It was a thirteen and a half hour flight from LAX to Brisbane. The 747 was pretty full, and I was seated in the middle. The flight was fairly uneventful until I decided to get some rest after the meal service. I reclined my seat, as any passenger would be entitled to do, and was shocked to find my seat promptly returned to its original upright position by the guy behind me. Without a word being said. I tried to recline a second time, and the same thing happened. And a third.
I am not the confrontational sort and the last thing I wanted was to create a scene (especially when the lights were off and other passengers were already sleeping). So I reclined my seat again and propped my foot against the metal anchor in front so that I could not be pushed forward again. This I had to do for the rest of the flight because every time I tried to recline my seat without doing so, the same thing would happen. And without a word. I would have been happy to accommodate the fellow behind had he been courteous enough to ask, but since he chose to be rude and simply push back on my seat each time, I didn’t feel the need to. And, of course, he made sure that I could feel every knee bump and jerk behind me.
Tagged as:
seats
In the summer of ‘96 on a trip from BOS to CHI, our flight had been canceled a few hours before scheduled take-off due to supposed mechanical problems. I later learned that AA often canceled this particular flight to condense passengers into other planes when their seats weren’t very full, and “mechanical issues” bought them an easy out with customers.
In the re-booking process, my assigned aisle seat turned into a middle-seat, and the originally scheduled noon departure became a late evening take-off. Being one of the first to board the plane and pretty tired, I tried sleeping during the remainder of the boarding process until being disturbed by someone lifting up the armrest between my seat and the empty aisle seat next to me. Despite the armrest having already been moved, I heard what sounded like, “mind if I move this?” Still a little groggy, it took a moment for me to register that the man who lifted the armrest did so because his ginormous frame wouldn’t otherwise fit into just one seat. As this behemoth began to wedge himself between the rows, my natural instinct was to immediately slide over and make room. I was now occupying no more than 2/3rds my own seat and even less of the air-space above it as my upper body shifted into the lap of the individual in the window seat next to me. This apparently wasn’t enough. As his body slammed into the seat, his exposed massive arm collapsed down onto my shoulder and immediately drenched the entire left side of my body from the jet-like water oozing from his skin as he perspired. My tired and cranky demeanor was now augmented by a cramped, sweaty and stinky environment.
As a flight attendant walked by, I grabbed her attention and knowing full well there was no easy way to have a private conversation about the problem, I simply blurted out that I needed a new seat immediately. She looked at me and said, “I really understand, but we have a completely full flight.” I spent the next 3 hours in one of the most uncomfortable positions I’ve ever experience
I have since logged hundreds of thousands of miles in air travel and never had an experience anywhere near this bad. The only tiny bit of satisfaction comes from the fact that American Airlines has never received any of my travel business during the last 13 years as a result.
Tagged as:
american airlines,
delay & cancellation,
flight attendant,
odor,
portly,
seats
I was on an overnight flight from Newark, USA to Copenhagen, Denmark. The flight left around 5 PM US time, and was expected to land around 7 AM Danish time. We flew SAS, and were served dinner and complimentary cocktails. Well, the 2 young gentlemen somewhere behind me took quite an advantage of the cocktails, and when they were not served anymore, they proceeded to pull out flasks of their own and continued drinking!
After about 5 hours on the flight, most people were trying to sleep to gain as much as they could from the 6 hours they were going to lose. The 2 college boys wanted no sleep; they stayed drunk and rowdy the entire flight, swearing loudly with no respect for those around them. I was absolutely mortified. A few times a man tried to say something to them, and they just swore him off. The flight attendants did not want to cause more drama with these ignorant boys, so they were very calm and rational with them. I got maybe 20 minutes of sleep the whole flight.
Honestly, would it have killed these boys to have some piece of respect for the rest of the flight? They are what we call your “‘typical college boys.” And that’s what they were – boys! One day I hope they grow up and get on a flight with young drunk men. Maybe then they will know how it feels!
Tagged as:
alcohol,
flight attendant
Dude… literally… have you seen the way Jaba the Hut sort of lays down sideways in the Star Wars movie? My last flight from Seattle to Frankfurt had me sitting right next to him. Not only was he huge, he also had the urge to use his wife as a pillow and sort of stretch himself all out at an angle. This left me a bit more shoulder room, but the leg room was cut in half, which he didn’t mind since he was obviously the type who doesn’t mind constant touching and leg-contact with strangers. He also wore a sort of camping/photographer’s vest with huge pockets full of crap that could not possibly fit in the seat with him and so ended up spilling over the seat onto my lap.
Once again, and as usual, I had to eat with my refined praying mantis technique of elbows tucked together and only forearms moving. I always get the sort of tunnel-eating involving large people to my sides with the seat in front of me leaned back, which leaves only a narrow tunnel of possible food travel from plate to mouth.
Thanks… it was nice to vent.
Gary E
Tagged as:
portly
Reclining Seat Rules
March 26, 2010 Flying Hell CommentaryWhile I don’t like it when they person in front of me reclines their seat, there is not much I can do about it. Some will argue that since the seat reclines, they have a right to use that function. Some will argue that they paid to have enough room to survive a flight, and [...]