Voyages from hell
What with Steven Slater's dramatic departure from his Jet Blue flight this week, stories about incivility on flights are cropping up. I shared this counter-anecdote for an Associated Press story today:
Mollie Hemingway, a mom of two from Washington, D.C., fondly recalls a flight attendant — traveling as a passenger, no less — who became her guardian angel on what seemed destined to be a flight from, well, a place with no angels.
Flying to Denver with her daughters, ages 1 and 2, Hemingway was stressed to the point of sobbing when her older child soiled her car seat minutes after takeoff, meaning Mom had to balance two kids on her lap.
Changing diapers in the tiny bathroom was a challenge. And the sleep-deprived girls were melting down, "turning into crazed beings that kicked the seats in front of them," Hemingway reports. The flight attendants were nowhere to be seen, until the angel appeared, offering to take the baby.
"I practically threw the baby at her," Hemingway says. "Later she exchanged seats so she could sit next to me and she helped me entertain the girls. I am so thankful for her help."
I'm a strong woman. A veteran traveler. But it's true -- I was crying. Repeatedly. The worst flight I'd had prior to that was the 10-hour Honolulu to Chicago leg I flew with my husband and daughter while pregnant with #2. But this last flight beat even that. And your worst?
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Jul '10
Re: Voyages from hell
Wow. I flew with a just-turned two-year-old from MI to Bozeman, MT. I had multiple adults with me to help. It wasn't, quite, a nightmare, and my daughter was pretty good.
Frankly, I'd rather drive both my kids, by myself, from D.C. to Chicago than fly both, with my wife (who does most of the heavy lifting), from Milwaukee to Chicago.
Jul '10
Re: Voyages from hell
I will say that the number of nasty flight attendants I've encountered in a long life of flying (one), is much smaller than the number of times I've seen flight attendants putting up with crap from people I'd have wanted to punch. Repeatedly.
Aug '10
Re: Voyages from hell
I've had inconvenient flights -- and really inconvenient experiences with airline security. But I've flown so little -- and maybe I'm young enough -- that no matter what else goes wrong, once the plane is up in the air, I can't help but think to myself, "Whee! We're flying."
I'm sure this will change once kids come along.
May '10
Re: Voyages from hell
Story 1: Flight from Omaha to San Francisco. Inbound equipment is late due to bird strike, puts the Umpire family (wife, self, 3 yo son and 8 mo son) at risk of missing last connecting flight out of Denver. Agent assures us that if the OMA-DEN flight takes off by 7 pm, they'll hold the DEN-SFO leg for us. Like fools, we believe him.
Flight lands in Denver, but last plane to San Francisco left 30 minutes ago. Luggage is nowhere to be seen. 8 mo is screaming from hunger. Lodging is an hour away after we get reservations, call shuttle, wait for it to arrive, and it takes us to hotel. Airline (Frontier) won't pick up the tab because the bird strike was an act of God.
Dad and mom get 1.5 hours of sleep, kids get about 3 hours. We're in line the next am at 6:00.
Edited on Aug 12, 2010 at 3:10pmMay '10
Re: Voyages from hell
Story 2: Mr. & Mrs. Umpire, circa 2000. At Heathrow, en route to Dublin.
Bus takes us to plane on middle of tarmac. We board. Passengers, now seated, smell burning odor pass through plane. It dissipates, but pilot gets on PA and cheerfully says the matter will be investigated.
Mr. Umpire notices that Mrs. Umpire has glazed expression, and is staring at head of woman seated in front of us. Mr. Umpire inquires as to Mrs. Umpire's state of mind. She says it's nothing.
Pilot announces the problem has been resolved, whereupon Mrs. Umpire says she wishes to get off the plane. Turns out she had a dream the night before about our plane crashing into the sea, and the woman in the dream had the same hairstyle as the woman seated, in real life, in front of us.
Mr. Umpire calls flight attendant, who calls pilot. Pilot speaks reassuringly to Mrs. Umpire. Doesn't work. Stairs drive out, we leave (Mr. Umpire speaking in German accent to avoid seeming American), sitting on bus alone as plane is delayed 30 minutes while luggage is retrieved from hold. Irish flight attendants are freaked. Passengers stare at us. Plane survives.
Edited on Aug 12, 2010 at 3:08pmRe: Voyages from hell
It will and it won't. Flying with young children is always tremendously difficult. But now when I fly sans children, I think it's just the most delightful experience imaginable. Last year I flew 9 months pregnant from DC to LA. People were gushing over me, asking if I was okay. And all I could think was, "Of course I'm okay -- I'm flying alone and I don't have my toddler hanging over me."
May '10
Re: Voyages from hell
Story #3: Mr. Umpire seated on aisle, Mrs. Umpire next to him, on flight to SFO, early 2001. Flight attendant pours half a cup of Snapple for Mrs. Umpire. Mrs. Umpire, almost choking on pretzels, asks if she can please have some more. Flight attendant doesn't hear her.
Mr. Umpire turns head to ask flight attendant for more Snapple for coughing wife. Flight attendant doesn't respond. Mr. Umpire, still seated and facing forward, reaches back and lightly taps flight attendant on left shoulder. Flight attendant whirls around, instructs Mr. Umpire to never touch her again, and informs him that he "just assaulted a flight attendant."
Mr. Umpire, stunned, goes forward to talk with purser. Purser, with hand resting on Mr. Umpire's forearm, informs him that any touching is considered assault. Sounding friendly, says she'll take care of it.
Purser later asks the Umpires to stay on plane to talk with pilot. Mr. Umpire, fool again, thinks apology is forthcoming. Passengers leave, five uniformed officers board plane and interrogate Mr. Umpire. Officer rolls eyes when told circumstances, but instructs Mr. Umpire to apologize to flight attendant who is sobbing in jet way. He complies. Wife's livid.
Aug '10
Re: Voyages from hell
Big hassle to take through airline security? Prescription medicine, especially if it's in an unusal format like a gel or pressurized container. By law, you're not supposed to be troubled over prescriptions, but in reality you are (or we've been), even when you have all documentation. (They tend to want to throw out prescriptions "over the 3-oz limit" even though larger sizes in prescriptions are permitted by law.)
Even bigger hassle? Photography equipment, especially film. My husband's hobby is panoramic film photography, where only about 3 pictures fit on a roll of film, so of course he packs much more film than average, which raises flags. Last time, the TSA guard wanted to open up the film packets to inspect them, and when we protested that it could spoil the film, he wasn't satisfied until he had slowwwly massaged every last packet. It was hysterical, that big man there with white gloves on, meticulously caressing each tiny packet, feeling for... I don't know what. But we almost missed our flight.
We haven't flown since then.
Re: Voyages from hell
Lao Aviation, circa 1995. No one had warned me that it was quite normal for the entire plane to fill with steam from the air conditioning vents and for the cabin to fill with the smell of burning rubber. Aeroflot back in the days of the Soviet Union was pretty hair-raising, too--literally, in fact, when the plane just suddenly plummeted about half a mile in the sky. "A little air pocket," I was told. And the in-flight meal of congealed chicken fat would have turned Angela Davis into a confirmed member of the John Birch society. Oh, and there was the time I flew with three orphaned cats into the worst storm in recorded European history, the one that tore the gargoyles right off the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. We had to divert to Brussels, with two cats in the hold and one totally freaked out cat in my lap. My unwillingness to repeat that experience probably goes a long ways toward explaining why I'm still in Istanbul.
Re: Voyages from hell
Somewhere between Dulles and Raleigh-Durham, 1999. The very kindly old lady seated beside me has -- shall we say -- an adverse gastrointestinal reaction to the crippling turbulence that has seized our puddlejumping prop plane as the sun sinks gloriously into a thunderous hundred-mile stormfront teeming with angry webs of lightning. Very kindly old lady's seat is closer to the window than mine. She excuses herself many, many times, clambering over my buckling knees on her way out and back in. Flight attendants grow concerned. After five or six excuse-mes, very kindly old lady is reseated. Giant muscular scars of lightning clearly visible out airplane windows. Dark now. After being pummeled into numbness the puddlejumper lands and one of the more lucid flight attendants hands me a bottle of wine, without requesting, and without receiving, ID.
May '10
Re: Voyages from hell
Hilarious stories. Disturbing, but funny. I love going places, but hate to fly. It can be uncomfortable and monotonous. But reading these stories reminds me that it could be much worse.
I can't say I've had a really bad flight. I've had really long days in airports and on airplanes, but the flights weren't bad.
TSA has nothing on police-state security in India. And, frankly, the airports there aren't the most fun places to spend time. Even then, though, I've been lucky. A kid scrambling for a big tip bought my way into the first class lounge where I enjoyed a drinks, food, and a place to recharge my laptop. He got his big tip.
Most flight attendants have been nice, too. Never more than a minor annoyance.
If I'm going to be cranky, it's usually because of a fellow passenger with a bad attitude.
My own worst story would be flying from Jacksonville to Denver after a sales & marketing meeting with the mother of all hangovers. Pretty sure that qualifies as my fault.
May '10
Re: Voyages from hell
My worst flight ever was from Denver to Spokane, WA. We were returning from 7 days at Disney World and my boys were 3 years and 16 months old at the time. We were traveling with my parents, but they decided to divert in Spokane and take a more direct route home. They had been great the whole trip, taking the kids for naps in the middle of the day (I think they needed a nap worst than the kids) and giving my wife and I time together without the kids. Then they just abandoned us on the last leg of the trip. The youngest boy screamed from 10,000 ft on climb out until we reached the car in the parking lot. Listening to a 16 month old boy scream for 3 hours straight is bad, but enduring the glares of fellow passengers is worse.
I travel extensively for my job. I go out of my way to help families with young children.
Re: Voyages from hell
My most interesting flights tended to be on military aircraft. One trip on a C-141 called for an overnight at Aviano Air Base, Italy, but we lost two out of four engines, I believe, which does tend to focus the mind a bit. We hobbled in to Frankfurt, Germany instead, which was a nice treat before hitting the desert.
On redeployment home, via contract aircraft, we had to stop in Paris to refuel, and the authorities refused to let us off the plane. Evidently, American GI's in uniform are not welcome in Paris unless they are needed to, you know, evict another group of cosmopolitan Europeans from the premises.
Flying civilian was pretty tame. Then again, they had these wonderful toy bottles of Jack Daniels, so I usually landed sometime after the plane did.
Jun '10
Re: Voyages from hell
I fly frequently for business, and by and large have decent, uneventful experiences. There have been plenty of strange flights, but nothing compares to a recent venture to Baltimore via Atlanta. I cannot do the story justice in 200 words, but if anyone is interested in a case study of Murphy's Law, I wrote about it here.
Jun '10
Re: Voyages from hell
Flight from Calgary to Winnipeg with a daughter that just learned about body parts.
Pilot: To your left we are passing Regina.
Daughter calling out for all to hear: I have one of those.
May '10
Re: Voyages from hell
Cas Balicki: Flight from Calgary to Winnipeg with a daughter that just learned about body parts.
Pilot: To your left we are passing Regina.
Daughter calling out for all to hear: I have one of those. · Aug 12 at 8:39am
Best story of the bunch; I bet everyone who heard was laughing.
Jun '10
Re: Voyages from hell
Newark to Denver. Me in a middle seat of a 737 in a wool suit (this was back in the day). Pulled away from the gate and we were then told we couldn't take-off because of thunder storms, and couldn't pull back into the gate as it was occupied by another plane. I was sitting between two men the size of John Candy and Chris Farley (though neither of them was funny). After three hours sitting on the tarmac, we took off. Normally a 3 1/2 hour flight, it turned into over 4 1/2 because of strong headwinds, which, by the way, cause a lot of turbulence. Numerous barf bags were used--though thankfully not mine. Finally got to Denver late in the evening and it took at least an hour for my one bag to show up.
On the other hand, I've never had anything but good service from flight attendants, especially when travelling with kids.
Re: Voyages from hell
Moral of this conversation thread: Do NOT fly with the Ottoman Umpire family.
May '10
Re: Voyages from hell
My most harrowing flight by a comfortable margin was a flight I took from Detroit to Pittsburgh sometime around 2000. There were storms all over the east that night. Being such a short flight, there was no full beverage service. A flight attendant filled a tray up with Cokes and just walked down the aisle distributing them. Just before she got to my row, the turbulence really started in earnest. Here she is, one row in front of me and doing acrobatics with this drink tray straight out of a silent movie, and I'm raising my hands getting ready to bat away flying Cokes. Eventually she gets the tray on the floor and grabs, no, CLUTCHES the seat legs on either side. About this time the pilot must have seen some scary air on the radar and pulls out the throttles. Everything goes disconcertingly quiet, then he goes into this harrowing banking dive. Meanwhile in the row behind me a woman literally started speaking in tounges. I initially thought she was foreign but she ended it with "Jesus Christ, Amen!" I'm out of words but here but in summation I never got my Coke.
Re: Voyages from hell
I'm somewhat disturbed by how many of these travel stories involve flights to Denver.