Flights From Hell flies you into the crazy skies with stories about the adventures and anxieties of airline 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?

Plane Hits A Flock Of Birds

March 6, 2010 Airplane Stories

This past Sunday provided an up close and personal assessment of the airline industry, an industry that has seen considerable changes culminating with many major airlines going through bankruptcy.
My wife Terri and I boarded Northwest Indianapolis bound flight leaving Bradley International Airport Hartford, Connecticut. It should be noted that Northwest Airlines is suffering through a [...]

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Almost In The Mile High Club

March 5, 2010 Couples Stories

As a businessman, I constantly travel in and outside the continental U.S. For various reasons I have experienced nothing out of the ordinary for the past 10 years. All that was about to change, though.
Last week I boarded a flight from Houston to LAX and took my seat in the first class section (not bragging [...]

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Dreadful Odor

March 5, 2010 Odor Stories

A few years ago, flying from AVL (Asheville, N.C.) to BOS, my cousin and I were waiting to get on the puddle-jump from AVL-CLT stand-by. When a party of seven didn’t show for the flight, we were ushered on to the plane and told to “take the first seats we could find” as we would [...]

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Stinky Shoes

March 4, 2010 Odor Stories

It’s sad. Because of unexpected traffic delays, I ran like mad to meet my international flight and made it just as they were about to close the doors. As it turned out, seated next to me on the aisle was a soccer player. When he sat back down after getting up to let me into [...]

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Flight Rerouted To Hole-In-The-Wall Airport

March 4, 2010 Delay Stories

Worst flying case was my 14-hour flight from Tampa, FL to New York. I could have used Southwest Airlines, which would have offered me a direct flight to Long Island. But NO, my company wanted me to save money, so I had to take a US Air flight, with a stop over in Atlanta. Tampa [...]

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Hefty & Hirsute

March 3, 2010 Portly Stories

My story is relatively tame, or appears to be so until you put yourself in my shoes. I was on a transatlantic flight from the Middle East to the USA with a layover in Germany.
Right after I boarded in the Middle East, some guy weighing at least 300lbs and the hairiest guy I have ever [...]

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Disabled But Charged To Sit Up Front

March 3, 2010 Odds & Ends Stories

I don’t have any long horror story about my fellow passengers, just about the airline itself. Recently when I checked into my United flight, I found that we had been assigned seats in the very last row. As I am in a wheelchair, I called the airline to request something a little closer to the [...]

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Violin Is Verboten On Flight

March 2, 2010 Luggage Stories

I can’t even tell you how excited I was to be heading to this particular music camp. Not only was it out of state (a big venture for someone who had been in Florida her entire life), but it was a very renowned program that would give me a ton of experience.
Seeing that it was [...]

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Big Mess Left In Searched Bag

March 2, 2010 Luggage Stories

Summer 2007, I flew SWA from St. Louis to Oklahoma City to attend my sister-in-law’s baby shower. The flights themselves were no problem at all.
However, when I got home and opened my bag to unpack, someone had dumped out EVERYTHING in my bag and just stuffed it all back in willy-nilly. Even my makeup and [...]

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No Shame

March 1, 2010 Passenger Stories

[Mature content]
My family was taking a flight from San Francisco to Bangkok. Flying in business class, we got nice treatment all the way from the attendants.
The flight was made terrible by a group of Asian men. The got as drunk as they could, belching and laughing while around them others tried to sleep. They were [...]

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