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?

Traveler Enjoys Turbulence

October 19, 2010 Weather Stories

I probably made someone’s white knuckle flight — just a little bit worse. For business, I flew from Phoenix to Denver, then hopped on an 18-seater propeller airplane to get from Denver to Dodge City, KS. If you’ve never flown on a propeller airplane, there’s something you have to realize. “Air Turbulence” is caused by […]

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FA Overheard Discussing Problems with Plane

October 18, 2010 Airplane Stories

This May while seated in the aircraft waiting to take off from McCarran airport in Las Vegas to Honolulu, I noticed one of the mechanics kept coming in and out of the cockpit. After a while we took off. About 2 hours somewhere over the Pacific, the flight attendants were serving drinks and I heard one […]

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Three Days and Hundreds Spent to Get Home

October 17, 2010 Delay/Cancellation Stories

I thought my trip to Dominican Republic from Detroit on American Airlines was bad due to delays that ended up getting us there 10 hours later than scheduled. However, that proved to be good since it took me 3 days and hundreds of dollars more to get home. We start with the return leg from […]

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Clothes Dumped On Carousel

October 14, 2010 Luggage Stories

This happened back in the 1970’s. We were living in the Panama Canal Zone, and every two years the government would fly us home to the States, back to the city we had moved from. At some point they started using charter flights to Miami since they were flying so many people back to the […]

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Traveler Troubled by Plugged Up Toilets

October 12, 2010 Odds & Ends Stories

Summer: 2007. I’m flying back from a vacation to Russia to see my extended family. We manage to pick our way through a three hour journey to Sheremetevo, and start the 1.5 hour check-in process. As this was before I got my Nintendo DS, flights were long and boring, complemented only by SkyMall magazines and books […]

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Fog Fouls Up Flights

October 11, 2010 Weather Stories

The year is 1981. My first ship has just been decommissioned and my wife, 2 kids (ages 2 and 1) and I are flying from Portland, Oregon to Hartford, Connecticut to spend some leave time with our families before reporting to a new ship in Newport, R.I. Our flight is scheduled to depart Portland at […]

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Passengers Start Their Party Early

October 10, 2010 Passenger Stories

I was flying from Fort Lauderdale to New Orleans July 4th weekend to visit my family. July 4th weekend is the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, so many of the passengers on my flight were heading to NOLA to enjoy the festival. I board the plane and take my seat and everything seems to […]

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Annoyed by Airport Rigmarole

October 7, 2010 Airport Stories

This happened just last summer. Oh eternal bliss… It started out when I was going back to the States from Russia. Instead of flying Aeroflot, Delta or AA, we finally decided to take a spin on United which turned out to be the only good American airline we have flown (KLM still trumps most lines, […]

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Jabba Look-Alike Smells Up Airplane

October 6, 2010 Portly Stories

On a flight from Miami to St. Croix, touching off a one week trip during which time I contracted a bug of some sort and felt set to puke 24/7, a man with the approximate physique of Jabba the Hutt boarded the plane and sat in the row behind me. Twenty minutes into the flight he […]

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Airplane Hits An Air Pocket

October 5, 2010 Weather Stories

My first flight was when I was 8. I once thought flying was fun as I had flown domestically and overseas to Germany with never an issue. I had started working for a new company and needed to fly to Chicago for training. I remember it was a non-stop from Dallas to Chicago. On the […]

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No Respect Given to Obese Passenger

October 3, 2010 Portly Stories

Two years ago I booked a flight from New Orleans to Sydney Australia via LAX with United. Now, I know that by most people’s judgement I am considered a “slob” because I weigh 522 pounds. But there is a difference between people who eat a lot and me because I have a thyroid condition that […]

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Youngster’s Flight From Hell

October 1, 2010 Baby & Kid Stories

This was not what I would consider a “flight from hell” for me, just a memory I can shake off and even laugh about now. But for my 10 year old seat mate, I’m sure it was a flight from hell. This was back in June 2002 on a trip back to my home in […]

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