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?

Anguish in Athens

June 3, 2010 Airport Stories

Even though there are many tales of woe listed on this site, I think my story competes with the worst, for an all-around emotional pounding and bad treatment of customers. It was March 2006. I had flown on Olympic Airlines from JFK to Athens, Greece for a week-long Aegean Sea cruise that was designed to […]

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Security Breach at Incheon?

June 2, 2010 Airport Stories

After a nice family trip to Seoul, I was at Incheon International Airport going through security when I placed my bag through the X-Ray machine. The man operating the machine stopped the conveyor belt with my bag in the scanning machine, but after a while it came out. I took my bag and made my […]

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Delayed Over A Dent

June 2, 2010 Airplane Stories

I was heading to CT, via Denver. It wasn’t until we had half -boarded the plane that we were informed that airport maintenance needed to check out the plane for a suspicious “dent.” They had to ensure it wouldn’t do anything weird up there. Forty-five minutes later, after they had photographed the dent and consulted their […]

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Airlines Don’t Play Nice With Each Other

June 2, 2010 Luggage Stories

About 6 months ago my wife decided it would be a good idea to use some of her frequent flier mileage to fly on Delta from Spokane to her parents’ place in Houston. When she booked the trip in May with Delta, the itinerary looked normal, Spokane to Salt Lake City, then on to Houston. […]

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Bound To Get Bag Into Bin

June 1, 2010 Luggage Stories

On the subject of luggage, I witnessed a fellow traveler who was bound and determined to get his bag into the overhead bin, no matter what it took or how much time it involved. As he wrestled and pounded the recalcitrant bag into the space, the passenger tested the bin door to make sure it […]

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Mr. Wideload

May 31, 2010 Portly Stories

I was flying from Albuquerque to Phoenix on Southwest. Now, Southwest Air has the “persons of size” policy in that if you can’t fit with the arm rest down, you need to buy another ticket, but they only charge you for that other ticket if the flight is full. I was in the B boarding […]

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Could’ve Driven There Faster

May 31, 2010 Delay/Cancellation Stories

This happened on August 4, 2009. I was flying from Baltimore to Peoria, IL, on Delta Airlines, for a skating contest. The first leg of my flight (connecting in Atlanta) went without incident. But that’s when things turned sour in a hurry. The plane to Peoria left Atlanta about 45 minutes late. We get about […]

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Suspicious Guitar Case

May 30, 2010 Luggage Stories

I had an afternoon flight from Denver, CO back to school in Massachusetts last Christmas break. I checked in with plenty of time, carrying on my laptop and guitar case. When I got to the gate to board the plane, the attendants told me that my boarding pass had not been properly stamped, and asked […]

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Girl’s Trip Goes Bad

May 29, 2010 Odds & Ends Stories

Ok so I have saved up for the girl’s trip all year and I am finally going to Italy for 16 days!!! Yea!!! I live in Bermuda and we have to take a plane from BDA to New York JFK with a 10 hour layover inbetween before we get on a plane to Rome, so we have […]

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Two Bad B.O. Stories

May 28, 2010 Odor Stories

Story #1 Several years ago, back in my single days, my friends and I went on a trip to Thailand. Our flight out of Minneapolis was cancelled, and we were put on a connecting flight to Seattle, then Tokyo, then on to Bangkok. The flight from Tokyo to Bangkok was the one that made me […]

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Snooze Troubles Seatmate

May 27, 2010 Passenger Stories

I was on the way back from my brother’s wedding in Pittsburgh to Paris via New York. Sitting next to me was an over excited girl in her 20’s who started chatting the minute she sat down about how this was her first time flying to Europe, she was so excited, I had to hear […]

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Skirmish Over Seats

May 26, 2010 Seat Stories

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 […]

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