Flights From Hell flies you into the crazy skies with stories about the adventures and anxieties of airplane travel.

Commercial airline travel takes us far, far out of our comfort zone. We're herded into cylinders that zip hundreds of miles per hour at 30,000 feet, subjected to security screenings, confronted with delays and lost luggage, rushed to catch connecting flights, constrained to small seats, scrunched up with strangers, and surrounded by pathogens. Is it any wonder we end up becoming a bundle of raw nerves by journey's end?

Treated As Less Than Cargo

December 17, 2007 Delay/Cancellation Stories

Earlier this year, we flew from Newark to Beijing on United Airlines. Since there is no direct flight, we had to make a connection in Dulles. The aircraft came in late in Newark, and we sat on the runway in Newark waiting for the 26 planes ahead of us to take off. By the time […]

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Trials And Tribulations In Spain

December 17, 2007 Delay/Cancellation Stories

When I tell my tale of woe about trying to get home to USA from Madrid, Spain Nov 15th this fall, friends say “write a complaint letter to US Air.” And I think, “Why should I expect an exec at a dysfunctional airline to care about customer satisfaction?” If they cared, my day of hell […]

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Heathrow Heart Ache

December 17, 2007 Delay/Cancellation Stories

Here is my flight from hell. Leaving Paris to London; BA plane was late and we only originally had 1.5 hours between flight from London to NY. So now we only have about 30 minutes to make the connection in London. Get off the plane after having been through 2 security checks in Paris and […]

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Student Tops Profs

December 16, 2007 Delay/Cancellation Stories

Arriving back in the U.S. on a trans-Atlantic flight, I arrived in Chicago just in time to get stricken from the list of passengers for the flight I’d booked. It was too late–my seat got given away while I stood there protesting. Security rules prevented my being put back on the list. In sympathy, the […]

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Parade Of Delays

December 16, 2007 Delay/Cancellation Stories

My husband and I were at Dulles, set to leave for London for a big, and expensive, Christmas break. Our flight was delayed for hours but no staff member bothered to mention it, or explain it, so the hundreds of passengers sat around looking confused. Finally, police showed up and the plane, which was sitting […]

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Long Day Is No Child’s Play

December 16, 2007 Delay/Cancellation Stories

I was traveling home from Madrid to Houston this summer with my children, ages 9 and 7. We woke up at 6 a.m. in Madrid. Once at the airport, we realized that airlines weren’t labeled on the outside of the terminal, and we had to wander up and down the terminal to find ours (no […]

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Feelin’ The Love

December 16, 2007 Delay/Cancellation Stories

Wound up on United today, although I usually don’t fly them… The flight was supposed to leave @ 0630… We boarded the plane, then were advised after about an hour that there was a problem with the “trim leveler thing, which is needed for the autopilot…” Disembarking, we were told to return to the ticket […]

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Tornado On The Runway

December 13, 2007 Weather Stories

As a freshman in college a few years ago, I became extremely homesick within the first two days. I wanted to go home, but my mom promised me that if I stayed a while to give it a chance, she would visit me the following month. We booked flights for her that night. So mid-September […]

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Crying And Wailing In Texas

December 13, 2007 Weather Stories

My wife, 10 month old daughter and I boarded a flight that was to take us from Seattle non stop to Dallas in the fall. The approximately 2 1/2 – 3 hour flight left the ground at about 2 pm and we were on our way without any problems. Just before we got to Dallas […]

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Double Whammy

December 12, 2007 Weather Stories

My Hell Story has nothing to go with waiting in line or screaming babies. Actually, my Hell Story is a 2-part story of near death experiences – on my arrival AND return flights. The first flight was a very short flight on a 747 from NYC to Boston. It was a 10pm flight and they […]

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White Knuckled Flight

December 12, 2007 Weather Stories

I was “lucky” enough to be on a NWA flight from Mpls, MN, that took off for Sioux Falls, SD, in spite of the fact that the flight had been delayed due to storms and despite the fact that there were some 57 tornados in and around Sioux Falls that night! As we were coming […]

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No APU Becomes A Big SNAFU

December 12, 2007 Airplane Stories

On November 27, 2007, I was on Delta flight 1760 from Salt Lake to Orange County. The flight was boarding, and despite it being below freezing outside, the cabin temperature was in the high 80s. After sweating for several minutes following the scheduled departure, the captain came on and said the auxiliary power unit (or […]

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