I flew back home to Germany from Lahore, Pakistan via Qatar with Qatar Airways as my husband comes from there and I was visiting his family. As I hadn’t thought about reserving a seat, I got the absolutely worst seat between two other people in the middle row!
On my right was an older woman who was obviously accompanied with her adult son. She was sitting dressed in her traditional stuff and her hand and nails were covered with henna color. During the flight the poor foolish woman prayed and murmured hysterically; it seemed to be her first time in an airplane. On my left was a black guy who was sitting steadily scratching his crotch. It was absolutely disgusting and I did hope that the pubic louses or whatever he seemed to have wouldn’t wander over to me.
So there I sat and suffered, staring at the brown-red and scruffy nails of the woman while she howled her mad prayers into my ear. She had her head turned towards me the whole time as she obsessivly stared to the window on the other side of the aisle. At the same time the guy scratched and scratched his genitals.
I don’t have any idea how I survived this nightmare. Awful!
Tagged as:
qatar airways
I was returning from the Bahamas to Washington, DC and decided at the last minute to upgrade to first class for $150. As I made my way on the plane I noticed a woman sitting in my seat. I asked her to check her ticket as I was pretty sure she was supposed to be sitting on the aisle side. She did and apologized and grabbed her belongings and moved over. No harm, no foul.
As I got comfortable and set my own items on the floor, I got a good whiff of booze. I was surprised because it was early noon but figured she wasn’t done with her vacation. Or maybe I’m not used to a young, attractive, well-dressed woman reeking of alcohol like a street bum.
We ended up chatting during most of the flight and she invited me to stay in her villa “should I ever find myself back in the Bahamas.” Around this time the captain announced that we were making our descent to DCA. The woman reached into her purse and declared she was missing her ticket to connect to Los Angeles. She asked if I had her ticket. I said of course not, why would I have your ticket? I reached into my purse to show her when all of a sudden I spotted her ticket to Los Angeles.
She looked at me, horrified, and started crying. “Why do you have my ticket?” she said. Seriously, I had no answer because I was just as perplexed. Why was her ticket in my purse?
“I hope this isn’t your passport, too,” I joked as I flipped it open. Much to my dismay, it was! The look on her face changed from horrified to accusatory. Finally, after another crying spell, she said, “I am such a forgiving person. I’m so forgiving, and I forgive you.”
To this day I still have no idea why her belongings were in my purse. I guess that offer to stay in her villa is no longer valid.
Tagged as:
alcohol,
passport
I was flying from NYC to Phoenix, Arizona on American Airlines. My seatmate was a father; his wife and two daughters, who were about six years old, were seated in the seats behind us. The flight was uneventful, but to the left of the wife and the daughters was this really desperate woman. We took a while before we could pull into the gate, and this woman kept screaming that she was going to miss her connecting flight and ordered the FA to let her off the plane. She repeatedly got up (since we were taxing, we had to remain seated) to which the FA (rightfully, I think) told her to suck it up because she had almost an hour to catch her flight, and other passengers had even less time.
Anyway, she kept muttering about horrible service and complaining to a manager. Finally, we stopped at the gate and the woman was the first to stand up and grab a big bag from the overhead bin. It looked heavy, and it had those metal sheets on the bottom for the little wheels. Then, she practically slammed the bag down on the seat behind me where one of my seatmate’s daughters had been sitting not three seconds before. The dad got really mad, and kept asking her to apologize, but the woman kept saying that it was her right to put the bag wherever she wanted and that she didn’t care what happened to the little girl.
After threatening to walk so slowly that the desperate woman would miss her plane, the family disembarked behind me (blocking the mad woman — I helped a little with that). Personally, I think they were right – had the girl been in her place, she could have gotten seriously hurt.
Tagged as:
american airlines,
baggage,
overhead bin
OK I’m from Germany and had just finished school. At that time in our town was the annual Town Festival from Thursday to Monday (Monday night is the last band playing). I asked a friend on Wednesday if he would come along to Mallorca on Tuesday. He said yes and we went to book the trip.
Tuesday came and we were not walking - we were crawling – out of the tent where the party was. Our parents were so nice to bring our luggage directly to the train station where we had to go. We had about an hour and a half to get to the airport.
When we got to the airport we were told that the boarding had already started and we should speed it up or the plane would leave without us. So we sprinted those 200km (at least it felt like it) to the gate only to find out we had half an hour to go.
We finally got into the plane and I sat beside a couple. She was clearly the luxury kind of woman… big hat and expensive clothes. I have to say this was a low budget flight. My friend was sitting right next to two pretty girls and had fun the whole 2h flight…
I tried to not puke the whole flight, and as this was my second time flying I had some trouble not doing so. Something to eat came and it took me two bites to get it into my stomach… not because it was so small, but because I was so hungry. A few minutes later I felt that that was not a good idea, and to make things worse the FA came to sell some perfume. I think that the lady next to me could not stand my bad alcohol breath anymore, as she “accidentally” sprayed a whole load of perfume into my face. I think I went from white to transparent because the FA ripped open a bag in front of me. But I didn’t puke. I was so glad about that.
Having learned a lesson from all of that, I didn’t drink alcohol the evening before the return flight. Funny thing is, this time I was sitting beside the pretty girls and my friend was sitting next to the lady.
I can only say NEVER drink too much before traveling. It is not good; I learned my lesson and will never do that again.
This was a horror flight which could have been avoided by me. I thought I’d tell this story because in most of the other stories on the site someone else was the reason for the flight from hell.
Tagged as:
alcohol,
odor,
vomit
