A year or so ago as my family was taking our annual Hawaii trip, we ran into a fellow who was very very unfriendly. As we boarded the plane in Phoenix Sky Harbor, I thought it would be a relatively tame flight. I was wrong…
Now my Dad is a good guy, but as far as personal space, he has absolutely no concept of what it means. So we were probably an hour or so into the flight, and my Dad grabs his briefcase from the compartments on top but accidentally hits an unsuspecting a-hole on the head.
My Dad said nothing, and was completely unaware that he had hit anyone, and this made the guy even more pissed off. He literally got out of his seat in the aisle and was shaking his fists at my Dad. He kept saying things like, “When this plane lands I’m gonna F you up etc.” My Dad was trying to apologize, although I think he still didn’t know what happened. Anyway, the guy even called a flight attendant and asked if she would reseat MY DAD! I couldn’t believe the nerve of this guy. He didn’t ask for a new seat for himself, but for my Dad. Eventually the flight attendant explained what happens when you fight on a plane and the guy shut up. The jerk sat there and watched “Over the Hedge” and ate his peanuts and stayed quiet.
Of course, there was no fight on the ground which was nice. The funny thing is, on the way home from Hawaii a week later, guess who I got to sit next to? Yeah, that guy. Surprisingly, the fellow had no idea who I was, or even that my Dad was 2 seats away from him. He started talking about college (I was in college) and blah blah blah. Normal stuff that any overly-conversational person would talk about. Then he said, “you wouldn’t believe this one guy I almost fought on the way over.” He started telling me about how my Dad was such a wuss and didn’t try to fight. I just sat there trying not to laugh and waiting for the right moment to put my iPod in my ears – which eventually happened.
I have met my fair share of a-holes, but that guy definitely takes the cake.
- River from Phoenix
Tagged as:
flight attendant,
injury,
overhead bin,
violence
Last summer, my sister and I were part of a larger group of people who were heading to Egypt to do some missions work for a month. The first part of our trip was an 11 hour flight from LAX to Heathrow. Since the group didn’t book tickets together, we had picked two seats, one next to the window and the other directly next to it. When we arrived at our seats we realized two things: 1. the bathroom was behind us so we couldn’t recline and 2. that someone was sitting in one of our seats. There was a family of four, two teenage boys, the mom and the dad. The mom and the two boys were sitting in three seats in front of us and the dad decided to sit in our window seat. When we asked him to move, he politely did so and we took our seats, with the mother coming to sit next to us on the aisle seat instead.
As soon as we reached cruising altitude, the father and the two boys in front of us reclined their seats ALL the way back, leaving me, my sister and even their mom in an extremely small space since we couldn’t recline. They kept their seats back for the entire 11 hour flight including when it came time for the meals which was extremely annoying! Every time we had to go to the bathroom or needed to get up to stretch our legs, we would all have to get up and and lean awkwardly to try to pass their seats so as to give them a taste of how uncomfortable we were. Every time we would try to get out we would use the top of their seats to lean on which would end up bringing them further back and then whiplashing them up. They more than deserved it.
Moral of the story: NEVER lean your chair into full recline when in coach or when you KNOW the person behind you doesn’t have much room. Don’t expect that they won’t retaliate either. I’ve flown dozens of times and that is my BIGGEST pet peeve while flying.
Tagged as:
seats
A while back, my wife (then my girlfriend) and I were in Paris on vacation. We had a wonderful time (even managed to get “bumped” to 1st class on the flight over the pond from MSP 10 days earlier). Well, we reported to CDG in plenty of time for our return flight to Detroit (MSP doesn’t really have customs for incoming foreign flights). We checked-in, and all was well. When it came time for the flight (on NWA), however, that’s when all hell broke loose.
The boarding time came and went, and there was no information. After an hour, someone finally came out to tell us that French authorities weren’t releasing our flight because they didn’t think there were enough life vests on board. Huh? Someone actually counted life vests under the seats on a plane that landed there less than 12 hours earlier? Okay. Well, the “counting” on the life vests took over 4 hours. Eventually, we were allowed on the plane, and numerous seats were taped over to indicate that no one could sit there. Luckily, the plane was nearly empty, and I had an entire row of seats to lie across to sleep on during the flight. It got worse, however.
Somewhere over the Atlantic, a Frenchman decided that it would be a good idea to go into the lav and light up a smoke. That, of course, set off the smoke detector. When the FA’s arrived at the door to investigate, he threw his lit cigarette into the trash, which then proceeded to catch on fire. The fire lasted a couple of minutes before it was fully put out, but the lav was trashed, and the entire plane reeked of smoke. Mr. Frenchman was zip-cuffed (the plastic band-looking things) and then tied to a seat. Luckily, we weren’t diverted since everything was still flyable.
Upon landing in Detroit, Mr. Frenchman was literally lifted off the seat and carried away. We were then allowed to deplane, now 5 hours behind schedule. On the jet way, I immediately noticed a Border Patrol agent with a dog (drug-sniffing, obviously). Now, understand that many of the passengers were (a) tired, (b) non-English speaking, and (c) merely curious. A young man (pre-teens) tried to simply pet the dog, and the BP guy starts SCREAMING, “DON’T TOUCH THE DOG… KEEP MOVING… DON’T TOUCH THE DOG… KEEP MOVING!” On and on. You’d have thought he was Rain Man caught in a feedback loop or something.
Anyone flying in to DTW a few years back will recall that the “foreign flight” terminal was physically separated from the domestic terminal, and you have to take a bus (in the rain that day!) over to the other terminal after clearing customs and collecting your luggage. Anyway, once we arrived in the domestic terminal, we went to the NWA counters to rebook our flight to MSP since, obviously, our original flight left long ago.
Upon getting to the front of the line, I (very politely) explained our situation to the chimp (I mean, customer service representative) at the counter. She pumps out a couple of tickets and hands them to me like fecal matter being thrown at the zoo. It just so happened that directly over the counter were the departure monitors. I looked up and saw, clear as a bell, that the very flight she just put us on was labelled as cancelled. I stopped and told her (again, very politely) that she just booked me on a cancelled flight. She started screaming at me that I was being impossible, that she was getting her supervisor, and she turned on her heels and walked away! A minute later, another chimp (I mean, supervisor) showed up and berated me for yelling at her subordinate. I ramped it up and told her that I had done no such thing, that little-miss-can’t-read-a-computer-monitor had deliberately booked us on a cancelled flight (how on earth would the computer even allow that?), and that all I wanted were 2 seats on a flight to MSP. Folded-hands-across-her-chest supervisor stared at me for a few seconds then started pounding the keyboard. She handed me 2 new passes for a later flight, and I left.
Luckily, that later flight got off without a hitch, but we had to wait at DTW (a real dump) for several hours before finally getting back to MSP late that evening.
Tagged as:
delay,
dogs,
lavatory,
northwest airlines,
police,
tobacco
On a flight a gentleman sat behind me. After being seated he took his sneakers off and wedged one of his feet in-between the seat in front of him (which was mine), and under my arm rest. The smell was enough to make me puke. I turned around and asked him to remove his foot, he said no, that he paid for his seat and needed to stretch out. I said please again, he said no, live with it. I told him the stink from his foot was making me sick, at which time he shoved his foot further between the seats causing the arm rest to raise. I told him if you don’t move your foot you would be sorry. He told me to pound sand. At that time I smashed the arm rest down on his foot. He screamed bloody murder, which caused the flight attendant to come back and ask what was wrong. He start spouting off it was my fault, then I gave my side of the story and the lady next to me said the same thing. The flight attendant told the man to remove his foot and put his shoes back on, or he would be escorted off the airplane. He was pissed. As he left the airplane the gave me and the lady a dirty stare.
Tagged as:
flight attendant,
odor,
seats,
violence
