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?

Apology For Creating A Flight From Hell

December 11, 2009 Food & Drink Stories

I fear that I may have been a passenger that accounted for fellow passengers experiencing a “flight from hell.” I had 11 hours to kill before my flight in Anchorage, Alaska with no car and a mile or more walk from the airport before I could find any place to hang out. I checked my […]

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Lost Luggage & Missing Ticket Counter Crew

December 9, 2009 Luggage Stories

I would like to report my experience and concerns about what happened after Northwest flight 293 landed at 8:56pm in Little Rock, Arkansas on February 28, 2009. After waiting for our bags for more than 30 minutes I and 20-30 other passengers were told by a Northwest baggage handler at 9:40pm that there were no […]

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Double Trouble

December 9, 2009 Passenger Stories

This isn’t a flight from hell, but it was kind of creepy. I was flying from BWI in Baltimore to Pensacola, FL for a vacation. I got to the luggage check-in and there was a couple waiting there. The guy behind the counter calls my name. The woman says, “We’re here,” or something to that […]

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Triple Knee Assault

December 8, 2009 Seat Stories

I am a big guy, 6’8″ tall, and broad shouldered… flying is nearly always hell for me because I have to practically fold myself in half and sit the entire flights with my arms crossed so as not to ‘spill over’ into my neighbor’s seat (and cause someone else to have a story about having […]

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Blow-By-Blow Account Of Passenger’s Behaviors

December 7, 2009 Passenger Stories

The following is an e-mail I received from a friend, written on her Blackberry moment by moment on a JFK-LAX flight. Poor thing. Center seat – fatty on one side, smelly on the other. Smelly: nail biting, zit squeezing, furtive nose picking. Why furtive I don’t know wen all other manner of disgusting is not. […]

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First Class For Employees

December 7, 2009 Flying Hell Commentary

I have been flying as a passenger on airlines for more than 30 years and have had many years of 100 flights or more annually. My originating city is Chicago, so naturally I am a frequent United passenger. Airlines often make accommodations for their most frequent customers to provide them consideration to be moved to […]

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Holiday Travel With Mr. Hefty & Mr. Windowseat

December 6, 2009 Portly Stories

My flights from hell are always holiday flights, which isn’t really surprising, all things considered. My worst thus far took place just before Christmas three years ago. The airline had just recently started a feature which allowed passengers to select their seats online up to 24 hours prior to departure, but I was unaware of […]

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Grumpy Old Man

December 5, 2009 Senior Stories

Recently on an overbooked flight from Atlanta to Milwaukee my spouse and I were assigned separate seating. The gentleman to my left and I struck up a conversation discussing his life and mine, trips, foreign languages, etc. About 30 minutes before landing, the man to my right pulled off his Bose noise reduction headphones, turned […]

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Flying In A Play Pen

December 4, 2009 Baby & Kid Stories

I was flying from Washington DC to San Jose, California. There were several young mothers and couples with toddlers through 4 year olds. I was in an aisle seat, which I prefer. I don’t know exactly how it started, but all these young kids figured out they were in close proximity and they were soon […]

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Picture Of Passenger Causes Sizable Stir

December 4, 2009 Non-Stories

The picture below has been making the rounds, including recently on The Jay Leno Show. The photo was received by the blog Unusual attitude which is on the aviation news site Flightglobal. The blog stated that it purportedly was taken by an American Airlines flight attendant concerned about inconveniences and safety issues. Click here to see a follow-up post from […]

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Interminable Delays

December 3, 2009 Delay/Cancellation Stories

This was last year in 2008 from a flight that was SUPPOSED to be from San Francisco to Los Angeles with a connecting flight to Honolulu. All in all, everything was going well on the way to SFO. …Until we found out our flight was canceled and they put us in a line for about […]

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Goodyear Blimp Impersonators Vs. Me

December 3, 2009 Portly Stories

Over last summer when I was returning to home in Michigan after a meeting in New York, I had a rather lousy experience. First I arrived there with some 2 hours to my departure time so I should have plenty of time. Right? Wrong, it seemed a lot of employees had called in sick or something […]

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