" I am serious... and don't call me Shirley. "

[Lady Lucky]

To quote the movie "Airplane", hopefully I got everyone?s attention. So, I'll pose my question first: What is the worst airport/airplane experience you have ever had?

You can post your personal experience or a friends, family member, or neighbors.

I'm just curious because I went through HELL this past weekend trying to get back from a holiday visit with my family. So here is my story:
It all started when I got to Detroit Metro Airport, diligently arriving early and passing through the TSA checkpoint without issue. Walked up to look at the arrivals and noticed that my flight is 2hrs delayed!
Now this does happen all the time, however in my case I had a connecting flight at Frankfurt and only had a 2 hour window from the time I arrived at Frankfurt to my next flight. Naturally I started to get a little anxious. Walked up to a service desk and started asking the clerk what the dealio was. She assured me that everything would work out and that the time would be made up in the air.
So trusting the flight attendant I went ahead and got on the flight, didn't arrive until half an hour after my flight had left... then I heard my name being paged to the gate I was supposed to have left from. The airliner had switched my flight to the next one out and I now had a 12 hour layover! I understand that there are worse places to be than Frankfurt airport (I know I've been to them.) It was still a major inconvenience!
So 12 hours slowly passed, and finally I got on board the next flight out.... It was on a 787 Dreamliner... So we sat on the plane and after about 2 hours the captain got on the PA and said that there was a mechanical issue, and the flight was cancelled. We then stayed 4 more hours on the runway (I was PISSED). Finally the let us off and took us to a hotel and we were to return to the airport at 6:30 am (mind you at this point its 1:00 am).
So now I'm back at the airport at 6:30 am with an 8:30 am departure. 8:30 am comes and goes and we are informed that the mechanical failure from the previous night has not been resolved.
Finally after about 3 more hours we boarded and were on our way and made it back to my final destination in one piece.
Knock on wood, the day after that happened all the 787 Dreamliners where grounded. Something about lithium ion batteries causing issues.

Oh well that's my story! What's yours?

 

[Keoul]

My plane experiences have been relatively decent.
Usually 10 hour flights with assholes who simply INSIST on reclining their seats but other than that, just peachy.
Though I'm usually starving throughout the whole flight cause honestly who actually enjoys let alone wants to eat airplane food? desperate individuals[footnote]Now I admit sometimes the airplane food is decent and "to each their own" but the scent alone is usually enough for me to want to gag.[/footnote] that's who.

 

[Abomination]

Surely you can't be serious about seriously not being Shirley.

I had a case of the complete opposite occur. I was in Brunei (a small sultanate of Western Indonesia) and I was held up at the airport for a "random" screening test. People use my skin colour to grade the quality of rice, I was clean shaven and I never wear a hat.

As my backpack, pockets and identification are being investigated I think about 15 folks in typical Muslim garb waltz past wearing headscarves big enough to hide 20 sticks of dynamite each and five pregnant women all completely covered in black burkas. I am not saying therefore they all must have been evil terrorists and any of that rubbish but it certainly was a very odd situation.

 

[DoPo]

Why I love the title, I'd suggest you make it a bit more descriptive for the benefit of others. Maybe just put "(airplane stories)" or something at the end.

Anyway, so there I was waiting to board the plane - late as as usual, but whatever - it was only, like, half an hour late or so. We could see the luggage being loaded onto the plane and jut when the last suitcases went on, they started unloading it. Everybody waiting went "WTF? Did they put the wrong luggage or something?" We asked the staff of course, and we got a very rude "Duh, sir DOWN and WAIT". Pretty much this, in fact. Yeah, we did. In about 20 minutes, we got moved to wait elsewhere and someone managed to pry some info out of the staff that there would be a delay. Gee. At least it was official now. It took about an hour until somebody decided to share with us, the passengers, the fact that there was a problem with the flight. Apparently, the person loading the food (with those trucks that can lift the rear up to the plane) hit the side hatch so bad, that it couldn't close at all, so now they were trying to fix it. Yeah, it took another hour until they decided to feed us another few crumbs of information (and for the time, any questions were answered as if we were asking "what is purple?" and presumably drooling) - the repairs didn't work, so we were getting another plane. Flying from another city. Dafuq? I should mention, that was the biggest airport in the country, I was in, and waiting to travel with the biggest company in the country. Yeah. Moving on, we patiently waited for the next couple of hours and the airport had the courtesy of giving us...a bagged sweet and a cup of Coke, Fanta, or mineral water. For free, at least. After the plane arrived, we had to wait until it was given permission to fly off and squeezed into the schedule with the rest. All in all, it took about 6 hours from the planned take off to the actual one. Which was bloody inconvenient because I was supposed to take the train after landing and travelling another 6 hours (oh, right, after I travelled 5 hours the previous night to fucking get to the city with the airport in the first place). Of course that never actually happened because I finally arrived late at night. I did take a train to about half the way to my final destination and then slept on another airport (train station was closing, no public transport, had to take a taxi to get there. Airport also had a train station I could travel from, so at least that was good. The taxi driver tried to convince me to let him drive me to my house for the mere sum of pay him 200 quid).

All in all, my trip was something like 50-60 hours in total and cost me an extra 80-90 pounds in just travelling expenses because none of my pre-bought tickets were valid, of course.

 

[Vuliev]

I remember this one really bad time I had when trying to get home from Germany. So to start things off, I'm in the Nuremberg airport, and for reasons I can't remember now I was forced to take a different, later connection to Frankfurt. I get to Frankfurt with like an hour and a half left to get through everything--and then once I get to my gate, there's a massive crowd of people, with the person at the desk saying they overbooked and they'd be offering vouchers to people that could take a later flight. Bear in mind that I'd had my flights and seats booked over six months ago.

Now, my brother's wedding was in a little over a day from then, so me missing an trans-Atlantic flight meant missing his wedding. I go up to the counter, get an unhelpful response, then go to one of those international phone things and call my parents (it was ~4:30AM for them, and this call ended up costing me $150.) They tell me to do whatever it takes to get back on the flight (and it took quite a bit for them to get me to calm down enough to do something.)

I go back to the counter, calmly asked "Is there any way I'm getting on this flight?" Attendant said "Yes, of course," promptly prints me a boarding pass, and I got back home without a single further hitch. I felt like such a wolly for freaking out.

 

[Eleuthera]

I've had overly long delays, overly pedantic (and bored) customs people and lost luggage, but the worst was probably one of the most recent.

After the Expo last year I added a few weeks of holiday and following those weeks I was on my way back home flying from RDU (Raleigh-Durham) to JFK in a smallish jet. While waiting in the lounge there was a particularly active child running around already getting on my nerves.
When boarding I discovered I was to be sitting next to this childs mother (and the child, since it was apparently young enough not to need it's own seat). The entire flight the kid was yelling, drooling/spitting, moving and crying. I've flown halfway around the world, but this was the longest flight I've ever been on.
And to show this wasn't all just because I'm a grumpy old child-hater. After the flight landed the woman sitting across the isle from me whispered "You're a good man." and the flightstaff apologised when I got out...

 

[hazabaza1]

Haven't really had one. Left my hat when the plane was going back to Ireland last time.

When I think "plane trip" I think about this kinda chubby but really friendly 19 year old guy called George that I met one time, who decided that it's proper plane etiquette to just whip out a playboy half way through.
That was fun.

 

[Lady Lucky]

Sitting next to someone who I believe hasn't bathed in a month, that was a 2hr flight so not too bad.

Worst was a 14 hour flight with cramped leg space...

Isn't that the worst! Smelly people....
Cramped leg space is bad too. One time I had a 12 hour flight and my seat was broken and wouldn't lay back. They wouldn't move me because the flight was full... ugh..

 

[Angie7F]

I used to fly a lot as a kid, but I cant remember any bad experiences.
I was really good at keeping myself entertained.

Anyhow, what is up with the 787s?
There was a emergency landing by a 787 yesterday in Japan.

 

[Lady Lucky]

Surely you can't be serious about seriously not being Shirley.

I had a case of the complete opposite occur. I was in Brunei (a small sultanate of Western Indonesia) and I was held up at the airport for a "random" screening test. People use my skin colour to grade the quality of rice, I was clean shaven and I never wear a hat.

As my backpack, pockets and identification are being investigated I think about 15 folks in typical Muslim garb waltz past wearing headscarves big enough to hide 20 sticks of dynamite each and five pregnant women all completely covered in black burkas. I am not saying therefore they all must have been evil terrorists and any of that rubbish but it certainly was a very odd situation.

Unfortunately many airports in other countries do profile people for what ever reason. I don't know if it helps or not but it does make things awfully awkward, uncomfortable and inconvenient. Kudos to you for having patience.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

Haven't flown in the last 10 years, so I don't have any horror stories. At the airport one time, my sister (who was like 6 at the time) figured out that a pay phone doesn't need a quarter to dial 911.

 

[Abomination]

Surely you can't be serious about seriously not being Shirley.

I had a case of the complete opposite occur. I was in Brunei (a small sultanate of Western Indonesia) and I was held up at the airport for a "random" screening test. People use my skin colour to grade the quality of rice, I was clean shaven and I never wear a hat.

As my backpack, pockets and identification are being investigated I think about 15 folks in typical Muslim garb waltz past wearing headscarves big enough to hide 20 sticks of dynamite each and five pregnant women all completely covered in black burkas. I am not saying therefore they all must have been evil terrorists and any of that rubbish but it certainly was a very odd situation.

Unfortunately many airports in other countries do profile people for what ever reason. I don't know if it helps or not but it does make things awfully awkward, uncomfortable and inconvenient. Kudos to you for having patience.

I didn't actually mind too much, my flight wasn't scheduled to board for at least another 30 minutes. I just must have been the least likely individual to engage in such activities. It was freaking hot, I was wearing shorts, flip-flops and essentially a Hawaiian shirt. My bag had been through about 3 scanners in the past 6 hours. If I had a bomb I sure as hell want to know where they expected me to have it-- no no, never mind. Please don't look there.

 

[Folji]

Never had any genuinely terrible flight stories over the years, for some reason! Worst thing that's ever happened to me was that my backpack suddenly got taken away in the scan, and when I asked what was up they managed to pull a pair of huge, sharp scissors out of it! They were my scissors and I remember when I put them in the backpack, but I could've sworn I had taken them out again afterwards... not that it mattered much, I just let them dispose of the stuff and went on my way.

 

[Lady Lucky]

I used to fly a lot as a kid, but I cant remember any bad experiences.
I was really good at keeping myself entertained.

Anyhow, what is up with the 787s?
There was a emergency landing by a 787 yesterday in Japan.

From what I understand, one issue is with the fuel tanks. I believe that was only one instance, I'll have to look it up. I guess the major mechanical error that has been happening on more than one plane was that some of the lithium ion batteries used for emergency power have been frying themselves. Which is funny because for the most part you can't put them in your checked baggage becuase they don't want stuff catching on fire in the luggage compartment. I guess lithium ion components were approved however, and now it's biting Boeing in the butt!

 

[teebeeohh]

I have very few airplane stories since I don't fly a lot. Whenever the plane starts or lands I get insane pressure on my ears and usually am kinda sick for the day afterwards. The worst trip I ever had was from Bangladesh to Dubai, apparently emirates staffs those flights with the most unfriendly, incompetent people they have since they are usually just flying poor brown people.

 

[MistressTegz]

No bad flights for me.

I worked at the airport as security and was on the opening shift. This was when Brisbane flooded. A single woman came through and she was in tears, really upset. I was on the explosive residue swab test, and because she was the only person there I had to stop her and ask if I could swab her bags. It's sucks, it's intrusive, it takes time and nobody wants to get picked. She was in tears and really nice about the whole thing. I appologised and asked if she was going to be okay. I felt like the biggest insensitive arsehole in the whole of Australia for stopping this upset woman who may have lost her house, or family.

I'm glad I don't work at the airport anymore.

 

[the clockmaker]

I had just been rejected at a job interview and I was waiting in line for my plane home (they had flown me in for the interview) and just as I am at my worst, a very prominent left leaning politician of my nation pushes me out of the way to queue jump, which was funny because it showed how much the commo bastard really cared about the little man, but it was annoying because the scrotal faced dickbag jostled me out of the way in an already shitty day.

Then, to top it off, my plane was delayed and I missed my train back in my home city.

 

[Starik20X6]

Every time I start to think I'm having a bad flight experience, I remember that, holy shit, I'm fucking FLYING. I'M SITTING IN A CHAIR IN THE SKY! A chair that allows me to travel at speeds that were unthinkable and over distances that were inconceivable just 100 years ago. Can't speak for anyone else, but I'd sacrifice leg room for being able to travel to the other side of the goddamn planet in 1 day as opposed to 1 month.

 

[thesilentman]

Never really had a bad flight experiences in general, but the worst had to be the shoddy handling of our luggage at (I will screw this up, just a heads up) Chattrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai. Come on, guys; we need our luggage on the plane before the plane takes off, not right next to us delaying our flight...

It was compensated with the fact that we stole the upper floor of an A380 that was almost completely empty while coming back to the US.