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?

Delay Triggers Traveler’s Descent Into Hell

April 7, 2017 Delay/Cancellation Stories

I guess getting home 26 hours late counts as hell. I had a nice 10 days in California and my United flights out, SCE to ORD to LAX and mid-trip LAX to SFO, were just fine. The return flight SFO to ORD to SCE was a bit of a haul. Share a cab and arrive […]

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Pregnant Passenger Sexually Harassed

April 1, 2017 Passenger Stories

Okay before I start I would like to point out that I have a habit of detail, so if I offend anyone I’m sorry. First a little exposition so you know why I became angry. This happened a few years ago. I had been on holiday to Turkey with my family and my god-family in […]

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Mistaken as an FBI Most Wanted Fugitive

January 29, 2017 Airport Stories

It was a cold winter Friday morning in 1995 when I left home for a very important trip. As a senior scientist I was in charge of running a $30,000 experiment I’d been planning for months. It was a textured hand towel on one of our fabric machines over the next three days. The machine […]

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Conflicting Visa Information Creates Confusion

January 19, 2017 Odds & Ends Stories

I’m writing this in the hopes that people don’t get burned by British Airways like we got burned by them. I believe my experience with BA customer service reveals an airline which does not hold itself accountable when it screws up. If you have an option, do not fly British. Because of bad information given […]

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Cranky Passenger Slams Seat Into Injured Arm

December 24, 2016 Seat Stories

About 9 years ago I flew with my mom, step dad and brother from London Heathrow to Hamburg, Germany to visit family for my grandma’s 70th birthday. Obviously a pretty big deal, and back then planes didn’t bother me in the least. I was even thinking of going into the airline industry either to work […]

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Traveler Says Hasta La Vista to Airline

December 16, 2016 Delay/Cancellation Stories

On a recent flight from Spain to Sweden via Finland flying Finnair, I got a taste of an all too common experience of extremely bad service and a meltdown in service. Airline delays and cancellations of flights happen. It should be a front and center part of the business to deal smoothly with this, but […]

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Excuse Concocted to Cover-Up Overbooking

November 4, 2016 Airport Stories

I have been an international business traveler for over two decades now. My story starts on my way back from a long stretch in Kuwait.

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Airline’s Failure to Inform Creates Animosity

October 28, 2016 Odds & Ends Stories

If anyone flies within mainland China, you’ll know very well they never tell you true information about what is going on with flight disruptions, delays, and the like. The unwritten rule seems to be the less that is said, the better. Nobody from the airlines wants to lose face, so they come up with this […]

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