<p>Sounds plenty icky to me! Really bad that folks board planes when they feel they will hurl–pretty thoughtless of the other passengers, but I suppose they figure it’s for the higher good of their loved one.</p>
<p>Best. Thread. Ever.</p>
<p>My daughter flew cross-country between two extremely overweight people who were father and daughter. She asked the daughter a few times if she wanted to be next to her obviously ailing father. She said no. Halfway through the flight he went into respiratory distress (he was in the window seat) and attendants came and there was a lot of commotion. DD asked again, “Don’t you want to be next to your dad?” The answer was no again. </p>
<p>I was on a flight that originated in Mexico. Our plane was slated to leave at 2:30. At 2:20, while people were still standing and putting things in overhead bins, securing kids, etc. the plane just started racing down the runway and then took off. Objects were flying, people were falling into their seats. It definitely felt like we were making some kind of getaway.</p>
<p>We flew from Israel to Rome with a large group of folks from what I seem to recall was Brazil. I never saw people have so much fun on a plane in my life. It was an actual party with people socializing all up and down the aisle, taking tons of photos throughout the flight and just generally having a great time (which for some reason included kicking my seat a lot). When we landed they broke into wild cheering – way wilder than you get in the US. It was a hoot.</p>
<p>You could not pay me to spend one minute longer in an airplane lavatory than is necessary. I’ve never understood why anyone would find that an amorous location.</p>
<p>^^^LOL, mimk6, I agree.</p>
<p>I’m going to be boarding a flight soon to help D1 get her apartment in order at grad school. I’m hoping for NO stories to tell!</p>
<p>Someone else will probably post having seen me play tag with my son. Strapped into our seats. He was about 5 and I’d close my eyes, count to ten, and he’d “hide”. Then I’d open my eyes and look all over for him – in the aisle, up on the ceiling, on the floor, and after he was grinning at his good hiding place (in his seat), I’d spot his foot and follow it til I found him.</p>
<p>That killed about 10 minutes of a long flight. Next thing was making hand puppets (coloring crazy faces on the air sickness bags).</p>
<p>was heading to Jamaica on business and had someone taken off the plane in Miami. Odd, as I thought they would want to let the undesireables LEAVE the country. On the way back into the US, I’ve never been questioned more in my life by TSA.</p>
<p>Global Entry - best thing ever. No more immigration lines in the US.</p>
<p>Did anyone hear about the Air France flight that had an emergency landing in Syria? It happened just recently. The flight was Paris to Lebanon and apparently the plane was running low on fuel and had to land in Damascus. The passengers were told that they might need everyone to gather all their cash to pay for the fuel because they could not get approval for credit!!! Well the government was able to get credit and did not have to take the cash from passengers. So bizarre! I wouldn’t imagine there would be much cash to buy fuel. </p>
<p>The flight crew had everyone keep their shades down and definitely no photos or recordings for fear of repercussions. Wow I would have been frightened. How could an airline not calculate the fuel for such a trip? I know airlines are not necessarily running on full tanks but really? </p>
<p>We did not hear about this incident in France since we were there a few days back but recently heard it on CNN(I think) after we returned.</p>
<p>Headwinds can trip up calculations of fuel. This winter, many 757s were not able to make it back from Europe and had to land in Gander to refuel. I had the opposite experience, making it to Europe 1+ hr early with tailwinds.</p>
<p>Just a few of my experiences.</p>
<p>On a trip to Europe, we were sitting near the bathrooms. A guy came out naked with his head covered in what we were later told was plaster, with eye holes and holes to breathe through. Not kidding. This was back when they had “sky marshalls” on planes because terrorists were sometimes hijacking them. He was tackled in the aisle, hog tied and dragged back into the bathroom. </p>
<p>This was after a passenger on the same flight had a heart attack. We made a very quick descent to Gatwick. He lived for several years. We got a fruit basket at the holidays in thanks to my dad saving his life. Oh, and this was after we sat on the runway at JFK for over 4 hours waiting for a hurricane to pass. The connecting flight to LA fell off the runway in the rain and the people had to get off into the mud. People actually came onto the plane wet with mud all over them. </p>
<p>Another flight involved sitting next to a man from Africa who smelled so strongly I almost passed out. On another flight, they arrested the man in the row ahead of me because he refused to put out his cigarette. It was a domestic flight. We landed and had to sit for the police to come on and take him away. What an idiot. He kept saying “My ticket says smoking”; this was when they were about to phase out smoking but there was still a small section and on this flight they eliminated it because only a few people wanted smoking.</p>
<p>Another flight was completely full of guys in business suits and this one extremely dressed up middle aged woman wearing leopard skin prints. She sprayed herself with perfume every few minutes. It was choking. Another time a person with rather obvious behavioral issues, took his suitcase out of the bin after takeoff and sat it down in the aisle, like maybe it would go missing or it needed company. That nearly came to blows with the crew. </p>
<p>One of my dad’s favorites was the time we landed and the captain announced, “the men who left their guns, chains and knives with the cabin crew” may pick them up on their way out. </p>
<p>One of my least favorite flights was what I think of as the Nigerian baby mission. I was up all night partying and got on the early morning plane to London. I have no idea what the heck was going on but the plane was full of families from Africa, all of them with babies. I was told it was some sort of mission to the UN about babies, but I was too tired to pay attention. The noise was incredible. The worst part was the whacking. I mean the man would sometimes turn to the woman and hit her. Hard. You’d hear cry, cry, cry, some words not in English, whack. Then more crying because hitting mommy doesn’t make a baby stop. This one beautiful flight attendant repeatedly came to the seat behind me to beg, “Please sir, stop hitting your wife.” Best part was the attendants took pity on me and told me to come into the far back and sit with them. They were cool, pretty British girls. </p>
<p>But nothing compares to this woman who worked for me. We heard on the radio - before the internet - that a plane had crashed during takeoff, don’t remember why, a number dead but not everyone. She called. She’d been on that plane. She was going to catch the next one. No matter what, walking away from a plane crash beats everything.</p>
<p>We once flew back from Madrid to JFK. There was a family of missionaries with 9 children on board. They were not seated together and passengers offered to switch seats and the parent refused. One child, a 6 yr old boy sat in the row with me and my husband. They had no books, games or snacks for the children. It was a very long flight. We provided some of our snacks and entertained the little guy with stories and games. When we arrived in NY, he cried and begged to come home with us, (we did not have any children at the time). Poor kids and weird parents, they should have taken care of their own family before trying to help others. My husband swore that they probably left a couple of kids back in Spain!</p>
<p>Another time I was on a flight from Venezuela and we hit turbulence. The flight crew strapped themselves in the jump seats and took out rosary beads and started to pray! That was soooo comforting.</p>
<p>We recently booked a direct flight for my 22 year old son from DC to San Francisco, paying with points, and we also paid extra to make sure he got an exit row aisle seat, as he is over 6’3".</p>
<p>My son was sitting in his seat when a gentleman of about 40 years old --and my son estimates around 5’8" came down the aisle and demanded that he trade seats with his middle, non-exit row seat because a young person “didn’t need the seat.” Not asking, not requesting…loudly demanding.</p>
<p>My son is usually easy going, affable and respectful…but he is also not a push over. So my son just said, “let me check my seat assignment…nope, I’m in the correct seat. Sorry.” The gentleman just got louder and louder.</p>
<p>The flight attendant offered to let the gentleman take another flight, or sit in his assigned seat.</p>
<p>The gentleman eventually sat is his assigned seat. A couple of drinks later, he dumped a drink on the woman in the seat next to him. When he got up from his seat, he dumped a drink on my son. And then threw something at the flight attendant.</p>
<p>Security was waiting for him when the flight landed.</p>
<p>boysx3, God bless your son for his self control. I know people who would have hurt the little guy.</p>
<p>Boyxz3,
Your son showed such maturity. I wish they had made that man pay for new clothes for your son and that lady.</p>
<p>Lergnom, just amazed.</p>
<p>I was on a plane from Europe to NY (or Boston, can’t remember) when there was a very loud thud and the plane dropped many feet. It then stabilized but one of the engines had blown. Very scary. The engines were very loud from then on – a big buzzing sound – and the flew to Bangor, where we waited for another plane.</p>
<p>this thread is stressing me out, as I’m in the midst of booking a biz trip to Australia that entails 9 separate flights.</p>
<p>Spring break of 1969 I was on a Delta flight from Atlanta (Emory) to Dallas. Flying was very expensive then. It was your usual middle/upper middle class group of fliers.</p>
<p>A stewardess got on the PA in the frront first class section and announced that we had a contingent of young GIs on board who were heading to California with orders to ship out to Vietnam. She stated that her brother had been killed recently on duty in Vietnam and asked for a round of applause for these young men.</p>
<p>Silence, then applause, Then a muffled noise as the stewardess talked to someone in the first class cabin. She asked the soldiers to come forward to first class because the first class passangers were offering their seats. The applause started again as the close cropped boys my age moved down the aisle. The rear cabin stewardess came behind them. People started handing her dollar bills and say “buy those boys a drink.”</p>
<p>You’d have to have been their to understand how weird that was. The average age of a GI in Vietnam was 19. 76% were from lower middle or working class. Of that, 25% came from families with family income below the poverty level. 21% lacked a HS diploma. The South as a region had a disproportionate amount of the deaths in Vietnam (30+%). One week alone in 1968 there had been 543 deaths and 2547 wounded in the US military. 30.4% of the deaths in Vietnam were those of draftees.</p>
<p>It was like a wake, but in advance.</p>
<p>My friend travels for business and occasionally gets bumped to first class. This day she was seated in first class next to a “scraggly” looking man who she thought really needed a haircut and a shave. He started talking to her and they were exchanging pleasantries etc… He asked her what she did and she told him and then he said he was flying home to LA (also her home) after working on a tv series.</p>
<p>She replied something like “Oh, are you a cameraman?” He said no he was an actor.</p>
<p>Turns out it was William H. Macy!</p>
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<p>News articles on the web indicate that the plane diverted from Beirut due to tensions there (note: Beirut is slightly slower to Paris than Damascus is). But diverting to Damascus seems like an “out of the frying pan into the fire” type of situation. Would it have been worse for the plane to divert to Nicosia or Tel Aviv?</p>
<p>They couldn’t land in Tel Aviv because Lebanese law prohibits contact with Israel in essentially any way. I’m with you: they could have landed in Cyprus or in Turkey but Damascus is only a few miles from Beirut.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking that perhaps the most annoying experience was actually a bleeping salesman sitting directly behind me in 1st class. No discount in annoyance factor for cultural differences. The idiot spent nearly the entire hours long flight on the airphone spewing his anxiety over and over and over like a hideous tape loop. And I’ll bet he charged the calls off on his expense account. Made me think planes need an ejection seat.</p>
<p>If you travel enough, you run into annoyances. I spent Christmas Eve standing up in the Minneapolis airport because there was no room even to sit. They were busing people to N. Dakota. The sweet part, which I try to focus on, is the gate attendants put relatives on the phone from places like Fargo or small towns reached by commuter planes. Unavoidable. Not really something you remember as terrible. Not like landing at an airport, being delayed with small kids and finding they close every single food place no matter the weather, no matter how many people are stuck. Incompetent management is annoying. </p>
<p>I ran into a colleague at an airport and we talked for a while until I got up to get on the plane. It was then he noticed I wasn’t going where he was heading … and his plane had left a short time before. Oops. I thought it was funny. He didn’t.</p>
<p>One time we landed in Frankfurt and they decided to hose down our baggage. I think it had to do with a terror attack in Israel. We had canvas bags. Everything was soaked for 3 to 4 inches in on all sides. Some of it molded. It was surreal because we were standing in a windowed walkway with all the bags out where we could see, so we watched them drag out a fire hose and spray our stuff.</p>
<p>D recently flew somewhere on 6 am flight. Standing in line to check her bag at 5:15 am, she heard the ticket agent talking to the guy ahead of her.
Ticket Agent: “Sir, are you trying to check this bag for flight 1234 to Charlotte?”
Passenger: “Yes, the 6:30 flight. What’s the problem?”
Ticket Agent: “Sir… flight 1234 leaves at 6:30 PM - in 13 hours.”
The guy was NOT amused. I guess that’s why European travel times are posted in military time (15:00 instead of 3 pm).</p>
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<p>From Beirut, the distances are:</p>
<p>Damascus, Syria 66 mi
Tel Aviv, Israel 130 mi
Nicosia, Cyprus 146 mi
Antakya, Turkey 181 mi</p>
<p>Even excluding Tel Aviv, the next closest international airport to Beirut besides Damascus is only 80 miles greater distance from Beirut. Also, if they knew that Beirut would be unsuitable for some reason (but Damascus in a civil war was suitable???), Nicosia would have meant stopping a bit short rather than flying beyond the original destination, if fuel was a concern.</p>