This story relates to a flight from Bangkok to Auckland on 16th November 2009. As a Gold Card holder, I always get excellent treatment from Thai Airways and they had already allocated me a seat in row 31, as I had requested. The flight was not overly full, so at the final pre-board area I asked if there was a row of 3 seats available as I suffer from diabetes and cholesterol problems and I am always aware of the danger of DVT for people like me, so the ability to lie down is a real bonus. They happily gave me 3 seats together in row 54 and even wrote the 3 seat numbers on my boarding pass.
In front of me (row 53) was a Maori man and his wife, who had 3 seats to themselves. I settled down right after takeoff and manged to get 5 hours sleep before waking up and going to the bathroom. When I came back, the Maori man was sitting in one of my 3 seats. I assumed he had done so by mistake and politely told him that he appeared to be sitting in my seat. He then launched into a tirade of abuse, demanding to know why I should have 3 seats and had I paid for 3 seats, telling me that I was being childish and just used to getting my own way! I went and got a flight attendant and she told him to return to his own seat. He refused and just kept up the abuse. She got another attendant, who also asked him to go to his own seat. He still refused and the Flight Director was called. His request to go back to his own seat was also rejected and he just kept raving.
By now, half the passengers in this part of the plane were turned around in their seats, watching the spectacle (NZ readers will be familiar with the tactic of Maori separatist radicals of occupying land in order to demand their “rights”). I was then taken back to a row 31 seat, although another passenger had been relocated in order to allow me to sit there. Full thanks to Thai Airways, but what a disgrace to NZ this guy was. I bet if this happened in USA, he would have been arrested on arrival at Auckland.
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Filth Worse Than That At A North Dakota Truck Stop Outhouse
April 9, 2009
in Flying Hell Commentary
I’m so happy to find this wonderful website, Flights From Hell, stories and commentary by people who matter the least to the airline industry, the passengers.
I fly to Asia on a regular basis and am still mourning the loss of Thai airways direct flight to Bangkok from New York’s JFK. It’s amazing to note Thai airways, with mostly full airplanes on every flight from NY to BKK, lost 100,000 to 300,000 dollars per flight, ultimately forcing the route’s cancelation, driving international fliers to search for alternate airline flights to Thailand, almost all of them require traveling through Tokyo. The Thai airways flight took 17 hours and 5 minutes, the best you can now obtain is about 21 hours and much more flying time on many flights, as much as 30 to 41 hours in the air and waiting for connections.
Long flights could be made so much better if the airlines would clean the airplanes. My latest flight on Northwest Airlines from Providence, Rhode Island to Bangkok, Thailand, approximately 25 hours, was made all the more unbearable by the absolutely filthy condition of the interior of the aircraft, stains on every surface, floors, carpets, seats, seat backs, video screens, walls, windows and ceilings, all of them smeared with dirt and every other imaginable unpleasant, dirty, disease bearing substance one might find in a Paris sewer pipe or waste treatment facility.
To make it worse, Northwest Airlines allows passengers to bring live dogs in small cages directly onto the airplane. I noticed a man with a dog on a leash in the passenger waiting area, prior to boarding, asking him how he was allowed to bring a dog to the boarding area to say goodbye to a departing passenger. That is when he informed me that he was a passenger and the dog was boarding the flight, too and would sit inside a nylon mesh dog carrier. I then asked the obvious question, my mind racing, where would the dog be ‘walked’ during the flight? Where would the dog urinate? Where would the dog….well, where would the dog, well, where would it….?
The owner of this little rug rat specimen, I think it was a shiatsu, said, “Right in the box and I’ll wipe it up with these sponges”, proudly displaying a fanny pack with absorbent pads of some sort. I just couldn’t believe it, immediately my mind started racing, where would I be sitting, would it be next to this man and dog? Fortunately, no, I was about 10 rows away, but that didn’t stop the stench emanating from this man’s seat row, approximately every 90 minutes, the dog did something even more unpleasant.
What in the world is going on here? Dogs on airplanes, sitting next to me, urinating and defecating next to me or some other unfortunate traveler, paying skyrocketing prices for almost no service anymore and we’re to endure this, too?
I don’t want to end this story without a comment about the restrooms on my Northwest flight to Asia, worse than truck stop outhouse in North Dakota, absolutely and disgustingly dirty, no soap, no paper towels, no nothing, barely any water flows from the sink taps, impossible to wash your hands and even if you succeed in washing your hands, you then must use your hand to open the door, you must touch a surface of some sort and your contaminated again, because the planes, every square inch of the interior are dirty, disgustingly dirty.
These types of conditions ruin every trip before it starts, anyone flying regularly knows what to expect when they book their flight and it’s a constant irritant, growing stronger as flight time draws near, I just can’t look forward to any aspect of flying other than getting off the plane at my destination.
Damn you, Northwest Airlines!
Michael Gray
37 Glen Road
Westport, MA
Tagged as: animals, dog, filth, lavatory, northwest airlines, odor, pee, poop, thai airways
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