Planes are good. Flying on them is often deeply, deeply bad. This sort of contrast, the Hegelian dialectic, speaks to the duality at the heart of all humans. There is, however, a synthesis to be found from these two opposing views: Bad airplane experiences that make for good stories. Earlier this week, we asked you for those stories, and today we’re reading through the best. Let’s dive in.
We were the parents of THAT child for an entire flight between Milwaukee and Tampa.
For 4 straight hours, non-stop, my 18 month old daughter screamed and cried.
There were a TON of other parents with small kids on the flight who tried to help- lending us toys, snacks, different toys and different snacks than the ones we’d brought to try and snap her out of it, kids who offered stuffies, flight attendants who would let us hide in the bathroom with said screaming kiddo as long as we could so we could try and give everyone else a break. And had this been the entirety of the experience, it would go down as a heartwarming story of people trying to help- so many words of “we have been there” and “you aren’t alone” and “it’s OK, we know you are doing your best”.
BUT...
There were SO. MANY. Entitled men on the flight who felt it was their duty to glare at us. Walk by and shake their heads at us. Mouth “shut that fucking kid up” at us with looks of murder in their eyes at us. Look at us like we were garbage. And it was all men. Like, “Thanks Pal! had it not been for your look of disgust, we would not have know that our child was screaming- thank you so much for your help!” Just looks of utter hatred that we would dare to interrupt the sybaritic pleasure of their ticket on the cheapest non-stop flight on the cheapest airline possible between milwaukee and tampa.
By the end of the flight, my wife and I were absolutely exhausted. Our daughter was raw and exhausted. And the funny thing is, we had done everything we were supposed to do- we had snacks and toys and all the other things. But sometimes as a parent you draw the short straw. If you ever are on a flight with a screaming child, congarts, you drew the short straw too. Instead of looks of disgust, give the parents a knowing smile and let them know it’s gonna be OK.
Afterword: The rest of the week was spent in almost total silence as we introduced our daughter to the ocean, two parents who’d gotten no breaks at all since our daughter was born 18 months earlier, and we all hung out on the ever quiet and ever peaceful Sanibel Island. And on the flight back, kiddo slept the whole way with nary a peep.
It’s worth remembering that the parents of the screaming kid rarely want to be in that situation either.
At 6'2", just anytime I’ve ever sat coach
Please direct all tall-person complaints to Logan Carter, our official representative to the world of height.
Non stop Houston to Brisbane; about a 15 hour flight. I reserve an aisle seat due to moderate claustrophobia, and fly coach to “save the company money” (pro tip: dont ever do this). Get on ginormous plane (787?) and find out my seat choice didn’t “take” properly, and instead I’m assigned to the middle of the middle row, but no one has yet boxed me in to my left. VERY LAST GUY on plane walks down the aisle, doesn’t sit in any of the other open seats....sits next to me.
Plane takes off, I’ve got people on both sides, and guy in front decides to recline as far back as possible, so his seat is now inches from my face. Did I mention the claustrophobia? 15 hours of this, trapped, silently freaking out....it’s a damn miracle I did not have a meltdown.
Remember: If that plane had crashed, your company would have been taking applications for your replacement by the end of the day. Never save them money at the cost of your misery.
In 1979, I was flying Air Canada from Boston to Nova Scotia to hang out with some college friends. We were flying along, and BOOM, the plane decompressed as it lost its tail cone and rear door. A couple of people had cuts and scrapes, but no serious injuries that I remember. I got hit with some food items that were trying to rapidly exit the plane, but that was it. We turned around and returned to Boston; I got back on another plane later in the day. I did a lot of commercial flying through the 80s and early 90s but this was the most memorable.
I found a archived NY Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/18/archives/jet-loses-tail-cone-but-returns-safely-dc9s-rear-door-also-blows.html
Look, Ma, I’m in the paper! For totally normal reasons. It’s fine. Don’t worry.
It happened just last year. I went back to my high school reunion in Small Town, Iowa. The two flights to get there with the stopover in Dallas went off without a hitch and arrived in Des Moines just fine.
Then came the flights back home to Arizona. And keep in mind how airport time passes by at a 10 times slower rate than usual time. Get to the Des Moines airport with puh-lenty of time to spare and wait to get on board the flight to Dallas. But the flight kept being delayed. And delayed. And delayed. (Turned out that the shitheads at American Airlines didn’t have a crew for the trip—so “competent” on their part.)
Finally take off after a five hour delay. Course I get to Dallas with my connecting flight long gone and now the stupefying hassles of finding a flight to make it to Arizona—so “fun”. But hey, then came the drudgery of staying awake at DFW all through the night waiting for my connection taking off (hopefully!) at 10:00AM the next day—at least I had my laptop and Wi-Fi worked well at the airport as the minutes slowly ticked off. So slooooooooooooooooowly.
Got on the last plane completely exhausted. Once FINALLY arriving at my home airport, then I had to drive home—all the time straining to keep focused since to say I was fuzzy around the edges at this stage of the ordeal is the understatement of the year. Final tally: took NINETEEN HOURS to travel 1500 miles. I swear to the car gods: I’ll never fly American again.
I’ve had similarly long travel days, hopping straight from one press event to another, and they’re never fun. Especially when they aren’t supposed to be that long.
As is often the case, I have a few.
Rule #1 DO NOT CODESHARE!
Flew out of London to Cincinnati by way of Paris. This was a Delta flight code-shared with Air France. They never got that. When I tried to check in I could not. When I called, they said, just check in at the gate. Silly me. I get up in London at 3:40 am and go to LHR. I get in line and they are like “going to Paris today?” and I’m like “no, Cincinnati”, which sets them on a flurry of panic as they try to figure out what’s going on. This messes up everything as Air France has different check in rules for baggage and everything else and I’m carrying scientific equipment.
I barely make it onto the plane. I’m in the last row. This is a problem as I have 45 minutes to connect in CDG. Sure enough, the plane is at the end of one terminal and I have to go out of security and back into it to get to another terminal... in France. Now I know I’m in France but um, come on people, I couldn’t find a single multi-lingual person in security until I basically barged around the line begging to be let through and some guy realizing what was going on when I showed him my ticket.
By this time they are calling my name over the PA. I hike it down to be stopped three times for “bag check”. Seriously...3 times. Now I’m getting pissed. First, I’m dead tired, and second, they are acting like “you are a lame-ass late person who is forcing this screening” and I’m not quite realizing that they don’t know that they have caused this—again—exhausted, panicked, tired. I finally get onto the plane and I ask for some water as I get on and one of the cabin crew hands it to me rather by plopping it into my hands. At this point it begins to connect that they don’t know that this is their fault, but I’m too tired to care.
I start putting my carry-on away and I start getting a bunch of friendly but nosey questions from a stranger. I’m like, whatever... but later on I realize that it’s an air marshal. Yep, I’m the threat on this airplane. Meanwhile I’m realizing my luggage almost certainly did not make it on the plane. Also, one has a huge Li-ion battery in it that wasn’t supposed to be in there but they forced me to check last minute (remember, scientific equipment). Not my problem anymore. Fortunately, I pack things well.
When I land, I realize my bags did not indeed make it. The only good thing about all of this is that I made it home and that another old French American woman and I got to commiserate. She had the same experience—flew in from another part of France and had a hurried transfer and they didn’t get her baggage and they blamed her. Of course, she was bilingual so at least she was able to speak with all of them.
The other was more interesting than “bad”:
It could’ve been a lot worse. It was the old LGA days on a commuter flight to Columbus about 15 years ago. The problem was, I was going to Cincinnati and had saved bucks (like half the price) as I had family in Columbus for other reasons, so they were going to pick me up at what was supposed to be about a 7:3o pm arrival.
Well, three problems happened. evening departure out of LGA, A line of thunderstorms....
And the third? VIP... basically the Vice President had been in town. So everyone was on a ground hold from the thunderstorm, and then the VPOTUS got to take off first, from another airport (JFK I think) and had to be out of our airspace before any other traffic could move. All told we were on tarmac about 2 1/2 hours on a packed commuter jet that was really only going to be on little more than an hour flight. But, about two hours into it, the lone cabin crew member just busted out all of the food you have to normally pay for and gave it to all of the passengers for free. So I got this pretty big bag of gourmet trail mix for my trouble.
My biggest concern was my poor family waiting for me in Columbus. I felt really bad for them and have never ever made a similar arrangement since.
I think I would’ve just gone to Paris, honestly. Give it a whirl.
This was 2010 and my family and I were leaving India after we went there to visit family and attend my uncle’s wedding. On the way back, my sister got really severe airsickness and puked like 10 times. 0/10 experience
As a person who gets motion sick, I’m so glad I’ve never been that person. Sometimes it’s a very near miss, though.
I’ve been pretty fortunate. I’ve only had a couple delayed flights, one re-routed flight and no real incidents.
My worse flight wasn’t too bad, I guess. However, my last flight internationally was pretty bad.
1. Not allowed to fly anything but coach because of stupid office politics.
2. re-assigned to window seat, when I am more comfortable in an aisle.
3. Kid behind me kicked seat for 15 hours straight. Can’t blame parents, they tried to control the kid, but the kid was bored and grumpy and obviously a klutz. Kid also had a really loud voice and kept waking up the infant that the parents were also dealing with.
4. Got trapped in seat for 10 hours when the women next to me fell asleep.
5. When I went to get up, my legs didn’t work because of pinched nerve. When I started moving, it unpinched and 10+ hours of “I hate life” signals from my back all came at once.
6. Rushed out of plane and found a toilet to “meditate” upon. As I was halfway through my work, the water in the bowl started rising as the system backed up and eventually flooded ....
So glad we lost that customer and we aren’t expected to make trips out there anymore.
It’s all about your mindset, really.
Colorado Springs->O’Hare->Montreal. 6am flight out of COS. Plane boarded and we sit. Turns out there was an early tempest of a storm in Chicago which screwed up all of their flights. So we are told our connections will be missed and we should deplane and rebook. I’m last in line at the counter and after standing there 45 minutes they tell us to re-board the plane and try to reschedule the connection once we’re there. Or go home and come back tomorrow. I decide to fly to Chicago, but regret it once I get there because the line to rebook the flight is longer than any line I’ve ever seen. Seriously, a five minute walk to find the end of the line. This was back in the days of flip phones, and mine had a fresh charge on a large aftermarket battery. I call United customer service while standing in line, thinking I would choose whichever could help me first, phone or at the desk. I think I was on hold a few hours standing in that line, and my phone was nearly dead. When I was about 10 people from the front of the line I was finally helped on the phone. They rebooked me through Toronto on Air Canada (always ask if they can book you on another airline if they don’t have a flight), and it was scheduled to leave in...3 hours. That or walk home I suppose, so I waited at the Air Canada gate and for 3 hours I listened to announcements that flight after flight had been delayed or cancelled. Nothing to do but hope. I finally got boarded (on time!), sat down and began to sweat. Because of the earlier storm humidity was really high and the temperature outside had hit around 90 degrees. I heard someone tell the flight attendant that the A/C wasn’t working, and instead of speaking up and saying that its because we’re sitting on hot asphalt on a hot day the A/C can’t keep up but would work fine once we’re in the air. I should have said that. I didn’t. Instead I sat there in a pool of my own sweat with 200 other people doing the same for an hour while the maintenance guy checked over the system. Finally he said “its because you’re sitting on hot asphalt on a hot day the A/C can’t keep up but would work fine once you’re in the air”. Yeah, what I should have said. Now we’re delayed an extra hour coming into Toronto, and I have to go wait for my luggage and then go through customs. So I’m waiting for my suitcase. And waiting. Finally the carrousel stops spitting out bags, then shuts down altogether. I’m still waiting. I’m directed to go through customs without it, answering multiple time the question “Sir, where is your luggage?”. I tell the customs guy my flight is leaving in 10 minutes, and he says “you’ll miss it”. Super. But then he says “Air Canada has a flight between Toronto and Montreal every hour, so don’t worry”. This, and the nice people at the Capital One lounge who gave me snacks and water while I waited on my final flight were the only positives that day. My suitcase finally showed up five days into my seven day trip.
It should be illegal to do anything before about 11 am. Maybe noon.
Not exactly my “worst” experience, instead what I would call a near-miss on what could have been a “worst” experience:
Just this past Friday, flew home from Detroit, but first I have to drive 4 hours down from the tip of the mitten. Before I even start my drive, I get a notification that my flight is delayed 20 minutes. My layover in Charlotte is short, and this delay means that I’ll get to my gate with 15 minutes before boarding. Tight, but not terrible, since I only have to go from Terminal B to C. Well, naturally, the plane isn’t just 20 minutes late, so I know before boarding that I won’t be making my flight home, and it was the last one of the day, so overnight layover it is. Thankfully, it was a mechanical issue/plane swap, so the airline has to give me a hotel voucher. Except... it happens on the one day I forgot my cardinal rule of air travel: always pack at least one change of clean clothes in your carry-on. So I know that I’ll need to get them to pull my checked bags. Next, when we finally land at Charlotte, we can’t pull up to our gate because a 777 is at the next gate over, and it’s wingspan is so big that it extends over into our gate’s parking area. So we have to wait for the 777 to leave. Thankfully, their jetway has already pulled back, so it *should* have been backing out quickly... at least, that’s what the pilot says over the intercom. But since I’m typing this out here, you know that’s not what happened. While we’re waiting for the 777 to back out, we get surrounded by other planes waiting for THEIR gates to be available, so now we have to wait for them to move. All in all, we’re parked on the tarmac for an hour before we get to our gate. Now I have to go and find a customer service desk to get my vouchers. Pro tip: if you need to see customer service and you are able to leave the secure area, the ticketing counter can do the same things as the customer service desk. And then it’s off to wait an hour for the baggage desk to get my stuff, because I got booked at a hotel without a laundry room.
Fast forward to the next morning... I take the 6 AM hotel shuttle to the airport, thinking that’ll be plenty of time to get checked in again, though on a Saturday morning in Spring Break season, who knows? Well imagine my surprise when the ticketing/bag drop line for my airline is LITERALLY from one end of the building to the other. Yeah, turns out there was a server problem, so no one could check bags, either at the counter or at the self check-in. So at this point, I’m wondering if I should have just put up with dirty clothes if it meant that I would be able to make my flight.
Now, here’s the absolutely crazy thing: after about half an hour of waiting they get the servers working, and they got the entire line of hundreds and hundreds of people checked in within 15 minutes.
I’ve been known to fly unshowered, and clean myself up upon arrival at my destination. It’s not ideal, but it works.
Glad my “worse” story isn’t so bad. Back in the late 80s, flying back from Europe to New York. I don’t remember if it was thunderstorms in New York or the remnants of a tropical storm but they divert us to Philadelphia. We sat on the ground in Philadelphia for six hours before they would let us leave for New York. Fortunately the flight was less than full so you could get up and stretch and the toilets didn’t overflow. But they wouldn’t let us deplane.
I had a similar situation, redirected from New York to Philadelphia, but at least they let us deplane for bathrooms and food. I can’t imagine being stuck in the plane that whole time.
Tech jobs in the 907 sometimes take you to remote villages way off the pizza delivery grid and flying around in bush planes can be less than excellent.
The worst flights involved an operation called Yute Air, who flew POS planes that looked to be pieced together from various other planes, not always the same color, much like a teenagers first car. The worst was flying from St Mary’s back to Bethel, with a place that had the headliner in tatters, and a huge hole in the dashboard with wires hanging out of it as if someone had stolen the stereo, or the navigation as none was present. As we flew over the tundra at 1000' feet or so, the pilot reached into his lunchbag, started eating his sandwich and between bites pointed out the various crash sites between the 2 towns. All I could think about was trying to do the Heinlich if the pilot choked on his lumch before we became anoter sooty pile on the GABA.
And then as if to make up for it, the gods of flight rewarded me with a trip from Bethel to Anchorage on a Lockheed Electra which the defunct RAA was still flying. Huge windows, comfortable tall seats with a leg stretching pitch, on a flight across the ice fields and glaciers stretched out below us, where one could see the rivers of ice and the currents and eddys of crevasses as the glacier encountered mountains and flowed around them, gently tinted with the late spring alpengow. That was the best flight I have ever had, and made up for wondering if I was going to get to Bethel in one piece.
Neither carrier still flys as far as I know. RAA couldn’t afford to keep their ancient yet gracious fleet in the air and Yute had trouble keeping their Tiajuna Taxis in the air period.
I know all the area codes, actually. That’s a true thing.
Not that bad, really, but deeply annoying: I was in Chicago for a weekend music festival and had first class tickets (both birthday treats for myself, courtesy of my very generous wife). My flight back to Dallas Monday wasn’t scheduled to get in until around 5 pm, but my wife called me and asked if I could switch to an earlier flight to get the kids as she had some heavy work stuff come in. Sure, no problem. By the time we had this conversation, the only possible flight I could get to was the one directly before mine, which I think would’ve gotten me in just before 3, which would work for whatever it was that was going on (sports, band, don’t remember). AA switched my flight, but I had to give up my first class seat for a middle seat in coach. Again, no big deal. Scheduled takeoff time came and went, and after about half an hour they announced that the delay was due to an equipment switch: the plane we were on had originally been scheduled to go to Seoul, so it had too much fuel onboard and we were waiting for the ORD ground crew to take off full. More time passed and the crew finally showed up. More time passed. Turns out the crew had only taken fuel out of one tank, so now the plane was unbalanced and we had to wait for them to come back and balance the tanks. By the time the ground crew finally got back, my original flight had already taken off. So, I traded my first class seat for a middle coach seat just to arrive home 45 minutes later than I originally would have due to tag team screw ups by American and the ORD ground crew.
It’s like an inverse Monty Hall situation, you never benefit by changing.
I’ve actually been lucky with my air travel, but there have been exceptions:
Second time ever flying, and I decide to fly to Boston with my then-girlfriend via People’s Express (“Let’s go t o Boston” she said, “It’ll be fun” she said...)
450+ people crammed into an old 747 sitting on the tarmac in EWR for 90 minutes waiting for.... something, we were never told what exactly. The noise level was so bad, I couldn’t even carry on a conversation with my GF sitting right next to me. And, of course, the batteries in my knock-off Walkman decided to go flat, so I had no choice except to listen to the cacophony of conversations going on around me.
Once we took off, the flight was routine, but between the cramped seating, the overwhelming noise level and the STENCH of 450 bodies crammed into a metal tube, it was almost 10 years before I took another flight.
To this day, I still prefer to drive if I can make it from Point A to Point B in under 12 hours.
The only other time I had a bad flight was a Delta flight from Paris CDG to Atlanta. I was seated across the aisle from a woman that prayed the Rosary almost continuously from the time we left the gate until we landed - in a language other than English (it sounded Greek-ish to me.) It was very nerve-wracking, especially after the second or third hour.
Just take an Amtrak. Having done both, I much prefer the train for a trip that short.
The one time I flew frontier, nothing bad happened but it’s frontier.
I’m so sorry.