I had a flight booked on Continental from Burlington, Vt to Las Vegas on July 27 for a conference starting July 28. My flight was scheduled to leave at 1:15 on July 27. At 11am I tried to print out a boarding pass online and could not. I checked the flight status and found the […]
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I was flying from Germany to Kenia with British Airways. The first annoyance was the arrangement of the seats: I had to sit straight up all the time because the seat rows were so tight that my knees bumped against the seat in front of mine, and I am a quite small woman. I don’t […]
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Wednesday night my son, my husband, and I returned to Boston on the red-eye from California. Due to their current booking policies, the airline we flew on would not book all three seats together. The new policy is such that if you want to sit with someone in particular you need to pay an extra […]
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The smell of death. A battlefield? A morgue? No. I smelled this awful aroma on a Southwest airplane. Sometime circa the summer of 2000, three friends and I were returning to San Jose from LAX. Everything started off normally. We arrived, checked in, and patiently waited an hour to board our flight. This is where […]
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This flight from hell took place in the fall of 2009. My wife and I had a 6am flight from Columbia, MO to Detroit, MI via Memphis, TN. First, I must say that my wife and I are both frequent fliers, and we are used to flying on all types of airplanes, including small turboprops. […]
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A couple of weeks back I flew with American Airlines for the first time. And for the last time, too. I travelled together with my friend from Frankfurt to Philadelphia. Unfortunately, we were seated between two other passengers in the two middle seats in a row of four. When we took off I realized that […]
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The August before last I flew Air Canada from Toronto to Tokyo for work. I fly intercontinental quite often so I’m used to delays and minor problems but this trip was something else entirely. Things started out bad from the start. While waiting to board I noticed that my designated boarding time came and went […]
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My dad and I flew from Denver to Farmington, NM on what can only be described as a crop duster back in 2007. When we got to the gate in Denver, which was our connection airport, the gate had been changed on us, twice. Once we finally got to the plane they told us we […]
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Back in 2005 I had to take an emergency flight back home to California when my father died. I know that last minute bookings get a special code for extra screening. I had my purse and my laptop with me, and in the laptop bag I shoved my CD player and a couple of books. […]
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The year was 1987 and I was flying from Lynchburg, VA to LaGuardia. I was flying on Piedmont Airlines and the flight from Lynchburg was on a Dash 8 to Baltimore with a quick stop in Charlottesville, VA. In Charlottesville a family of three (Dad, Mom, 11 year old son) boarded the plane. I was […]
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Airplane travel, at one time adventurous, has now, more often than not, become an adventure. Fifty years ago, well dressed passengers in propeller driven planes flew close enough to the ground to enjoy a panoramic view “of purple mountains’ majesty above the fruited plains.” The earth below was close enough that, through the airplane’s window, […]
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You blame the parents and kids but sometimes the airlines bring it down on everyone. Our family of four was heading to Disney, including a seven year old boy in an full arm cast and a three year old daughter. The airlines gave us 4 different seats all over the plane, despite our attempts to […]
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