Just for fun...

[LSchrow]

not fun, but certainly our most memorable....
DH, 16yoDD, 10yo DS, and myself were finally able to get a flight out days after 9/11 and our original flight out of LGA had been, obviously, cancelled.

about an hour into flying, previously unnoticed (by us, at least) air marshalls suddenly jumped out of the front seats with guns drawn. they ran to the back of the plane, past the rows of terrified faces, every eye on them.
it was one of the most heartbreaking moments in my life when my son pulled himself very close to me and whispered in my ear, "mom, are we going to die?"
it was in the papers the next day that someone had lit a cigarette in the bathroom aboard. i didn't know whether to laugh or cry when i read it.

somehow, the little annoyances of air travel don't bother me nearly as much since then

 

[mfolco]

DH seems to see TV or athletes everywhere we go - on a flight to LAX he sat next to one of the ESPN Sports Center hosts. In MSP, we saw Dante Culpepper.

I met a really interesting person on a random work flight to CA. We talked the whole flight and it turns out he does plaster and sign work for DISNEY! I loved hearing how he helped in making EE and signs for FWL and DTD and MK. I always look for his work now when I go!

It was fascinating! So for 4 hours we chatted non-stop. What was weird is I fly alot for work, so I mostly tune out others around me. If asked a question, I'll respond but I NEVER randomly start up conversations with passengers around me.

WELL, as we were getting off the plane, this wonderful man turns and says to me - "Thank you for talking. I lost my wife last year, and its been really hard on me. I didn't realize how much I missed talking to other people. I've been in a fog. She would have loved to talk to you - she was a Disney fanatic and loved helping me work on their stuff."

Tears in my eyes, I wished him well and we parted ways. Through 4 hours I never had a clue that he was mourning the loss of his wife. I immediately called my DH and told him how much I loved him. And when I start to forget how much I love him, I think back to this great conversation and realize how lucky I am to have a BFF and a DH all rolled up into one.

 

[sfbank]

Those are good. Our flight from Detroit to Orlando, DH & I sat next to a guy who travels a lot overseas-does work in Iraq, other countries, for one of the contracting businesses that do all kinds of things. Anyway, he proceeds to put chewing tobacco in his mouth. When they tried to collect his glass, he said he was using it to spit in. The flight attendant told him it is not allowed. Then he said he can chew on international flights. She made him go to the bathroom and get rid of it and the cup. Sick! What makes him think they want to handle a cup full of chew spit?

 

[PHXscuba]

If we can expand it to "strangest security-line encounter" then I've got a good one:

I was leaving CA at 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday after helping my mother after surgery. I was in a long security line behind a woman pulling a carry-on suitcase. Her suitcase kept falling over ... then I noticed she was teetering on her high heels and almost falling over herself. After I caught her (and her luggage) from falling over yet again she started talking to me, and I realized she was very drunk. When we got to the checkpoint we got in two different lines. The guy behind us cleared security about the same time I did and was shaking his head. He confirmed that she wouldn't be flying that morning -- she wasn't coherent enough to even find her ID!

PHXscuba

 

[Swimmergirl]

My worst experience was when I was 18. My best friend and I went to Hawaii to celebrate graduation. We had to fly standby since our tickets were partly comped by SW (her mom joined us and is an employee), so we didn't get to sit together on the way home. I got placed next to a VERY drunk middle aged man, who continued drinking throughout the flight. Finally the flight attendants cut him off (leading to a rather ugly scene). Several times during the 6 hour flight he got up to go to the restroom and instead of asking me to move (I was on the aisle) he insisted on climbing over me with full body contact. The whole flight he was hitting on me, and asked me to marry him several times. Soooo creepy and uncomfortable! As a relatively sheltered teen, I didn't know what to do. Finally a flight attendant offered to let me move to first class, so the last hour or two was great, but yuck!

 

[seashoreCM]

She had a 4yo with her so having her switch seats would have been difficult.

If her switching seats would have left her child behind alone then the other, larger, person would have been moved instead.

 

[jdb in AZ]

A few days ago my flight was canceled (mechanical issues) and after being rebooked and spending the night in a hotel and returning to the airport before dawn, I was sitting in the middle seat (the only thing available) a "round" guy who easily weighed 350 lbs and reeked of cigarette smoke squished himself into the seat next to me. Before he dealt with the issue of a seatbelt extender, another man came up and told the rotund guy he was in the wrong seat. whew. The new guy was thin and didn't stink.

 

[Eeyore5]

There was a couple seated next to me that engaged in an intense make out session. I finally said something when the guy grouped me when trying to group his girlfriend.

 

[aubriee]

I thought with SW the rule was that if you didn't fit in your own seat with the armrest down you had to buy a second seat. It might not be fun, but everyone should be allowed to use all of the seat they paid for. I think that exceptions for family or close friends traveling together are fine, but someone just taking the extra space is not. Even if I don't physically take up all of my seat, I'm still entitled to the personal space that the seat allows me. Your friend was entitled to her seat, and to me if anyone was to be moved, it should have been him, as he didn't seem to have been booked an extra seat.

I was once in an aisle seat on Air Tran and another lady was in the window seat. We got to talking and found we had both paid for those $15.00 seats and we had both checked the seats the night before and at that point the middle seat was empty, so maybe we'd get lucky and have an empty seat between us. Of course at the 24 hour mark those $15.00 and $13.00 seats in the front open up for free, but if you didn't pay for them, you get boarding zone 7 instead of boarding zone 1. So sure enough one of the last people boarding was heading for us. He was a very large man, well over 350lbs. Both me and the lady in the window seat sort of looked at each other and said, 'Oh no'. He was your typical stereotype jolly, laughing fat man. He took one look at his middle seat, laughed, and immediately reached to raise both armrests, saying, "on no ladies, this is not going to work, let just raise both of these so we can all be comfortable". It was funny because me and the other lady at the exact same time grabbed our armrests and said no. He quickly lost his jollyness and loudly demanded that we keep the armrests up so he could fit in his seat. When the FA came up, he very belligerantly demanded that she make us keep the armrests up, because there was no way he was going to fit in that seat otherwise. The FA moved him up to first class to shut him up. As we all got off the plane at MCO he round up in the same tram car as me and the other lady. He stood next to us, laughed, and said he knew when he picked the seat the day before that he wouldn't be stuck in a middle seat, that's why he never pays for a seat assignment. He said that people always react the same way we did, refusing to let him raise the armrests, he acts like he's mad and the FAs always move him up to first class. He said it works every time for him on Air Tran and he flies several times a year. We asked him if they had ever made him buy a second seat and he laughed and said no, he boards as late as possible and rather than waste time they just always move him up to first class to shut him up, so he got a free upgrade every time he flies.

 

[kaytieeldr]

I wonder what he's going to do when there's no more AirTran. The legacy airlines won't do that - they'll move their elite passengers. JetBlue won't do it, there's only one class. Southwest will make him buy another seat.

 

[bytheblood]

On our last flight inbound to MCO in January, we had this family sit behind us who we thought had never been on a plane before. If it was a limo, I think they would have come apart at the seams. The mom said to her 3 - 4 year-old son literally ever 5 minutes during the trip, "Do you like flying? What do you think? Are you excited?" He was not scared, showing any signs of nervousness (not that we could tell) and seemed to be oblivious to the fact that he was flying. He was trying to play with his little cars. I am not exaggerating.....literally, every 5 minutes she said this. Her husband, sitting on the isle, was playing with the light and air every 15 minutes or so. I kept waiting to hear him say, "look at these fancy gadgets." LOL