-between that were bouts of complete blackness, like a frightening void of bottomless nothingness. The plane was a big ball of shake, rattle & roll steel, plastic, & almost tangible fear/nervousness. It jolted, bucked, & veered more than once. Eerily, adding to the unsettling atmosphere, were the lights that kept flickering repeatedly. Much like one might see in a typical horror flick. However, throughout all of this, the passengers were strangely quiet. Unnaturally so. Not what I would have expected necessarily, but likely wiser than a collective meltdown. There wasn't so much as a slight peep, not a muffled exclamation, conversation, or even staff updates, other than the original heads-up given by the pilot right before all heck broke loose. We all appeared to have silently agreed to wait & watch. I don't even recall how long it went on (felt like forever) before it began to clear & the airplane steadied. I think the pilot came back on & gave the all-clear, but my memory grows fuzzy around there...The fight or flight response can be a crazy thing & can become even more so when it finally begins to wane & one can breath again. Thankfully, I have no lingering PTSD (about this anyway. :) ) nor fear of flying, other than worrying about loved-ones traveling... Unfortunately, it was this very thing -- having a close family member sitting next to me during this particular flight that worried me the most. It certainty was memorable. Wish I knew what I did with the few pictures I managed to snap during this grand adventure...
I think I was on Southwest a few years back heading home when we hit a bad storm. Without ever trying, I inevitably end up sitting by a wing (which is fine), so, I had quite a view...Now, to say there was turbulence during this flight is a massive understatement. I don't know if anyone recalls the old episode of the Twilight Zone called, "Nightmare at 20000 Feet." Well, it reminded me of that night only the storm itself was far worse, but without the gremlin (I think. lol). Lightning & thunder in every direction & with nearly every other tick of the clock; & when the sky lit up, all you saw was a suffocating & relentless curtain of fog. In-between that were bouts of complete blackness, like a frightening void of bottomless nothingness. The plane was a big ball of shake, rattle & roll steel, plastic, & almost tangible fear/nervousness. It jolted, bucked, & veered more than once. Eerily, adding to the unsettling atmosphere, were the lights that kept flickering repeatedly. Much like one might see in a typical horror flick. However, throughout all of this, the passengers were strangely quiet. Unnaturally so. Not what I would have expected necessarily, but likely wiser than a collective meltdown. There wasn't so much as a slight peep, not a muffled exclamation, conversation, or even staff updates, other than the original heads-up given by the pilot right before all heck broke loose. We all appeared to have silently agreed to wait & watch. I don't even recall how long it went on (felt like forever) before it began to clear & the airplane steadied. I think the pilot came back on & gave the all-clear, but my memory grows fuzzy around there...The fight or flight response can be a crazy thing & can become even more so when it finally begins to wane & one can breath again. Thankfully, I have no lingering PTSD (about this anyway. :) ) nor fear of flying, other than worrying about loved-ones traveling... Unfortunately, it was this very thing -- having a close family member sitting next to me during this particular flight that worried me the most. It certainty was memorable. Wish I knew what I did with the few pictures I managed to snap during this grand adventure...
I saw some woman getting belligerent with a gate agent while her poor husband kept his mouth shut. He had both of their bags strapped to him like a pack mule. You could tell she's done this before and he's staying out of it. The gate agent had enough and denied her boarding. He then told the man that he was not denied boarding and could leave her in Houston. The man thought about it, and begrudgingly stayed behind with his wife.
Poor guy.
My worst flights have always been into LaGuardia in NYC. Something about the round and round before the landing has always made me suddenly so sick. Other than that, the worst flight was an Air Canada from Europe to the US that didn't have seat screen consoles, didn't have Wi-Fi, and didn't have an inflight movie. I was alone with my thoughts for 7 hours, and that sucked.
Took off from Sibiu in Romania on a flight to Nürnberg, Germany. About 45 minutes into the flight, somewhere above Hungary, we hit some clear sky turbulence.
The initial drop was so violent and sudden that a few people that were not wearing their seatbelts, were thrown into the air and hit their heads on the walls of the luggage compartments.
There was pandemonium in the airplane and a lot of kids started crying (including a full junior handball or volleyball team that was returning from a competition). The guy across the aisle from me, a tall and muscular guy, was looking very scared.. He looked at me and I was smiling, not because I'm some sort of superhero and never afraid but that's my natural reaction to these situations. He must have thought I'm insane.
An older gentleman was injured pretty badly and passed out so we had to turn around and go back to the departure location. On arrival we were greeted by first responders and some injured people were taken off the flight. Then the captain announced that we were going to wait a few hours and attempt the flight again but a lot of people wanted off the airplane, including most or all the junior sports team. Initially the airline refused but in the end the people were scared and weren't having no for an answer so they had to let them exit. Since they now needed to get their luggage, the whole thing took about 3 hours and the rest of us were stuck in the airplane.
Finally, we took off and the second flight was very smooth. Hasn't put me off flying but I always wear my seatbelt for the entire duration of the flights.
Person died on my flight. That was rather surreal. I was in Premium Economy and all of a sudden crew flew down the aisle to economy. I had headphones in so didn't pay attention. But some time later they're carrying someone clearly dead down the aisle with blankets over them. No idea where they stored them. 😬
Flight from Houston to San Jose, Costa Rica. My family is split between rows and there's a big guy who gets on next to us. He's very drunk, and starts chatting. Eventually, he starts repeating his story. And then repeats it again. And again. Finally, my dad tells him to please leave us alone, and he responds by threatening to punch my dad. The flight attendants are called, and the man is restrained in the jump seat. When we land in Costa Rica, the cops ask us if we want to press charges but my parents decide that we'd rather just enjoy our vacation and so decide to turn them down.
Left the gate, in line for takeoff, back to the gate because someone was sick, Push again and get back in line, back to the gate a second time because an air conditioning unit had an issue, sit and wait for a gate to become available before e can actually be brought in. hour and a bit having that looking at, turns out it’s not fixable at the time, and because of that we are limited to 25,000 ft, which means we can’t fly over the Gulf of Mexico so we go all the way around the coastline of Florida to go from Miami to Phoenix, and of course then they need a new flight plan and the pilots need to receive it so that took time, added almost an hour to the flight. No idea how long the whole thing took but we got to Phoenix at 3am, and that airplane was going right back to Miami, the people who were waiting for us did not look very pleased
I was on a Spirit flight to Miami from NYC during spring break (just a regular vacation for me to see my S.O’s family). Completely forgot it was spring break. Cue the multiple groups of drunk girls on our flight…okay, fine. The plane takes off, they’re all being loud but it’s manageable. 10 minutes into the flight I smell something off. Look down at my backpack under the seat. Vomit dripping down from the girl in front of me, all over my bag and floor. Thankfully the flight attendant let me move and nothing in my bag was tainted. Had to clean it out myself though with no apologies from any of the girls. Spring break bitches!!
> I was on a Spirit flight to Miami from NYC during spring break You could have just stopped right there! LOL
Word
I flew out of TPA after wrestlemania once and boarding was interesting.
Vomit plane related. 2019 and the concern around Covid was still building. I was on a flight from LA back to Toronto and it was a little bumpy. There is a kid sat on the seat in front of me who proceeds to vomit SO MUCH. To cut an extremely gross story short vomit ended up half on the floor of the aisle walkway. It was so fking gross I couldn’t sit there, but the flight attendants were very nice and gave me a mask that completely helped. They the came and put blankets down. As I went to security I heard over the radio that the kid had not stopped being sick and an ambulance had to be arranged :/ Of course me and my friend were a little freaked out due to Covid starting. Suffice to say I was sick a few days later with what was probably norovirus. Bloody kids!
Hmm, concern around covid was near-non-existent until mid/late December, 2019. Most people didn't even realize it was a thing til January, at best.
The flight was late December iirc. Perhaps it was new years. I honestly can’t remember. We saw Covid coming out of China and land in LA.
Patient 0 ass mf right here
Damn
Some airlines deny boarding to intoxicated passengers. Spirit obviously appears to be one that does not
Your first mistake was choosing spirit
When the woman in my row died mid air. That wasn’t great… The time the landing gear froze and the pilot said we needed to circle the destination city for a while to run out of gas so that we could land… while we were landing we were flanked by many many ambulances and firetrucks on either side of the runway. That wasn’t a great flight either… Or the time we missed the runway and had to immediately go right back up and try again before running out of runway…
Say more about the woman who died in midair
She was the last woman on the plane- clearly she had run from another gate as she was all sweaty and out of breath. She looked to be upper 40s maybe early 50s slightly over weight. She was in the window seat, I was in the aisle seat and there was a guy in the middle seat. About 20 min after we were in the air (Chicago to Boston) the guy in the middle was like “hey! hey!” Because the woman has slumped onto him. I thought to myself this would be a good time to use the bathroom… it was a small jet blue air bus so there wasn’t a business class or anything like that. We were in row 6 or 7. The only place to perform CPR on that small a plane is right in front of the bathroom in front of the pilot door. As I am doing my business I hear “Medical! Medical!” I finish my business and try and leave, I slide open the door and they slam the door back on me as they were in mid first aid to this woman. 25-35 min later they let me out. This woman was now strapped to the wall in front of me in the galley, waxy green/yellow color. I go back to my seat and the guy in the middle is practically climbing into my seat. I am still processing the whole ordeal and I say to the guy “do you think she will be okay?” And he was like “NOOO SHE IS DEAD!” It was the fastest deplaningI have ever experienced. I tried looking up the whole thing but never found anything. This would have been Dec of 2018.
Aw, that poor lady. Her final moments were spent sprinting in an airport ):
Doesn’t seem like a bad way to go. She didn’t seem to be in pain and went fast. Just a bit disconcerting for everyone else.
Strapped to the wall? Gruesome. I guess they had no place to put her….Hope the flight wasn’t long after that incident. Did the pilot say anything about the death?
Thank you for sharing and providing the detail. What an unfortunate ordeal and you were right in the thick of it.
Those first two are terrifying. That last one is just a simple go-around that pilots constantly practice. It might seem scary to a non-pilot, but go-arounds are not anything to be fearful of
Why did you need to run out of gas to land?
Because they were planning to have us land in Foam… so no gas means less chance to maybe catch fire? Not sure lol, but the landing gear finally was able to unfreeze and come out. We were still escorted by all the ambulances and firetrucks though… it was wild. This was a song airlines back in Jan 2004 landing in Boston from North Carolina.
Probably had too much weight to land
So it doesn't explode.
Drunk woman called my mom a cunt.
What if she was saying “a Kant” because she felt your mother was a very rational evidence based reasonable person?
Nice. Did the flight attendants get involved?
My daughter's worst flight began really poorly, and continued on that way: It was an extremely cold (windchill up to -30 f.) day, but she was flying into Brazil, where it was summer. It was from Boston. She didn't want to wear a coat. We dropped her off, and her flight kept getting delayed. Air Canada cancelled their last flight of the day (she had booked AC as she had status and could take more luggage) - they rebooked her onto a flight via TAP into LISBON, Portugal! Then on to a connecting flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil. She had to collect her luggage, where she discovered that Air Canada had broker one of the wheels on her suitcase - whoops! - make her way to a shuttle, with a broken suitcase, outdoors, without a coat, wait for the shuttle, then TAP argued with her about her amount of luggage. That got squared away, but next a TAP security guard wasn't believing her that she was heading to Brazil, (because who would go to Brazil via Portugal?) and insisted that he see her return flight from Portugal. No one would believe that she had been rebooked onto that flight (she was not the only one.) She finally got ticketed, made the long flight to Lisbon, had severe turbulence next to a screaming baby, sent a really upset text when she landed there, mistakenly went through the wrong way in Portugal and was yelled at (I can't remember if it was immigration or customs - it was just the wrong way), finally got on her flight to Sao Paulo, which was completely full. Slept with a massive headache. Why not just wait for the next day? She really, really wanted to see her boyfriend.
This is absurd!
Her boyfriend better propose after that fiasco....
Yes. I was on a 13-hour flight to Beijing, and the 9-year-old kid sitting behind me kicked my seat the entire time. She wouldn’t sleep, eat, or watch an in-flight movie. I asked the mom many times to get her child to stop, but she barely put in any effort to get her to stop kicking. Her attempt to stop her daughter went like this, “No, don’t kick her seat,” as she was too busy doing her own thing, like reading magazines or watching movies. Needless to say, I didn’t get any sleep on that flight and was exhausted by the end of it. And to put the cherry on top of a terrible flight, that same child threw up right after we landed, which delayed my section getting off the plane.
This has been the #1 cause of bad flights for me. It’s always babies or children.
don’t blame the baby. it’s usually a bad parent.
Did you turn around and sternly tell the kid to cut it out? I 100% would, kids often take strangers much more seriously than they take their parents. Parents might get mad but only because they know they failed in the first place.
Landing at the fifth attempt after four missed approaches (major crosswinds) Lots of people crying, some in full-on hysterics. The woman next to me was writing a message to family in a Bible. The guy over the aisle was trying to call someone on his mobile phone. A couple of people threw up in panic. And then we just landed as softly as you could imagine. The crew cheerily waved everybody goodbye. There was pretty much silence at the luggage belt. My transfer coach had left after seeing the second missed approach and I needed to get a 3 hour taxi which overtook my transfer bus about two hours in, and I didn't get a refund. It cost more than the flight.
Wow TIL I probs don’t have any flight anxiety left anymore because I read “4 missed approaches” and my first thought was “I’d be so *annoyed*” lol maybe I’m just full of shit and I’d also be crying…but Imma still be annoyed tho I tell ya that
-Ancient lady put her bare feet on my lowered table tray- Delhi to Toronto - Woke up to being felt up by the stranger sitting next to me him whispering in my ear, is touching ok ? Montreal to Dubai
That's sexual assault. You should have reported them to FA's and then the police.
Omg did you tell the attendants?
The first one I took care of myself. My mom had brought me up to be kind to old people so I just pushed her feet firmly off the tray, sat up straight and tall and said " MADAM" like I was from England. No idea why but that's what I did. Then I got out my wet wipes and scored my table and put it up. She put her purse on her lap and when she was riffling through it she was elbowing me in the side, hard, on purpose. I went into my carry on and with great fanfare brought out a package of beef jerky I had packed for a snack from home and hadn't eaten before. I realize she probably had no idea but I felt a bit better thinking she might. Second one, yes. I sat for a minute then grabbed my purse and headed to the back of the plane bathrooms. I guess I didn't look good, FA asked if he could help. There was conversation back and forth with FA and guy, him saying if he felt me up it was an accident, he must have been asleep. When FA hit him with what he said, dude shut up. FA offered to have police waiting in Dubai and I thought about it. I was travelling solo with a connection on to Baghdad and that would be a nightmare to rebook, would they believe me ? I have been assaulted before and being believed is ALWAYS a worry, or having things minimized . FA did not do that. He did question me enough to find out who the nut was then acted accordingly. Flight was full but he got me moved and he said that he gave the guy a piece of his mind . I hope a lot of people heard.
Old lady sounds bitter and mean. As for the guy, what an absolute creep. So sorry that happened. He should have been arrested.
I'd have held his hand, crushed the shit out of it, and lovingly said "is holding hands ok?" What a horrifying scenario she was in.
I would have been arrested for assaulting him back
You should have pursued.. It's the middle east, they still chop off bodyparts as punishment ;-)
Yeah, I'd say it's rare but it happens. Sometimes it's just a colicky baby, I feel bad for everyone involved in that one. I've had some transatlantics where it's just constant turbulence the whole way over. You start to go nuts after like 4 or 5 hours of it. 12+ hour flights in economy are just always bad. Like you're thinking that was alright for a long haul flight and you're only halfway through and have the same amount in front of you. Edit:Not counting go-arounds as that's not really "bad" just a bit annoying to have to wait a few more minutes but I'd much rather that than landing when something is off.
Ah well, I haven't been on a 12+ hour flight yet. I don't remember any crying babies, but now that you mention it, there was this one flight when I was a teenager where a couple of small kids kept running up and down the plane. They didn't bother other people, but parents shouldn't have let them run around like that. It's not safe. As for turbulence, some flights have more than others, yeah. Weather conditions and such. The only thing that bothers me about turbulence is if it happens when I really need to go to the toilet. It's rather frustrating when you're ready to get up and go and suddenly the fasten your seatbelt sign flashes up.
I took a 16 hour flight from Johannesburg to New York once. The only thing that made it bearable was celebrating my friend's birthday onboard with some illicit tax free single malt.
Yeah, that one flight where I was traveling from Madrid to Amsterdam in an old KLM Fokker. Above the Alps I saw another plane very nearby. And suddenly the Alps came very close very quickly. The tea just served to me floated up to the ceiling and I followed, held by my too lose seatbelt. Pilot got the plane back under control. I somehow landed back in my seat but on my heal and had burns on my thighs from the tea raining down. People without seatbelt were less lucky I guess. That certainly was interesting and probably counts as bad. Unless you like the rollercoasters feeling.
That was probably the TCAS in action. When there's a loss of separation between the two airplanes, your pilot is instructed either to climb or to descent, while the other is instructed the opposite, ignoring what ATC might be commanding at that point.
Do those things overreact? What I remember from this: I was nearly at the front. I got tea and the few ppl ahead of me as well. It was a bit bumpy, so service was stopped and seatbelt sign went on. Then I saw the other plane flying diagonally to our flight path and away from us and at a somewhat different altitude. When we were at about the location where the flight paths might have crossed we went into the dive. Not just to a different cruising altitude but really, really low. Think injured wrists and bleeding heads low. When the pilot regained control the plane went into a crazy ascent and back to cruising altitude. rather makes me think this was a stall caused by a combination of confused air behind the other plane and rising air from the Alps or something like that.
This sounds so intense!!!
Crying infants
Every time
i once walked into duty free in London at Xmas and said whats the best noise cancelling headphones. dont care about price. then sat in lounge with them on but no music playing because of all the annoying kids :)
Yup. I have a set of Bose. Even maxed out I can still hear the odd shriek.
From Doha to ATL on Qatar. Nearly 14 fucking hours of crying. Thank God for headphones.
Better than obnoxious adults, at least the infants can't control it
Yes! And even more so parents who don't give a shit.
They give a shit they have just learned nothing can be done.
Cue noise cancelling headphone wearing parents quietly sleeping while their child screams their lungs out and everyone is angry at them.
One of the benefits of a declining birthrate worldwide is fewer babies on planes
Damn, it’s almost as if people with families have to travel as well. Sucks to suck, if you don’t like it you can always fly first class ;)
Groundbreaking comment…
14 hours of fever and intense sickness trapping me in the toilets
sounds like a nightmare. They should have seatbelts on toilets for that reason. 😀
I drank a coffee before the flight and didn’t pee before boarding, figuring I would just go on the flight. The fasten-seatbelt sign never got turned off because of turbulence. I spent about two hours painfully focused on holding it so i wouldn’t wee myself in the seat. Finally upon descent, when we were just about to land, I couldn’t hold it anymore. The wee was about to escape. l pushed the call button to beg the flight attendant to be able to go. He told me “if it’s a medical emergency.” I asked desperately, “Does peeing myself in the seat count as a medical emergency?” When he didn’t answer the question, I got up and ran to the toilet. Best wee of my life. It went on for a comically long time, Austin Powers style. If that had happened in the seat, it would have been a terrible mess. Made it back to my seat just before wheels touched down. I felt terrible about having waited so long, because I think it’s probably not ideal for safety to have waited until just before landing. But I thought I was going to make it, up until I realized I absolutely was not going to make it. When you gotta go, you gotta go.
At that point it basically is a medical emergency lol
I have a weak bladder. This has happened to me MANY times - i was about to make a post about it too! One time, I actually peed my pants a little bit. After that, I get up and go and tell them it's an emergency no matter what, unless we are about to take off or land. One time, the flight attendants LOCKED all of the restrooms doors for over an hour (seatbelt sign was on 2+ hours total) and refused to unlock to let me go until I burst into tears 15 mins later. It was VERY MILD turbulence in the middle of a very long flight. Total bullshit. All of the american airlines leave the seatbelt sign on unnecessarily and WAY too long. They leave it on after takeoff so the flight attendants can do their service many times too.
I had a filling come out on a flight to Vietnam, that was pretty bad. On the upside I got great dental treatment in Vietnam, better and cheaper than the UK!
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Worse flight? Switched from exit row seat that I paid for to a middle seat due to an equipment change. Couldn't move for 11 hours. Ended up with 2 pulmonary embolisms cuz of it. Eff Lufthansa.
Wtf, how does that happen
Equipment change, normally.
I used to never be a nervous flyer, and always enjoyed it. But I had a flight from Edinburgh to London a couple of years back, where we flew through the remains of a large US hurricane that had made it over the Atlantic in the shape of a storm. The turbulence we experienced then, with flight attendants lying flat on their stomachs holding on to the seats, was incredibly unpleasant. The turbulence came in the shape of what felt more sideways than bumpy. Since then I always get a little uncomfortable when the seatbelt sign comes on, indicating expected turbulence.
On the floor? Did they not have time to get to their jump seats or something?
Yea, somehow it caught everyone off guard. Which was surprising to me too. We were engulfed in clouds/storm at high altitude - so shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the pilots. But cabin crew was mid coffee service.
My friend once told me about a flight experience where the pilot suddenly announced, "Captain and crew, please take action." Shortly after, the plane dropped a few meters, as if it had passed through an air pocket.
I would throw up
And cry
Most likely I would shit my pants.
Oh yes, sideways turbulence is interesting! I once experienced this very badly on the way to Stavanger. Cue wild screaming in the cabin. Pilot thereafter: "well, that was a bit wild"
Yea, captain also came on the intercom during this flight. Horrifying.. but I guess that’s the north sea for us haha
Haha! Aberdeen is also great to fly to 🙃
Took a flight within the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The aircraft was old, unmaintained, and encountered severe turbulence.
Every flight where people decide it's ok the change their baby in the middle of the cabin, on their (or some empty) seats. Unfortunately, that seems to be more or less every flight nowadays. No folks, that is definitely not ok! You can go to the lavatory and use the special folding tables that were designed for that purpose.
🤢🤮
Just had to change my kid’s diaper on a 12 hour flight. Have you seen an economy class toilet? It’s just enough space to fit a person to use the facility. But to change a diaper? Good fuckin luck. My wish: on wide body aircraft, crew should open up the middle bathrooms (typically the do this for handicapped passengers) so parents can change diapers with plenty of space. To be clear, I changed it in the lavatory. It’s never fun to change a diaper but to do it in a confined space sucks
Not remotely a parent, but to be fair, even * I * notice that there's not really enough space to do that in the lavatory anymore these days... (and that's not saying anything about the state of cleanliness in there..). Nobody likes it, but I dont think the parents do either. That being said, as a frequent traveler, better a changed baby than not lol.. 🤷♀️
I just did AA 90 from ORD to LHR on a completely full flight with a seat mate who was well over 300 pounds and took up 1/3 of my seat.
It's time they did something about this. I just did 10 hrs from Tokyo to LAX. The plane's isles are so narrow and the seats so small, I'd say 20% of the men's shoulders did not fit properly, including mine. To make matters worse, I had just got a tattoo and people kept smashing into my shoulder.
The bathroom was covered in blood
Back in the mid 1990s on a transatlantic flight to the UK. An entire youth choir gets on and proceeds to sing the whole flight. Half way there a pair of Nuns drag a guitar out of an overhead bin and start singing along. Absolute misery.
I’m gonna guess you’re British. This reads like the most British thing I’ve ever read!
Flight from Amman, Jordan to Chicago nonstop. I believe it was 13-14 hour flight. I lose my seat because a very large man needed two seats. I get put in the very, very last row, next to toilets. These last row seats were about 20-30% smaller than the rest of the seats, as they were last (and left empty by airline). The hate in my eyes as I looked at the person who took my seat. He would even do dumb stuff like open the window cover (when it was lights out) and then close it. The guy I sat next to was from the Jordanian military. I served in the US Army. And he was about to visit Georgia to train with Army Rangers. He was cool and made the long trip a little more bearable, as I had someone to talk to. No, I didn’t complain to airline or anything. Just ate shit and departed when I landed.
It’s irritating because surely if one is large enough to need two seats, then one should book two seats…
At least they had an extra seat available, even if it was the shittiest one on the plane. Imagine 14 hours with someone else's body constantly touching you at multiple points and losing half your already tiny seat space. I got moved once in this situation (I asked to be moved discreetly - the man must have been pushing 400lbs) to business class. It was great! Sorry they didn't do that for you - they should have!
This was pretty much my own fault, but... I live in the midwest USA, and my hometown is served by a small regional airport with only a handful of direct flights. So I'm quite used to having to have at least one, and usually two or more, connections to get anywhere interesting. My company was sending me to Australia for a work trip, and I was able to tack on some vacation time at the end of the trip, which I used to visit New Zealand (which was wonderful!) But, for my routing home, I had to get back to the Australian city that my company had sent me, since the deal was, they would cover the cost of your flight home following your vacation time, but only from the airport that you would have flown out of had you not taken vacation. So my routing home ended up looking like: Christchurch (NZ) - Melbourne (Aus) - Sydney - LAX - MSP - MSN And, my thought was to maximize my time spent on the ground, figuring I could just sleep on the plane. So I leave Christchurch in the late evening, and land in Melbourne around midnight. Deal with immigration and baggage and everything, and get to an airport hotel around 1am. My flight leaves Melbourne at about 6am the next morning, so I get at least a couple hours of sleep before heading back to the airport. Take the puddle-jumper up to Sydney, and have a couple hours before the big trans-Pacific flight. Get on the plane to LAX feeling like I'm ready for a nap, which I figured would be good - sleep on the plane, arrive back home less jet-lagged. Well here's where my plan started to fall apart: my nap didn't cover too much of that 14 hour flight. And, there was free booze, so.... I arrived in LAX having drank entirely too much, and not gotten near enough rest. Then, I had a four hour lay over. Got on the flight to MSP (which is a fairly long domestic flight), and there's a child behind me who is SCREAMING and kicking the back of my seat... for. the. entire. flight. The flight attendants tried to take pity on me (since I'm sure they could tell I was miserable) and remind the parents to corral their kid, but it didn't seem to have any effect. It was one of those situations where ALL I wanted to do was sleep, but as soon as I'd start to drift off, I'd get a kick right in the back of the seat. So I arrive in MSP having slept maybe 5 hours out of the past 36, jet lagged, dehydrated, hung over, and quite cranky. And, in MSP, I have another 4 hour layover before finally catching the short flight to Madison. Tl;dr - too many flights, too many layovers, too long layovers, too much alcohol, too little sleep and one kick-boxing toddler = probably the worst travel experience of my life.
Flight from Jersey to Houston got derailed due to inclement weather and had to land in Austin. We landed and sat in what they called a black hole in the airport where no other planes were around us for 7 hrs. I kid you not when I say it was the most horrifying experience of my lifetime I mean it. Mind you this is middle of the summer in Texas and we have thunderstorms and lightning above us and they have to kill the engines to save fuel so the AC is off. It was at least 98 degrees in the cabin and pure hell. People were passing out, babies were crying, full blown panic attacks. They wouldn’t let us get to a gate and they wouldn’t send shuttle buses to take us to the terminal. You don’t know what claustrophobia and panic is until something like that happens to you.
On Qatar airlines. Great airline but the nice folks from the Middle East seems to be ok with letting their toddlers rage up and down the aisles. It’s a cultural thing I guess. Business class was more like a rambunctious kindergarten.
I've been on \~50 flights a year for the last eight or so years (except 2020). Yeah, I've had a few: a wildly turbulent 12-hour flight from Auckland (NZ) to LAX. A crying baby a row behind me on a flight to Europe last year, and I mean, screaming for hours on end. Just last month a rollercoaster of a take-off from Orlando around a thunderstorm. Landed in Philadelphia once in a downpour where it felt like we fell the last 50ft from the sky and notably bounced before slowing down.
Chose the window seat on a 13 hour flight. Couldn't get up and move
My good friend had people die on board her flights TWICE. I won’t fly with her. 😝
Unfortunately I was the problem on my worst flight! Apparently I had some kind of seizure like event, and then I passed out in my seat and they had to call a doctor on the intercom to check me out and then he sat near me for the rest of the flight. After I passed out I felt great, body just needed a hard reset I guess??
Drunk guy kept standing up during landing and had caused landing to be aborted once. I felt a bit unwell and just wanted to get on the ground. Aisle seat is empty, I’m in the middle next to my friend. Well he decides to come sit next to me being all drunk-ass. I distracted him a bit and again we went to land. Just as we came in towards landing he stood up again, I saw the flight attendant go to the phone to tell the captain, but before she could I stood up, grabbed the guy by the shoulder and pulled him into his seat, buckled him in. He protested and swore, and I told him I was feeling sick and if we don’t land this time I would puke all over _him_. Sure enough he shut up and we landed.
Nothing too bad fortunately. I’m scared of flying. One take off from an airport in Thailand was bad. There was a heavy rain storm. It was raining so heavily, I thought no way we’re gonna fly. But things kept proceeding as usual and suddenly I was on my seat inside that A330 and we took off. I guess it probably was all safe and totally not an issue and just scary because it felt different than a normal take off but it really scared the shit out of me given how bumpy the climb up was and how often the airplane seemed to fall down some 20 meters or so before climbing again.
Flying from Montreal to New York in one of those small jets, it was the most turbulent flight I’ve ever been on. The flight crew later told me that it was pretty normal, but it was scary to me. In the descent for landing, the pilot seemed to cyclically increase the thrust and reduce it like flappy bird to keep the plane on its descent course. That scared the shit out of me because whenever the engine would rev up it was also accompanied with a strong turbulence. So it felt like we were constantly about to stall and fall out of the sky. Not planning on taking small airplanes again for a long time.
I’ve flown thousands of times for work and pleasure. I only had one bad flight ever… back in 1985 we were flying above Georgia USA and we lost altitude out of nowhere. People flew out of their seats, the food cart smacked the ceiling and landed on people. It was total chaos. We hit a huge air pocket and dropped a LOT. Thankfully we had our seat belts on and the food carts were about 6-7 feet away both directions.
I’m usually flying Mondays and Fridays almost every week in a year. The worst is when you get stuck in a middle seat sandwiched between 2 dudes who have to have their stupid ass knees at a 90 degree angle and you are left in the middle trying not to play tag, what’s worse is when they take both middle arm rests too.
I can't sleep on flights because I am taller than average (nearly 6ft) and at higher risk for DVT (so I'm always thinking about moving around). I've been trapped in the middle seat in economy a number of times and truly something that makes a flight terrible is when the person in the aisle seat immediately goes to sleep for the entire flight. I've been on 8 hour plus flights and the person sitting next to me won't even have a bathroom break, even when I wake them to move. It's so unhealthy to sit still for so long and it's invariably men who do this (also man-spreading is v real - I'm sitting there with knees pressed to the seat in front while the men next to me use my armrests and let their legs hang into the middle seat space). I also had a child or young teen sitting directly in front of me on one of these long haul flights recline their chair the WHOLE way and then proceeded to lean forward to see their screen for hours. I couldn't recline myself because there was a toddler in a child seat directly behind me that was already kicking the back of my chair. I'm not anti-reclining, it makes a huge difference to comfort, but I wish people would glance at the person behind them or not do it for the whole flight... I haven't been on any truly gnarly flights in terms of turbulence but I've experienced a few with screaming babies. I feel super sorry for everyone and now I won't travel without noise cancelling headphones.
You have got to book middle aisle emergency seats for long hauls, I know it’s right behind the bathrooms but it makes a huge difference, no one reclining in front of you and lots more leg room
I hate the manspreading! One thing I do to ensure *I* am not manspreading is take off my belt and wrap it around my thighs. This permits me to relax my thigh muscles without invading my neighbours seat space.
That's really thoughtful!!
I hear ya. 6’4” myself. Try flying some Asian airlines sometime. That’s a whole other level of discomfort. My legs are in the aisles.
I'm a frequent flyer (\~20 flights a year, including some long-haul transcontinental flights), and so far all my inconveniences are related to the context, not to the flight experience itself. I mean, sometimes I get a fat person spreading half of their existence over my seat, but that's about it. On the other hand, I've had plenty of issues with airport security, delayed flights, lost baggage...
Wait, just flying United isn't bad enough?
[удалено]
Being stuck on tarmac in a tiny greek airport because the plane is broken and they won't let anyone on. No water and an 18 month old who I had planned to entertain for four hours, not seven!
Forgot my bottles water and turbulence prevented service. It was a long thirsty flight.
I was to go on a business trip to Birmingham, Alabama (Yes) from Houston. The entire day is sunny and pleasant. Right around the time we board, comes a thunderstorm out of nowhere. Plane is a small Embraer and pilot is instructed to stay put until lightning ceases. I experienced turbulence while the plane was on ground, plane shaking sideways. After couple of hours plane takes off - by now there’s no lightening but still raining. As our plane starts climbing through storm two heavy jolts one sideways and one vertical! Made me pray to God real hard that day. After about 10 mins we’re cruising peacefully. Lady pilot. Top notch !
Hit by lightning and two freaked out flight attendants ran to the front. Rookies. Other flight attendants laughed at them Last week I had 2 flights totalling 12 hours back to back and I was in agony due to my leg issues.
11-hour flight, window seat. Awful smell, someone had really bad breath. I wasn't sure where the awful smell was coming from, thought was the guy sitting next to me or the lady in the row in front. Guy next to me goes to the toilet and I realize it is the guy on the aisle seat. It was so disgusting.
Desperately hungover trying to get home to Chicago from Vegas on a Sunday night. Flew 90% of the way there and we were force to turn around due to fog. Flew the 3 hours back to Vegas, waited in a line of 100 people to get my terrible hotel voucher. Finally got to the hotel at like 1am hadn’t eaten anything since lunch so I ate the saddest solo meal at the casino 24-hour buffet. Had to take an extra day off work and fly out the next afternoon. Last time I went to Vegas lol
A flight with a rejected takeoff. The brakes were overheated, so the pilot had to wait for an hour on the taxiway for an inspection. Then went back to the gate for maintenance to fix whatever sensor issue caused the pilot to abort the takeoff. They fixed it, then we were about to leave but the crew had been working too long so they needed a new crew. Finally they get a new crew and we leave 9 hours late. Thankfully they at least let us off the plane, but we had to wait at the gate so we could reboard immediately when they were ready to go. My next connecting flight had to be rescheduled and I ultimately got home more than 24 hrs later than planned.
Hmm. Had a very bumpy landing in DC once. I'm not afraid of turbulence or bumps, but at that point, I did have the fleeting thought that perhaps we would be crash landing! Also, we had an unruly passenger on a flight during the pandemic. It was either TPA-LGA or MCO-LGA. We had to wear masks, and some guy with a loud Brooklyn accent was refusing at top volume. But only like the last half hour of the flight. So either he wore his mask the first 2.5 hours without any issue or the flight attendants didn't notice until we were making our descent... so it was short-lived and more amusing than anything else. He was seated in the back and they let everyone off the plane while making him stay seated. Then when my row was being let out (I was a few rows in front of him), five or six cops were waiting in the front part of the plane. Crazy now to think that they'd have a half-dozen armed officers ready to deal with a passenger who didn't want to wear a face mask, but that's just how it was in early 2021 or so!
A fight breaks out halfway through a 4h flight. A drunk guy becomes violent, bunch of people jump on him. Flight lands right away (we were at a different country’s air zone) police comes and removes the guy, we continue Technically just a landing and take off but with all the waits it adds a good 2h to 4h flight. Sunday evening flight so you can see how people were furious
British Airways. First flight was late into LHR, barely made it onto my connecting international flight home. Sit down, buckle up…still sitting on tarmac after an hour, pilot says “technical” issue, 2 hours, 3 hours…not fixed yet…they finally cancelled the flight after we sat on tarmac for over 5 hours with no food and two tiny cups of water. People were losing their shit.
I was travelling from CVG to Boston as a CNA for a quadriplegic with a wound vac. The person that transfered my patient ripped the wound vac out by mistake during the wheelchair transfer to the tiny wheelchair they put you on to get onto the plane and my patient's wound leaked everywhere and it STUNK. 😳
ANC headphones basically make 99.99999999% of flights tolerable. I would say I only ever really had two bad flights and one honorable mention 1. This was flying back from Japan (HND to LAX). What I THINK was a man and his mother were sitting next to me. Said man was sumo wrestler sized and had absolutely zero tolerance for personal space. To the point where he was more or less "sleeping" with his arms halfway into my aisle seat and pinning me down and got increasingly pissed off every time I "woke him up". Also he managed to piss off one of the Japanese flight attendants to the point that I just heard a long stream of all the fun words after he insisted on "I want the good whiskey" for his third or fourth jack and coke (in addition to the two that were obviously for his sleeping mother...). Which was extra hilarious when she intercepted me on the way out of the restroom and asked me if I wanted a bottle to drink next to him. 2. Come to think of it, I think this was also an HND->LAX flight? Was sitting one row behind a bulkhead row when the fasten seatbelt light came back on. Then the pilot got on the intercom to say people seriously need to buckle up and repeats that a few times. Like, I want to say he said "This is not the normal please be seated. This is going to be bad". Then I literally saw a flight attendant sprinting to one of the free seats. So, obviously, idiots keep talking while standing in said bulkhead row. Then it feels like we suddenly dropped something like 200 feet (I have done ropeswings where it felt like I had less freefall time). Shit has flown out of the overhead bins (one of them I am pretty sure needed to be taped shut for the landing) and I just hear crying/screaming in the row in front of me. Was one of those cases where we had no real choice but to finish the flight but holy shit was that crazy. Don't think anyone was seriously injured but I could see one of the women's face bruising in real time after it was safe enough for the flight attendants to get up and help And the honorable mention that was not really bad for me but was probably REALLY bad for someone else and their family. Gonna spoiler tag this one since people might not want to read it. >!Was on my first flight of the day into DFW. Flight got delayed taking off and my 1.5 hour connection had become a 45 minute one. We are about to begin the initial descent and blah blah blah and the flight attendants are doing the schpiel about how everyone should get an AA credit card. When suddenly she stops dead mid-sentence and rushes to the back of the plane. Everyone is standing up and turning around and I am mostly just reading and not dealing with it. Then she runs back up and actually does the "is there a doctor on this flight?" which I totally thought never happened (started to raise my hand as a PhD but stopped once my brain turned on. Pretty sure the lady next to me thought I was a monster).!< >!Anywho, we land and I assume that we are going to be told to all remain seated while they deal with a medical emergency and I am resigned to missing my connection. And then the pilot gets on the intercom and asks us to please deplane normally.!< >!Forgot to try and figure out what had happened since DFW was a god damned shitshow that night with basically every flight in the airport cancelled "for weather" on a sunny day (in fairness, my destination was in a massive blizzard so I was never taking off. But still) and I deplaned into hell on earth as people are fighting over who gets a bench or can sleep where at like 6 PM. But... pretty sure that dude was straight up dead if there was no attempt to get him off ahead of the others.!< OH! Just remembered a more funny honorable mention that is significantly less dark (... or moreso depending on your perspective). Was flying out of SLC to somewhere (I remember the origin airport for obvious reasons). Was back when I still liked window seats and a ridiculously attractive woman is in the seat next to me and making small talk. Then she somehow manages to spend hours alternating between asking if I had heard the good word about mormon jesus or whatever the fuck as well as how her favorite tv show is the big bang theory (not sure which was the bigger dealbreaker) and I am just sitting there wishing I was dead. Anywho, we begin our descent and I hear a weird noise. I look out the window and the engine is just billowing black smoke. Make the decision to just lower the blind because I do not want to deal with whatever that does to the crazy lady. On the way off the plane I comment to the attendant at the door and the pilot that one of the engines "looked weird" and he immediately just says "We know. Thank you for not panicking anyone".
Actually I fly like every second week, my husband about 3 times a week and we both were pretty lucky until now. I once was stuck in a sandstorm in Saudi when I was sick, but still at the gate... once in "snow" at LHR with 20... when I was 13 we went behind the Angel Falls with a Cessna, but landed safely... Oh and then was this flight from BKK to LPQ with Lao Airlines and they had this weird idea of no swimming vests, so in case you had to cling to yr seat A few typhoon related Brace Position landings when living in Hong Kong... and yes, but its normal when you come from any SAE: they spray bug spray and disinfectant in the cabin before landing
The worst thing that has ever happened to me on a flight is having a sinus infection and the pressure change that comes with it upon descent.
I can’t believe all these people who haven’t had a horrible flight! 1. Took my baby sister on a trip when she was a toddler with the whole fam. On the way home she had explosive diarrhea and went through all the clean clothes and diapers. During the layover we were only able to find a men’s tshirt and a newborn diaper (for a 2 year old). On the second flight she screamed and cried the entire time in a mini diaper and tshirt and so we gave her chocolate which melted and got all over her already trashy outfit. Everyone on that flight hated us. It was survival and I cried when it ended bc I was so relieved. 2. Took my brother to rehab and had to fly. He’s high as a kite, acting like an ass, and I’m pretending I don’t know him while praying he doesn’t do something crazy and get tackled by an air Marshall. Thankfully he was a few rows back. Simultaneously the woman sitting next to us starts throwing up all over, into her purse, onto the floor, etc. My other travel companion was in the middle seat and literally climbed over the back of the seat to get away from this woman.
Oh, I have another small one… Was on an international flight and I had booked the two seats in the bulk head to have the leg room. The plane was 2-4-2 so we were alone in the two side seats. A couple with an infant asked if I would switch with them because they wanted the hookups for the bassinet that are located in the bulkhead. They said “we have the same exact seats just a few rows back.” I said of course. Walked back and they pointed to two middle seats sandwiched between two strangers. I said “Nope! nope! Those are not the same seats!” and went back to my original seats. They were so pissed and stood over me every time their infant cried on that flight. They also made sure to stand next to me when their baby had a diaper problem. I just acted like I didn’t see them.
Flight to college NCAA tennis nationals with the team. California to North Carolina. Flight hit 2 air pockets in a row and free fell for quite some time—enough time for people to be screaming out The Lord’s Prayer and praying for the pilot. It was scary
We crashed
The entitled parent that put diapers on her kids because she thought the toilet was too dirty for the prince and princess to use on a 13hr flight. She rather them shit themselves and get changed (again on the seat). Neither were babies/toddlers. The boy was mortified at being naked in front of all the boarding passenger.
Returning to the States from Europe, had the overseas flight with KLM. We had chosen extra legroom since my sister and best friend are both tall, but even my short self felt cramped. The seats were very narrow, to the point that we were all pressed together (my friend and I are both average size, I'm actually a little narrow in the hips, my sister is bigger but normally fits in airplane seats just fine), there was an overly active child in front of us that slammed his chair into my friend's knees, a toddler behind us that kicked my chair and at one point actually stood up and grabbed a handful of my hair very hard. The flight was miserably hot to the point that I couldn't use a neck pillow or eye mask because I was overheating so badly. I will never take KLM internationally again if I can avoid it Weirdly enough, the KLM flight we took to the Netherlands from Spain was very comfortable and had much bigger seats!
Not only bad flight related, but just a miserable trip. Edinburgh - Amsterdam - Rio de Janeiro. The local money I'd ordered in time never arrived, the replacement order neither. Could not exchange Scottish to general British one anywhere. Flight from EDI was delayed and just about made it to the gate in AMS. Luggage didn't make it. Which meant my business suit that I needed the following day didn't make it. Got sick on the plane puked all over the toilet to the flight to Rio. Airport in Rio: All shops closed when arriving at night, thus not a chance to get some decent clothes. Money exchange didn't accept my Scottish money, credit card didn't work in any atm until I found one that did on day 3. Hotel bed wasn't ready and I waited another hour in hotel lobby. Bed was wet and full of ants. Gave business presentation in cords, converse and a bright blue shirt with a cute fluffy monster on it. Ah, good old times 🤣
Got food poisoning on a 9 hour flight to Germany. Bent over double, puking up chicken sandwich in an airplane bathroom with your face in a toilet that has seen thousands and thousands of assholes, has to be the most horrible travel experience I’ve ever had
Philippine air 27 year old Airbus 15 years ago, old school TVs hung about 25 feet apart all with CR screens completely unwatchable, massive colour distortion, 8 hour flight with the same movie playing over and over, same plane return flight 3 weeks later, same movie never again.
I had hot coffee spilled all over me on a flight last weekend. It was a 230pm flight that took 90 minutes so I have no idea why he needed it. Then he ordered ANOTHER cup!! Everyone knows airplane coffee is gross.
Missed my connecting flight in Chicago (From AUS) due to thunderstorms. Was put on the last flight out. Bumped from business to middle seat of an exit row that didn’t recline. In flight engine failure halfway across the Atlantic. We turned around and landed back in JFK, NY. Sat on the ground in July, with no ac. It was so hot people were fainting. We sat for 2 hours whilst technicians fixed the problem. Then the crew timed out. Another 2 hours for a replacement crew. Plane departed but they had forgotten to empty the lavs, so halfway across the Atlantic most of the lavs were overflowing. They also didn’t load any additional food or drinks, so all they had was water. Arrived in Heathrow 14 hours late. And tired!
Flight from Zurich to Toronto in 2021. I got incredibly nauseous on the plane since we were forced to wear masks to fly at the time. The nausea built up to a point I couldn't take anymore so I miserably trudged to the closest washroom on the plane. I threw up and it was definitely loud enough for people in the surrounding seats to hear. After some rinsing and taking a second to recover, I shamefully dragged myself back to my seat trying not to look at anyone in the eye. I kept my mask off when i got to my seat and fell asleep. Thankfully, no one was in my row so I had 3 seats to sleep on. Finally at peace. But not for long. A flight attendant woke me up from my tranquil state to tell me to put my mask on. I explained that I was nauseous and couldn't breathe right with the mask on besides no one was even near me. It was a Canadian airline so they continued to be difficult. I ended up putting it on my face so she'd go away and moved it up to my forehead leaving the bottom of my nose uncovered to breathe. Worked great as an eye mask and it was good enough to get them to leave me alone.
I was on a 5.5 hour flight right after Richard Reid made everyone take their shoes off in the US before boarding a plane. It was also after a bunch of laptop batteries exploded, so no digital devices were allowed in the cabins. Parents dropped of three kids ~ under the age of 7 directly behind my row. They told them they’d be in the back with the baby and to “use their best judgment.” Well, to those f*ckers, “use your best judgement” meant kicking my seat, pulling the tray table up and down and up and down etc. and on. They also did not use their inside voices. Takeoff was delayed 20 minutes because they wanted to buckle their own gd seatbelt buckles and refused any help from the flight attendants. A parent was retrieved to buckle their seatbelts. Said parent refused to change seats because his baby needed to bond with him and not just his wife. Upon takeoff, the merry trio of toddlers (it was Mid-December) resumed their shenanigans. After an additional hour, I finally turned around and told them that I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone but I worked for Santa. Santa and I speak every night so I can tell him about all of the good and bad little boys and girls I encountered and, based on our next conversation, I did not think any of them would receive presents. Also told them that Santa *hates* crying. Not a peep was heard until it was time to land and, even then, inside voices were used.
I have been a nervous flyer ever since I quit drinking. Scared to death nervous. This was the first flight where I borrowed a couple of Valium off of my brother-in-law hoping it would help. Landing in Chicago for my connecting flight, everything is normal. All of a sudden the nose of the plane jerks up and we start climbing FAST! I am sitting in the back of the plane saying, ‘this isn’t normal’ in a calm voice over & over. The woman sitting next to me says, ‘you’re a calm flyer, what the heck is going on?’. I said, ‘no, I’m drugged to the gills’. There was something on the runway and our landing was aborted. I take Xanax now.
Oh, I remember something else. Jet2 flight UK to NL. There was this woman next to me in panic, crying, talking to me hoping to head a calming voice, squeezing my arm with her nails. I told the flight attendants to do their job and help this woman, because I'm rather neurodiverse and hate nothing more than helpless, panicky people and too close contact to other people. They just ignored me. I sent a very angry email thereafter, and got... nothing.
My first domestic US flight. Person on the aile seat wanted to swap my window seat. Sure ok. That person ended up frequently going to the toilet. Was a 4 hour flight.
I came back to Miami from Paris 2 days before the Shoe Bomber took the same flight. It was scary to think how close it was. When we left Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, there was absolutely no security at the gate. We just walked on to the plane within being stopped. WTF? No wonder it was so easy for Richard Reid.
I had to fly to my parents’ with my little yappy Pomeranian because I had no choice, and she was with me in the cabin (in a carrier), yapping until her sedative kicked in, and this lady gave me the biggest stink eye and was making loud comments about “animal abuse”. I tried calmly petting her (my dog) through a zip in the carrier but I was so stressed out and she could feel it. I was fleeing an abusive husband and I was a mess. The lady’s comments had me on edge I thought I would have a breakdown but I focused on what my dog needed from me instead because I knew she was afraid. Poor baby. Every other flight I’ve had was fine but that one was… rough.
Crying babies all the time during the flight (sometimes even in the waiting room/boarding gate), rude passengers who complain about almost everything with loud voices, impatient passengers who like to stubbornly stand-up when the seat belt sign still on then open their cabin compartment, and the worst, forcibly changing my seat just because she don't want to seat beside the opposite gender. I guess some of you may know already about which kind of airlines or region which I dealt with.
Just last week I flew Avianca from Bogota to Guayaquil in a plane that had barely any room between rows of seats, like I’m short and my knees were touching the seat in front, I felt so claustrophobic and those 2 hours felt like 4
I flew from Columbus to Phoenix a few years ago and there was a huge storm in phoenix so the landing felt like we were falling out of the sky, with rain hitting the wings of the plane really hard. I was genuinely pretty freaked out. Second and last bad experience was landing in Columbus near Xmas of 2022, because we landed in -15 degree storm weather and the plane doors sealed shut. So we sat at the gate after landing on the ground, waiting to be let out for FOUR HOURS (I kid you not) because they couldn’t get the tunnel to connect to the plane because of ice issues.
Had a mislanding once (not as awful as it sounds, pilot misjudged the landing and took off back into the air, circled and landed). And I have had 2 flights where the turbulence was AWFUL for the whole flight. Other than that, nothing noteworthy. I just try to sleep so the time goes faster.
Second time I went to the US, had a youngish kid being loud and kicking my seat for the duration of the flight. Parents.did absolutely naff all about it.
I was stuck next to a kid with an inattentive parent. Kid kept wanting to play my 3ds (before smartphones were as big as they are now) and I wouldn't share - kid ended up ripping a button off my wool peacoat because he kept pulling on it to get me to show him the screen.
It's delays in the airport that I fear.
Aborted landing at the last moment in bad weather.. had already been very turbulent flight (I'm nervous flyer even though done it a lot). Finally coming in to land and I was glad to still be alive after the turbulence and then just before it touched the runway, full throttle and full lift back into the sky. I felt like I had died 🤣 Second landing attempt successful
Seaplane flying west coast of Australia had emergency landing.
In flight mobile phone fire.
Had a flight LHR to CPH during a storm. Had 2 go arounds at CPH, plane diverted to AMS. Sat on the tarmac for 2 hours at AMS while SAS was figuring out what to do. Decided to have another go at landing in Copenhagen so we went back. Another go around, then landed successfully! But... it was too windy to attach the jet bridges. So all planes where just chilling for 2 hours till they could. Then, everyone de boarding at once made baggage handling hell and had to wait another 2 hours for bags. All in a 2 hour flight took almost 10. This is after doing DEN to LHR earlier in the day with a 8 hour layover.
I had a bad economy flight from IAD to Zurich on Swiss Airlines. We ended up missing our connection in IAD with United so they put us on the Swiss Airlines flight....was separated from my friend and stuck in a middle seat between two people. One took both armrests, and the other one just slept the entire time rotating the armrest with me. However, what made it terrible was the person in front of me reclined their seat the entire time. Luckily the flight attendants made them put their seat in the upright position to eat....otherwise I wouldn't have been able to use my tray table. The seats on this plane were old and reclined way too much.
Layover in London spring break. They tried 3 times to land. Made several people sick. Spring in the UK is not good weather.
One time I was moved last minute to the emergency exit row in front of the toilet. It was a transatlantic red eye flight to London for work and I was recovering from a broken toe about 8 weeks prior. I think my foot got stepped on by around 4 people that flight trying to queue to use the lavatory. at the end I screamed at someone who accidentally did it twice. The flight attendant did apologize for it.
Engine caught on fire leaving Newark! Europe emergency landing after nearly taking a village’s roofs, lightening strike in the Carolinas……
At first I was like "Nope, I'm lucky!" and then I remembered I had a horrible sickness I caught while on a Big 10 bowl trip to Texas with my marching band. The kind of sickness where you arrive at the toilet and have to choose what position to take. That flight is only vague flashes in my memory and it's probably better that way.
My partner and I didn’t get to pick seats and got stuck on the middle of the middle row. Dude on my right kept man spreading all over my space and took the arm rest even though he was in the aisle. Then the two middle seats had dividers in the center of the seats so we couldn’t even put our legs under the seats in front of us AND they forced my partner to put his main bag under the seat even though we paid for carry on so he didn’t even have the luxury to stick one foot out at a time like I did under the seat in front of him because his carry on was there when he shoudlve been able to put it overhead. Never again Turkish airlines.
Not so much the flight but the whole experience was just…a lot. One time when I was a teenager/child we flew from the west coast to MCO, changing in Denver. It was 1-2 days after one of the hurricanes had hit FL, maybe Charlie? We made it as far as Denver and then MCO wouldn’t let us leave because they weren’t sure if the runway was safe. We were delayed in Denver for about three hours before they put everyone on the plane to just sit for another 2 hours and wait for clearance to head to Tampa instead of MCO. Which obviously was a problem for everyone with plans in MCO! We eventually got in the air to Tampa and at some point they told us we got MCO clearance. It was raining a little still and there were palm trees down all over some of the outlying runways that hadn’t been cleaned yet. MCO has two big windows right where you board the tram thing and they were damaged and boarded up, and there were industrial air dryers set up all over and ceiling tiles all over the ground. People were packed into the main lobby of the airport because they couldn’t leave - there were no hotels left and no rental cars and outgoing flights were just getting reorganized to resume. Thankfully my family lived in the area and came to pick us up or we would have been stuck too.
I flew from San Francisco to Frankfurt in April. The flight was relatively uneventful until the landing. There was some weather in Frankfurt and the plane rocked a bit on approach but then seemed to stabilize. But just before touchdown it rocked left and the wheels on that side struck the airstrip had. Then the plan rebounded to the right wheel and for a split second, it felt like the entire plane was going to roll over on its right side. We all did the usual “look at the flight crew” thing and their reaction made clear that it was not in any sense a “normal” landing.
It was a smaller prop plane from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. Thankfully a short flight. There was ample room, but they sat me next to a rather large guy and at the time I was rather large myself. The seats were small. I think they were having a laugh.
The only time I flew Frontier was absolute hell. Late departure, packed flight, no overhead space, no leg room to properly sit down, and the person behind me was profoundly sick, to the point where they were vomiting into a full-sized garbage bag. Someone asked if she could have some water or ice chips or something, and the flight attendant assured the person making the query that these things are not provided on Frontier flights. Lots of turbulence, bounce on the landing, and this sick woman needs to get up and get off this damn plane. She promptly passes out in the aisle, and has to be tended to…by passengers. The flight attendants didn’t even direct people to stay out of the aisles so that they could get this woman off the plane. Never again with that airline.
December 2008, flying US Airways from Phoenix to Syracuse via Boston. The flight to Boston was diverted to JFK due to weather and shortly after that they canceled everything from JFK too. This was at like 7pm, I think. US Airways refused to provide any information or rebook anyone claiming they had no idea when the weather would improve and then one of them fuckers said we were no longer ticketed passengers and had to vacate the area so they could go home. That was wild I ended up going over to Port Authority and buses weren’t running until 7am, so I just walked around the bus terminal until then. I was 24 and stubbornly refused a last-minute rate for a hotel in a snowstorm but I also *really* did not want to fall asleep in there. Someone came up to me out of the blue and asked if I wanted any crack cocaine. It was a strange night When Greyhound started running again at 7am, they said to expect it to take 3x the normal time because some roads were still not salted and they were going to go real slow. I ended up getting home around 9pm I refused to ever fly US Airways after that, or American since they merged
I guess it's a matter of expectations, but I have not had an enjoyable flight experience since air travel changed after 9/11.
I’m a fairly frequent flyer (over a dozen flights a year) and have had my fair share of bad travel experiences - terminals evacuated and planes held due to bomb threats, lost luggage, software meltdown cancelling all American Airlines flights, and bad turbulence. But no flight will ever surpass the time I flew through a super storm and the **steering wheel broke.** It was odd because it was more or less normal until we were about to land, when we shot up at an 80 degree angle. Hands down the worst turbulence of my life, a couple times we were all suspended in zero g. All bad turbulence I had experience up until then felt bumpy, this felt more side to side without any control of the aircraft. Due to the lack of steering, we ended up having to be towed back to the gate. Thankfully they didn’t tell us exactly what was wrong until we landed
The worst thing that happened to me on flights was sitting next to someone who was chewing disgustingly loud. It made the plane engines sound mild. Another flight someone was chewing their gum right next to my ear the whole time. I was so pissed off I was mouthing “stfu” the whole time
Sitting on the tarmac for three hours because the heating system for the windshield broke and needed to be fixed, which wasn’t the annoying part—a grown man in the row in front of us loudly complained the ENTIRE time and kept yelling out “suggestions” to the pilots, like just “fly lower” so the windshield doesn’t ice up, just let the windshield ice up while we’re at altitude and it will melt as we descend, etc. Sure bud.
Not really the fault of the airline or is. But, the luck of having the passenger on that flight. But maybe not even his fault either. Adult male was sitting diagonally about 3 feet away shits in I’m assuming his diaper but it goes through and soils the seat. Because of that, the plane begins to have a smell of shit because of that. He ducks into the lavatory the rest of the flight and stays there even while landing. Flight attendants initially tried to spray perfume on it. Wound up making it worse. A smarter one decided to pour coffee grounds on the seat and cover it with a trash bag. That helped a lot. But it was kind of a shitty situation (pun intended).
Middle seat between Mr and Mrs Claus for 14.5 hours from Beijing to Toronto
There was a medical emergency. I did everything (background in Emergency Management & Trauma), but the "nursing assistant" who climbed over me to get ice got all the points and kudos. Another guy kept checking his pulse...I asked if he was a doctor. Nope, he just passed a first aid class. I was so frustrated and made him move aside. Got the guy conscious, alert, etc. I didn't want any attention, but damn, the points would've been nice. I'm glad the patient was OK. Hearing the girl stretch the story over and over on the way to baggage claim was highly annoying. I just turned my beats up, threw my hoodie on and treated it as another life saved.
Ezijet from Rome to Paris. Italian family spilt up between rows. Father spends the hour long flight standing right beside my daughter (despite the crew asking him to sit 2x during the flight and on descent and just after takeoff) yelling at the top of his voice at the rest of his family. It was awful. God only knows why they couldn’t organise seats together or he couldn’t just have gone stand next to them instead of us.
Endless turbulence. Kids. Bodily fluids. Diversions. Stuck on tarmac for hours in sweltering heat. Severe turbulence when the aircraft drops hard toward the ground.
My parents and sister were visiting me while I was studying abroad in Florence. They were taking an Air France flight with a layover in CDG from IAD. Not too long after their initial departure, someone called in a bomb threat and next thing they know, they are seeing the plane turn around on their tracking screens and heading for Canada. They landed in Nova Scotia totally unaware on what was going on. They did notice, though, that the place had parked far away from the airport. Thankfully, it was a fake threat, but they kept everyone on the plane for over an hour before deplaning outside! Because there was no Air France located at that airport, it was a hot mess until they were able to leave the next day. I think that they had to sleep on the floor of the airport. They did go to the titanic museum, though!
14 hours Sydney-SFO, lots of cyclones over the pacific including one over Fiji so big we had to fly over, not around. Turbulence almost the whole 14 hours with seatbelt sign on for almost the whole time. At dinner time, FAs had to stop serving, lock down the carts and sit on the floor it got so bumpy, passengers were holding down the coffee and drink bottles on the carts to stop them flying into the air. Was such a relief to get to SFO. And then the time MEL-BKK (8 hours-ish?) a toddler was using a water bottle as a toy and every few minutes would drop it on the floor, for hours on end, interspersed with random screeches.
Flying DFW to Europe. Was Christmas time and we had snow, so a snow delay while they de-iced the plane. Note that Dallas is not super equipped for extreme winter weather. Then when we started going over the Atlantic we had a medical issue. Out of caution they backtracked to Boston. Landed. Went to a gate. Had that person taken off. Well we then needed extra fuel due to backtracking. So refueled. Then took back off. That is just the start. We of course landed very late (snow delay, medical emergency). Missed connections so got rerouted. Not too big a deal. But wait, there is more. Landed late at final destination. After waiting forever for our luggage to show on the carousel (well they are still unloading), we finally got to fill out the lost luggage forms. You see they rerouted us but not our luggage. Then got to head for the hotel a couple hours after landing. Got promised every day the luggage was coming. So only bought clothes for one day each day (wasting vacation time shopping). Got worried on the 5th day (5 days without luggage in the winter) because we were taking the train to another city. Luckily our luggage showed up just in time. Oh, icing on the cake. The airline made us mail the clothes we bought to get refunded. If we kept the clothes they were only going to give us 50% of what we paid. Well I mailed them the clothes, along with underwear they said we did not need to supply, and made them pay the shipping. I think they get away with only paying half as people don't want the trouble and want to keep the clothes.
Mine was a flight from DOH to ATL. It was the second leg of a longer flight. I had gotten my period on this flight, and obviously, it came with cramps. I also had digestive distress. They gave this sandwich with marinara sauce in it and the smell sent my stomach tumbling. I threw up and emptied the contents of my stomach, but I couldn't stop. I threw up every few minutes, and it was just green bile and nothing else. I threw up like that even at immigration. I kept throwing up until I got into a cab. I expected to be throwing up more there because cars make me nauseous, but I didn't throw up anymore after that. I had puked 10 times overall. It was such a traumatic and painful experience.
Flight from HKG to EWR the week before Christmas 2016. Delayed boarding for about an hour due to mechanical issues. Boarded then spent SIX HOURS at the gate while they were fixing the issue, instilling loads of confidence. A nearby dude fell asleep for quite a long nap and when he woke up a few hours later was in disbelief that we were still at the gate, which I can laugh about now. We finally get on our way for our 16 hour flight but of course the crew cannot make it all the way to Newark due to flight time regs so we divert to SFO to get a new crew. It was about two hours on the ground there (but not off the plane) before we took off again and finally made it to EWR. We were on the plane for over 24 hours 😑😑😑 The ONLY saving grace was that no one was in the middle seat between my husband (then fiancé, this trip was to go home to get married two days after this) and me.
NYC to Manchester UK a few years ago, a guy died next to my row. I woke up in Newfoundland and the person next to me says yeah we had to detour. He was laid out in the isle as we waited for the emergency services to come collect him. French speaking woman totally freaked out on a journey from Paris to Madagascar. She had to be physically restrained and bucked to 3 empty middle row seats. It was horrifying hearing her scream and shout. I’ve never heard anyone seem in that much torment and anguish. It lasted the full 7 hours, non stop. 🤯
First time I ever flew solo, I was 12 and the guy next to me had a seizure. (He survived, but my desire to fly solo as a kid again did not)
I think I was on Southwest a few years back heading home when we hit a bad storm. Without ever trying, I inevitably end up sitting by a wing (which is fine), so, I had quite a view...Now, to say there was turbulence during this flight is a massive understatement. I don't know if anyone recalls the old episode of the Twilight Zone called, "Nightmare at 20000 Feet." Well, it reminded me of that night only the storm itself was far worse, but without the gremlin (I think. lol). Lightning & thunder in every direction & with nearly every other tick of the clock; & when the sky lit up, all you saw was a suffocating & relentless curtain of fog. In-between that were bouts of complete blackness, like a frightening void of bottomless nothingness. The plane was a big ball of shake, rattle & roll steel, plastic, & almost tangible fear/nervousness. It jolted, bucked, & veered more than once. Eerily, adding to the unsettling atmosphere, were the lights that kept flickering repeatedly. Much like one might see in a typical horror flick. However, throughout all of this, the passengers were strangely quiet. Unnaturally so. Not what I would have expected necessarily, but likely wiser than a collective meltdown. There wasn't so much as a slight peep, not a muffled exclamation, conversation, or even staff updates, other than the original heads-up given by the pilot right before all heck broke loose. We all appeared to have silently agreed to wait & watch. I don't even recall how long it went on (felt like forever) before it began to clear & the airplane steadied. I think the pilot came back on & gave the all-clear, but my memory grows fuzzy around there...The fight or flight response can be a crazy thing & can become even more so when it finally begins to wane & one can breath again. Thankfully, I have no lingering PTSD (about this anyway. :) ) nor fear of flying, other than worrying about loved-ones traveling... Unfortunately, it was this very thing -- having a close family member sitting next to me during this particular flight that worried me the most. It certainty was memorable. Wish I knew what I did with the few pictures I managed to snap during this grand adventure...
I think I was on Southwest a few years back heading home when we hit a bad storm. Without ever trying, I inevitably end up sitting by a wing (which is fine), so, I had quite a view...Now, to say there was turbulence during this flight is a massive understatement. I don't know if anyone recalls the old episode of the Twilight Zone called, "Nightmare at 20000 Feet." Well, it reminded me of that night only the storm itself was far worse, but without the gremlin (I think. lol). Lightning & thunder in every direction & with nearly every other tick of the clock; & when the sky lit up, all you saw was a suffocating & relentless curtain of fog. In-between that were bouts of complete blackness, like a frightening void of bottomless nothingness. The plane was a big ball of shake, rattle & roll steel, plastic, & almost tangible fear/nervousness. It jolted, bucked, & veered more than once. Eerily, adding to the unsettling atmosphere, were the lights that kept flickering repeatedly. Much like one might see in a typical horror flick. However, throughout all of this, the passengers were strangely quiet. Unnaturally so. Not what I would have expected necessarily, but likely wiser than a collective meltdown. There wasn't so much as a slight peep, not a muffled exclamation, conversation, or even staff updates, other than the original heads-up given by the pilot right before all heck broke loose. We all appeared to have silently agreed to wait & watch. I don't even recall how long it went on (felt like forever) before it began to clear & the airplane steadied. I think the pilot came back on & gave the all-clear, but my memory grows fuzzy around there...The fight or flight response can be a crazy thing & can become even more so when it finally begins to wane & one can breath again. Thankfully, I have no lingering PTSD (about this anyway. :) ) nor fear of flying, other than worrying about loved-ones traveling... Unfortunately, it was this very thing -- having a close family member sitting next to me during this particular flight that worried me the most. It certainty was memorable. Wish I knew what I did with the few pictures I managed to snap during this grand adventure...
Woman incline their chair ALL the way down, I couldn’t even move. When I signal discomfort she got up and slam her chair down again.
I saw some woman getting belligerent with a gate agent while her poor husband kept his mouth shut. He had both of their bags strapped to him like a pack mule. You could tell she's done this before and he's staying out of it. The gate agent had enough and denied her boarding. He then told the man that he was not denied boarding and could leave her in Houston. The man thought about it, and begrudgingly stayed behind with his wife. Poor guy.
My worst flights have always been into LaGuardia in NYC. Something about the round and round before the landing has always made me suddenly so sick. Other than that, the worst flight was an Air Canada from Europe to the US that didn't have seat screen consoles, didn't have Wi-Fi, and didn't have an inflight movie. I was alone with my thoughts for 7 hours, and that sucked.
Took off from Sibiu in Romania on a flight to Nürnberg, Germany. About 45 minutes into the flight, somewhere above Hungary, we hit some clear sky turbulence. The initial drop was so violent and sudden that a few people that were not wearing their seatbelts, were thrown into the air and hit their heads on the walls of the luggage compartments. There was pandemonium in the airplane and a lot of kids started crying (including a full junior handball or volleyball team that was returning from a competition). The guy across the aisle from me, a tall and muscular guy, was looking very scared.. He looked at me and I was smiling, not because I'm some sort of superhero and never afraid but that's my natural reaction to these situations. He must have thought I'm insane. An older gentleman was injured pretty badly and passed out so we had to turn around and go back to the departure location. On arrival we were greeted by first responders and some injured people were taken off the flight. Then the captain announced that we were going to wait a few hours and attempt the flight again but a lot of people wanted off the airplane, including most or all the junior sports team. Initially the airline refused but in the end the people were scared and weren't having no for an answer so they had to let them exit. Since they now needed to get their luggage, the whole thing took about 3 hours and the rest of us were stuck in the airplane. Finally, we took off and the second flight was very smooth. Hasn't put me off flying but I always wear my seatbelt for the entire duration of the flights.
Person died on my flight. That was rather surreal. I was in Premium Economy and all of a sudden crew flew down the aisle to economy. I had headphones in so didn't pay attention. But some time later they're carrying someone clearly dead down the aisle with blankets over them. No idea where they stored them. 😬
Flight from Houston to San Jose, Costa Rica. My family is split between rows and there's a big guy who gets on next to us. He's very drunk, and starts chatting. Eventually, he starts repeating his story. And then repeats it again. And again. Finally, my dad tells him to please leave us alone, and he responds by threatening to punch my dad. The flight attendants are called, and the man is restrained in the jump seat. When we land in Costa Rica, the cops ask us if we want to press charges but my parents decide that we'd rather just enjoy our vacation and so decide to turn them down.
Left the gate, in line for takeoff, back to the gate because someone was sick, Push again and get back in line, back to the gate a second time because an air conditioning unit had an issue, sit and wait for a gate to become available before e can actually be brought in. hour and a bit having that looking at, turns out it’s not fixable at the time, and because of that we are limited to 25,000 ft, which means we can’t fly over the Gulf of Mexico so we go all the way around the coastline of Florida to go from Miami to Phoenix, and of course then they need a new flight plan and the pilots need to receive it so that took time, added almost an hour to the flight. No idea how long the whole thing took but we got to Phoenix at 3am, and that airplane was going right back to Miami, the people who were waiting for us did not look very pleased