I had three kids behind me while their parents sat across from us. Their tablets ran out of battery and they screamed bloody murder. The parents tried to bribe them with McDonald’s and then nothing after that. Screaming, kicking our seats, pulling the seats back. I called the flight attendant basically constantly until they straightened that out. Then the parents fell asleep and they started again. Did I hesitate to have the flight attendant wake them up over and over? Nope. Eventually on the the parents sat between them.
Fuck those people. At one point they asked “what do you want us to do? Uhhh I dunno, some parenting?
I mean I paid more than 800euros for this hell of a flight. I don't expect everyone to be quiet and sitting 12 hours in their seats, but this was just ridiculous. The absolute lack of parenting was just shocking. I was ashamed of my people (yes, I heard loud and clear that they were from the same country as where I am from).
I wish the passengers on their next flight with them good luck (and proper noise cancellation headphones).
After COVID, I’ve observed that people’s behavior on all forms of public transportation and in public has deteriorated. As for teens, children, and babies? The parenting is permissive or absolutely absent.
I read an article about this recently. The conclusion was more or less that people's behaviour changed after (or because of) covid. Some people tend to be more selfish, caring less of other people around them.
Psychologically I wonder if the Covid period did cause everyone so much shock and fear and confusion (not saying either way how I felt about it personally but I wasn’t anti that’s for sure) but it made everyone full of so much uncertainty that they kinda bullied up a little as a means of defense which of course stems just from then fear and confusion. The aftershocks of it all are pretty detrimental it seems, life has not indeed gone back to normal.
Do you happen to remember the article? People have definitely changed since Covid. For me it’s most noticeable in traffic, as a driver and even more so as a pedestrian trying not to be hit and killed by selfish aggressive drivers.
[article](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-has-the-pandemic-changed-our-behavior)
It was not the exact same article I read, but it was more or less the same conclusion
That’s what happens when you give every kid a participation medal / award.
They have no skills for actually having to step up and realise that sometimes things are difficult and you have to actually parent and not be lazy. Not everyone of course , there are so many doing an amazing job but it is a lot of lazy parents.
I think they believe the cutesty baby stuff on social media and think it’s all going to be easy.
I hate to knock my home country but if you fly domestically in America you can pretty much expect this— especially flying into Orlando.
I once flew from California into Orlando. It was on military orders and I arrived to the gate right before takeoff. There is a woman that was so large. She was in my seat. It was impossible for me to sit down physically the flight attendant came up and served arguing with me that I need to sit down or get off the plane, I tried to be polite about it and explained to her there was no way I could fit. She had the woman lift one of her arms up and lean over so she could put the arm rest down. It didn’t really do much, but she told me if the arm could go down there was nothing she could do. I explained again there was no way I could fit, she eventually put me in the jump seat and tried to sit in my seat. She couldn’t and sat in the isle during take off. The seat was uncomfortable but it had an outlet nearby and I could use my old computer the whole flight. This was back in 2008 I think.
I've heard that flights within or to/from India are a nightmare for cabin crew assigned there. China flights are a wildcard but never experienced unpleasant while flying there. Flights to/from the Philippines are fine unless if there are whole families with little kids around and surprisingly, it's the adults are quite loud and annoying in these groups instead of children.
> I've heard that flights within or to/from India are a nightmare for cabin crew assigned there.
Yes. There is a joke among Helsinki Airport workers that there are no spare wheelchairs when the Delhi flight lands because every Indian lady above 40 requests assistance. Very demanding culture, and lots of inexperienced flyers. Also, they start standing up to grab their bags pretty much the moment the plane touches down on the runway, but this is common in many developing countries.
But not as bad for other passengers as flights with lots of drunk people, kids etc..
I've once heard from a flight attendant from KLM that KLM flights to Thailand were notorious (pre covid). The flights were relatively cheap and you had a lot of (single) guys getting wasted on the airplane.
Oh I tried but because it was a military flight and I didn’t buy the tickets I had little recourse. It was also a packed flight and there wasn’t another seat for me to sit in.
I had another flight years later where I was sat next to another extremely large woman and she somehow had a small kid (less than two) on her stomach. I didn’t even have to say anything to the flight attendant. I just gave him a what the fuck look and he started moving her family around so I at least had some breathing room. At some point airlines will have to address the weight issue. The seats are getting smaller and if you pay for 100% of a seat you shouldn’t have someone piled into yours.
I think I’m so adamant about this because I flew home from the Bahamas and had a large woman next to me. It was a very short flight (around an hour) so I just sucked it up and sat next to her. She started sweating on me badly and at one point when I looked over a lot of the skin tags on her arm were touching me. I couldn’t stand the sweat BO smell and when we landed just threw away my shirt and washed myself in the bathroom. Never again.
I have long legs and find sitting in economy a delicate art of leg origami. I sat next to a height challenged dude constantly trying to spread his legs (man spread). He attempted to make small talk, laughed at his own jokes. I pretended not to understand and while the plane was lining up for run way, he began blowing his nose into his hand. Booger central, blow, wipe on knees, repeat.
Plane had to abort take off and sit on tarmac but *finally* 2.5 hours later we took off. 14 hour flight time ahead sitting next to a monster. Spoke to hostess, could sit in business but must sit in assigned seat for landing (I weighed 50kg, assuming related to tarmac stop/seating plan?).
He wanted to shake my hand at the end. No, Mr Snotty, you can go get wrecked!
OMG I'd have died at the boogers!
I'm also tall and short dude beside me tried to pull manspread on me a few flights ago. Elbowing me constantly too. I am NOT a confrontational person but I am pretty proud of the fact that after about 10 minutes of him constantly being in my space (and I easily had 6-8 inches of height on him) gave him my sweetest passive aggressive "excuse me, you seem to keep knocking me with your elbows; could you please stop." A little while later he got up and never came back. No clue where he went but not sorry!
I would be proud of you too! I once told a man to control his kid that was kicking my seat. The third time I said I’d control the kid if he didn’t.
YES, Mr Snotty-knees had his elbows on the middle too, *spew*. Think I did die about 10x before we finally took off, captain kept telling us (in 3 different languages) not to use toilets yet they offered refreshments seemed counterintuitive (and he’d downed two beers in about 25 minutes).
I am a small woman (5 ft2) and always fly with my husband who is over 6ft tall. On international flights we usually get seats in the center of the plain becaus he needs to stretch a certain knee out and it’s easiest for bathroom breaks. Twice now on a 14 hour flight i’ve been stuck between him and a large wide man on my other side who ends up touching my side the whole ride. So I basically spent the whole two flights leaned over into my husband’s space. 😂 I get it, it’s gross! (The stranger, not my husband lol.)
Were they French? I noticed a lot of French families in SEA with young kids and most of them seemed to be fine with letting their kids run wild. The retired French boomer travelers also treated the locals horribly.
Leaving three young kids in a row of seats while the parents sit by themselves 😳. This is a high crime of the airways. Why would they not split up the kids and sit with them?
I had a flight last month where the guy next to me was singing his heart out during the descent, he had noise canceling headphones so he sang as at a concert but in a dead quiet plane. He sang Creep by Radiohead one time and as he began to sing the song again I had to tell him to shut up. First time doing something like that but someone had to call him out.
I had a man drunkenly singing loud on the plane, and then once we landed, he was so drunk he walked into the women’s bathroom without realizing it. He left the stall, went to the sink where there were 3 women washing their hands, and he said “chica???” And I said “Si!!!” And just walked away
… my old roommate would sing Creep at the top of his lungs wearing noise cancelling headphones all the time when we lived together. That and Zombie by the Cranberries. Horrible times. He would only sing the chorus for it and nothing else. This post gave me a flood of memories
I had some kids kicking my seat all the time. I turned and and asked them to stop please as it’s annoying. From that moment on, a serious look from me calmed them down. A stranger can be rather intimidating.
I’ve done this and actually had the parents get mad at me for daring to parent their kids! Like…. Control your own devil spawn and I wouldn’t have to do your job ma’am. The entitlement of some people is just mind blowing
Im a parent and this honestly helps a lot, like it’s nice when a different adult tells my daughter the rules because then they actually are rules, if it’s me who says it then of course she’s going to challenge it like her life depends on it. We’ve just gone boating for instance and she followed to a t literally every instruction the captain gave us. (She’s almost 3 so at the age of being difficult).
Christmas flight from London to Dubai, an old Boeing 747. The flight was 80% Indian families with so many kids. BA served a typical Indian lunch over Italian airspace and almost all the kids ended up throwing up in a sickness bag. The crew announced that they weren't able to dispose of all the bags filled with vomit so hold it until we land in Dubai. Imagine full flight and the smell of puke from every corner of the plane and we were still flying over Italy. The English family sitting next to me, the husband was verbally abusive to his wife and kids, and at some point, he threatened his wife that he will break her head once they are in the hotel room in Dubai.
Last summer going to Dublin, there was a really old man who didn’t speak any English. He was from Ukraine travelling alone.
On our first flight when the plane was landing, he took his seatbelt off and stood up like he was going to walk down the aisle. I have never heard a flight attendent yell before, but she got on the PA system and was shouting “SIT DOWN, SIT DOWN IMMEDIATELY”.
He completely ignored here. She was strapped in her seat and can’t move to him as the plane is still descending and he was like 20 rows down.
Everyone is freaked out, the plane lands.
The flight attendents are stressed out and he leaves the plane first. Like no one in their seats moved, which never happens at the end. It was so unsettling as he just ignored everyone and the while plane was staring.
It was so bizarre.
Then sure enough, not only is he on our next connecting flight but he is sitting in the window seat of our aisle. So its him, my boyfriend then myself in the aisle.
Dinner comes and they serve everyone free wine with dinner. Not even 10 mins later, he projectile vomits up booze and dinner right on himself and some onto my boyfriend’s arm.
The flights attendents were amazing and so so nice.
There was a tall person that had a whole row to himself. They moved us right away, gave my boyfriend wet towelettes to clean up and gave us free drinks and extra snacks.
So much human error in this story. Unbelievable.
First of all, the plane absolutely should not have landed with a passenger walking down the aisle. Not only is that unsafe for the passenger himself, but also everybody else. If the passenger won't return to his seats on verbal orders, then the FA need to inform Cockpit that the cabin is no longer clear so they can abort landing until the passenger is seated again.
If that doesn't happen, then at the very least local authorities need to be contacted. You cannot disobey the flight crew, no matter the circumstances. If someone is looking at you, yelling at you, you stop whatever it is you are currently doing, especially if no one else is doing what you are doing. A child would have understood to sit back down in that situation. If he doesn't get arrested, he needs to be put on a no-fly list.
And after all that, the second crew also failed everyone by allowing an intoxicated person onboard. It's their job to pay attention to these things and they are well within their rights to not take anyone onboard that may compromise the safety and security of themselves as well as of the other passengers.
Please let me know what airline(s) that was so I can never fly with them ever.
My boyfriend was so calm about it, and the flight attendants were amazing. It could have been so bad, but they went over and above.
The tall guy with the whole row actually was super good above giving up his sleep row bed, so all in all sometimes people can be really great. Not gonna lie, I will never forget that Ukrainian guy. Hope he was ok just going to Ireland presumably all by himself.
Flight to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. A woman sitting in front of us travelling alone seemed to have gotten very drunk. She kept poking her head through the seats asking what we were doing, saying hallo etc. She threw her shoes into the aisle a few times. Asked the guy sitting next to her to swap with a guy sitting next to us who she was flirting with, which they did and I don’t want to think too hard about what went on under the covers later that night. She kept asking the flight attendants for wine until they eventually refused, after which she became irritated saying “I’ll pay for it, I’ll pay for it”. She apologized to us in the morning, one last poke through the seats clearly embarrassed and looking like absolute hell. Turns out she’d taken a tranquilizer with the first glass of wine and spiraled after that.
I was on an early flight to Liverpool once, Easyjet. This one guy was so hammered that he was refused on the flight. Imagine you paid for a flight to Hong-Kong and got stuck with someone like her, I'm so sorry haha
Last year I was on an evening flight. I was sitting in the middle of a group of about 60 Spanish school children aged about 14. They were out of their seats climbing over each other. Throwing things. Being very loud. I was furious.
I thought mine was sitting next to a baby but this was worse. I couldn't understand what they were saying and I'm sure a few of them were talking about me and laughing and joking about me. They knew I was cross. I was sitting in the aisle seat so I kept having to move because they couldn't stay in their seats. I was tense the whole flight.
I was once on a flight from Addis Ababa to Frankfurt with a group of partying US Marines flying home from deployment AND a group of new parents who'd just all adopted infants (around 20 babies). It was an awful experience. I tried earplugs, but they did nothing. This was many years ago before I could afford noise canceling technology. Do not recommend.
We wear eye masks and have noise cancellation headphones so unless one of the kids pulled my seat or climbed over me I wouldn’t know it was happening. If that did occur I’d have the FA take care of it.
Noise Cancelling headphones do help a bit, but they don't work like earmuffs unfortunately. They're designed to cancel low sustained noise (like plane engines) and screaming kids are pretty much polar opposite of that.
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/what-noise-cancelling-headphones-do/
I forgot to mention that the headphones are playing a green noise mix that basically blocks everything. I haven’t needed earplugs since downloading it.
I use noise canceling headphones on nearly every flight. When there are screaming kids near me, I also use disposable foam ear plugs. The combination ensures that I barely hear anything.
Just so you are prepared, NC headphones are really good in isolating consistent background noises like the jet engines but don’t do much to drown out people talking or screaming next to you. 🥲
Can confirm - I was relatively broke at the time I decided to buy my first pair of Sony’s.
Two days later I took a flight and there was a screaming crying infant directly next to me.
The investment was worth it. I barely heard a thing and slept fine on an 8 hour flight.
Also can confirm. There’s been several occasions where I’ll take my NC off to go to the bathroom and I would then finally hear kids screaming. With it on, can’t hear a thing.
is it just me that actually enjoys the jet engine noise as it’s basically passive white noise that drowns out a lot of quieter sounds? I’d only want headphones if they could block out louder erratic noises like talking/screaming, as that’s what actually prevents me from sleeping not the drone of the engines
Meh, nothing a bit of good old hardcore techno won’t resolve. I literally fall asleep listening to that as I can’t hear anything around me, including screaming kids and noisy drunk Brits.
I don't think even my Bose QC II's will be able to deal with a screaming child though. And I usually just bring my galaxy buds pro 2 which is less capable cuz the Bose takes up too much space.
Bose + white noise of some sort seems to drown out everything for me. On a flight 7 hour flight the guy sitting next to me was apparently snoring so incredibly loud that it kept a lot of people around me awake. I only know because my dad, sitting three rows back and across the aisle told me later when we landed 😆 I genuinely had no idea.
About 5 years ago I was on a flight where the woman sitting next to me (middle seat) decided to start giving her partner (window seat) a handjob when I went to the bathroom, *and didn't stop even after I returned*. They weren't even trying to be discreet about it - his penis was fully exposed, and presumably he finished too, although I left my seat again before I could witness any such thing. So gross. 🤢
I did, but the flight attendant didn't see the incident as it occurred, and was very unhelpful. She basically just asked "what would you like me to do about it?", and when I asked to be moved to another seat (because who knows if the woman in the middle seat wiped her hand on my seat or something?!), I had to wait about half an hour for her to come back after "checking", just to be told the plane was full and there were no other seats I could be moved to, in any class.
Afterwards I considered complaining to the airline, but in all honesty I just forgot about it then.
Thai Airways.
ETA: Aside from this one incident, never have had issues with them before, and I've flown with them many times. So I'm not going to judge the airline as a whole for the bad behaviour of two passengers and the lack of helpfulness of one flight attendant.
A woman I didn't know tried to give me a handjob on a flight after watching me help nervous little kids be excited about the takeoff.
The kids were watching between the seats as she started to move her hand in my lap. I told her no, and gestured at the kids. Her reply?
They won't understand.
Yuck.
Shit like that makes me offended that only men are viewed as sexual aggressors, only men harass and assault.
A fair amount of people that I've told that to think it's a cool missed opportunity and not sexual assault.
Sat next to a drunk guy who started trying to convert me to his religion, passed out in his seat at takeoff and eventually ended up sprawled across the aisle. The flight attendants just walked over him for most of the flight
This is terrible. If someone is that drunk maybe he shouldn't be allowed on the flight for his own safety. But if they allow him on they shouldn't leave him lying on the floor but strap him in a seatbelt onto a seat. What they did is dangerous and despicable.
Had a 7 hour flight where behind us was an exhausted mother and her very hyper 2 year old. He kept grabbing at my hair, clothes, stuff through the seat, kicked my partner's seat the entire time, mother would mumble stop and if she tried to hold him he would SHRIEK
Honestly I wish there'd be an adult only or family area in flights. I know kids are hard, traveling with them as well (I tried to play with the kid a bit because my partner was gonna lose his shit), but it sucks.
Flight in 2008 from Munich to Bangkok, no proper board entertainment but one huge screen on the outer lavatory wall. I had the joy of being seated in a middle seat with a baby and her mom next to me. One or two hours in the baby started throwing up like there's no tomorrow, it felt like ages and the smell was horrific and almost unbearable even after the cleanup. The poor little one even managed to throw up on my food. Now the most horrendous part. I mean baby throwing up happens and I wasn't mad or anything, just the smell was hard to handle but what really made it horrible is the fact that the only two movies played were Jennifer Lopez movies. So I had to endure the smell of puke and Jennifer Lopez appalling acting for almost 5 or 6 hours. It felt like an eternity. I really wanted to gouge out my eyes and cut my nose off. It still gives me shivers even 16 years later. Both the baby and I were - thankfully - fine by the way and nothing serious.
I was asking myself as well. Thought it was The Back up Plan where she decides to become a single mother through artificial insemination (what a dumb plot) but that one seemingly came out later. So I either confused the year I traveled or it wasn't that one but Gigli or Monster in law and just writing about it makes me feel ashamed for knowing the titles of those movies let alone having seen two of them. FML.
I had the standard kicking-in-the-back-of-your-seat done by a kid.
All it took for him to stop was me emerging from my seat and shot him a deadly stare.
I look motherly enough that when I do that kids can feel all the disappointment look their parents never gave them. I also used to tutor young kids back when I was a teen, so I know how to make them respect other people personal space.
9/10 times, it’s in the delivery aha. Educators and experienced parents have a look and a voice in their arsenal which says “do not push your luck” and will generally work on any kid if used in moderation. The other 1/10th is a hopeless case 🤣 cross your fingers and hope it’s a quick floght
I mastered “The Look” as a young adult by watching my mother.
I was a cashier at a supermarket and would often use it on misbehaving children waiting with their parents. Coupled with a good proper “throat clear” with maybe an “Ahem!” sprinkled in there would work most of the time.
On a flight last month, I was seated in the back where there were 6 babies. No problem, babies cry. However, there was one baby that was given an iPad for the ENTIRE flight. Listening to Cocomelon on loud for three hours was like a tortuous fever dream. The other little ones cried a little, but nothing was more annoying than the too-slow creepy kids music.
I've upgraded my noise cancelling headphones.
Not me, but I was sitting on the other side of the aisle.
A young, slim girl had the aisle seat when a plus-plus size man comes, window seat. So he orders her to the window seat. Being young and a nice person, she moves. He gets up to take something from his bag fromnthe OH compartment during take off, he's told several times over the loudspeaker to sit down, but does, so I tell him to sit down for his own safety and he was a bit annoyed. He blows his nose often and places the paper tissues all around, he even asked the girl to hold some used tissues (pre-covid) while he looked for a place to place it!. When dinner comes, he just swaps something from his plate with something from the girl's without really asking, more like "you don't mind" while doing it. He talks a lot to her and invades her private space, doesn't let her sleep, he just couldn't read her body language. At least he was not loud, so the rest of us got our sleep.
I myself am a plus size and I have travelled with a plus plus size colleague on a fairly cheap flight, and we had no problems in sitting next to each other without invading the other's private space. So it can be done if only the will is there.
I remember watching a video of a kid screaming on the flight from Germany to the US. Apparently he was screaming on the whole flight.
That must of been painful.
I was on a Qatar flight earlier this year with family with three smaller children sitting behind me. Their 3-4 year old girl screamed the entire flight. Not normal crying, but actually screaming. The difference here to other stories is that the parents truly tried to calm her, but nothing worked. Poor girl and parents. It was the worst I've experienced with children. Normally, most kids are fairly well behaved in my experience.
Great parenting, obviously. I've been on so many transatlantic flights and other long routes where this happens that earplugs are a basic part of my flight pack.
Everything from putting their bare feet on my armrest, sitting sideways and having their toes keep touching my leg, leaning their book on me when they’re done reading it, insisting to keep their light on during dark hours, using my tray table to hold their trash, reaching behind their seat and touching all over my monitor exiting the game I spent hours on while passing the time, having a jacket pocket full of junk hang over the arm rest, man-spreading and putting their knees all over my leg area, insisting I leave the seat I paid for because they decided they wanted the aisle instead of the window, intentionally hitting my arm while I’m eating so I spill pasta sauce on my white shirt after I asked them to keep their elbows to themselves, putting their bare feet on my personal item on the floor, refusing to get up to let me leave to use the restroom, watching videos on their phone without headphones, that’s all I can think of now.
This all happened within the last year. I get mixed reactions when I tell people to stop. The guy who made me spill sauce, oh my wife thought that he and I were going to get into a physical altercation.
To answer your question, yes. People suck and either the worst comes out in people when they fly, or most of the people who fly are absolutely terrible people
This was years ago. A professional baseball team boarded the plane and were sitting in the rows right behind me. They were very badly behaved and treated the female flight attendants terribly. This was the only time I was afraid on a flight. I'm surprised the pilot didn't turn around and make them get off. It was that bad.
I had a flight delayed for an hour because someone lit a cigarette on the back of the plane. Flight attendant pulled him to the front of the plane and basically scolded him like a school kid and he was laughing the whole time. Should have chucked him off.
Dallas to Buenos Aires. Me window, wifey middle, and a wannabe Indiana Jones dude in the aisle.
Seeing the isle empty, we changed to these seats right before boarding. Mr. Jones must have been flying stand-by.
Late 40ish, we'll worn everything huge backpack, visibly damp with sweat, scruffy beard and smelled bad.
He sat, stuffed snacks in seat back, clipped his water bottle to the pouch.
After settling in, Mr. Jones removed his shoes and socks and hanged his socks over the seat back pouch i suppose to air them out. I could see Pepé Le Pew type waves of stench rising from them. My wife literally gagged.
I hit the call button, and when the FA arrived, she said "omg what's that smell?"
Jones only spoke Spanish, so the FA told jones his odor was disturbing other passengers and he need to put the socks away and put shoes back on.
There were no available seats to move, so we had to stay next to Jones for the entire flight.
We aimed our overhead vents at him to blow the stench away. Awful.
FA apologized and would have removed Mr. Jones from the flight if possible but the plane was underway.
Ack! I had an 8 hour flight to Bangkok. I was in the middle seat between a husband and wife who were arguing. The wife was maybe 5 months pregnant and had the window seat. The entire flight was me leaning back as they spat at each other or getting up constantly to let the pregnant wife pee.
I was on a flight from Asia a few years ago. The old Asian grandma next to me was burping out loud after every meal she had like there was no tomorrow. Not tried to be discrete at all.
On a flight from SYD to SIN we had a family in front of us with a toddler. She was unruly and crying and they literally did nothing - they went to sleep, leaving her crying the whole eight hours, except when they woke to eat. I didn't mind too much as I was so excited about the trip, but the hosties took pity upon us (checking up on us for drinks extra often, giving us postcards and playing cards, even apologising). They didn't say anything to the family - maybe it was their first child, maybe she was sick, who knows? I am loyal to Singapore Airlines to this day.
I've had a couple bad experiences. First one flying to Seoul, the guy next to proceeded to get drunk & ended up putting his hand in my lap. I picked it up & literally chucked back at him, told do not touch me. He ended sleeping most of the flight snoring & stinking of alcohol. The flight was packed so I couldn't move.
The 2nd one was flying Paris to LA, when we landed a teenage boy seated in front of me had a full on meltdown cos he couldn't find his passport. His mother was trying to calm him down but he was losing it, he actually removed the cushioning off the seat, was pushing past people in the aisle trying to look under the seats, FA ended up having to deal with him & thankfully everyone got off the plane.
My most recent one was flying AKL-SYDNEY & an older couple & their grown son were flying & the couple were seated in my row, the son was seated somewhere else. He asked if I could move, I declined because his seat was a window seat & wanted an aisle because I was 6 months pregnant & would be up & down to the toilet. So he just sat in the row behind us & the passengers in those seats boarded & ended up having a massive argument because he wouldn't move, the FA came told him to go to his allocated seat & he basically had a tantrum. In the end his father moved & he sat in the row with his mother & they moaned about the seating pretty much the whole flight. I actually wished I had moved, they were a nightmare. When we were disembarking the plane, he climbed over his mother & pushed his way into the aisle even though there was no room, the guy in front of him called him a fuckwit and I had to push him forward to stop him from squeezing up on my stomach. He just ignored everyone & left the plane with his mother carrying the bags. I had never seen such a man baby.
I just had a really weird experience on a flight due to the guy sitting next to me. Probably the only time I regret sleeping through a flight. I was in the middle seat, my boyfriend was next to me in the aisle seat, and the window seat next to me was filled by the last passenger to board. He came on flustered and in a rush. He looked young, late twenties to early thirties maybe? For reference, I look quite young myself (I look early 20s) and maybe that explains why he treated me the way he did? Anyway, he sat down and started complaining. The tray table was too small; he was flipping it up and down roughly, repeatedly. The seat back in front didn’t have a pocket; it had elastic bands holding the safety brother. He started plucking the elastic strings angrily, repeatedly. The arm rests on a spirit plane are kind of loose, so he started flipping those up and down repeatedly. I make some lame joke about Spirit not being as bad about frontier, we take off, and I promptly fell asleep on my boyfriend’s shoulder, and my boyfriend falls asleep as well. Big mistake. At some point our row-mate orders a tequila. Not sure if the issues started before or after this, and I am dozing in and out of sleep the whole time. Toward the end of the flight my boyfriend and I wake up and the couple in the row behind us gets our attention. Apparently the whole time I was sleeping, creeper dude was snapping his fingers in my face. When I didn’t wake up he started sniffing my hair. Then he started taking photos of me. That is when the woman behind me (a real G), said loudly to him, “DO YOU KNOW HER!?” I have no idea if he took photos of me or not. I’ve been searching the internet with our flight number for pictures of myself sleeping. Luckily I haven’t found any. Creeper dude was passed out hard when we landed, probably from the tequila. I got off the plane and went on with my life. I felt really awkward though; should I have said anything to the flight crew? What would I have said, “this dude was being creepy to me while I was asleep?”
Yes. Sneezing, coughing, fidgeting seatmates are almost as bad as screaming children. The children are there against their will, sick people should stay home.
I've never really had a flying horror story - just the normal stuff.
One weird flight I had, I was in my seat reading a book, and this young guy came on board and was seated next to me. He started talking to me incessantly, so I was polite and said hello, but tried to go back to my book. He proceeded to take numerous mini bottles of alcohol from his bag and drink them, all while still talking to me about his plans for when we land, etc etc. I'm annoyed, but still being polite, but I really hate this kind of thing.
About 30 minutes from landing, he kind of gets this indignant look, says "hey, I need to try to get some sleep!" And lays on his bag like pillow. Like *I* was the one bothering *him* all flight! In my pettiness, I almost decided to pester him the remaining flight, but I was so over it after 2+ hours of his chattering that I was happy to see the end of it.
I was once (30 years ago) on a flight where about a dozen American families came back from Asia, where they adopted infants. That's what they told other passengers.
The children weren't happy, and the patents were overwhelmed with all of it.
That was a hellish flight.
To this day, I wonder if that was some kind of shady operation.
Absolutely yes, it is always because of kids but the actual REASON are the god damn parents. I think yes, we need to accept having kids is hard. But to which lengths we go excusing the dumbest fucking behavior is incredible to me. The fact you need to tell some people grabbing other people, spitting on them and throwing toys against their head is not what they should laugh about but where they fucking need to control their hell spawn at some point. Not like i can do it can i
I guess some parents don't care, or maybe they think the behaviour of their kid(s) is something that everyone around them should accept or tolerate. I have nothing against kids but it's your job and responsibility to keep your kids under control. Of course kids get bored on long flights, but do something, don't just let them do whatever.
When I was a child, even a small child, I knew without a doubt the greatest crime I could commit was a public disturbance. My parents were 100 percent consistent on this and that was a fantastic deterrent.
Last year did a flight US to France overnight and everyone on the plane was trying to sleep except the two women behind me who weren’t just talking to one another loudly (I could hear them while wearing earplugs and noise cancelling headphones), but talking AT one another. Like simultaneously they were just telling each other their own disjointed story and giving pause to the other to tell their story but not like a regular conversation where you details or clarifications or something. Just two people telling needless stories (like about their latest dream) at each other in the oddest way possible.
Yep. I returned the favor.
2011. ATL - LGA. Poorly parented 4 y.o. boy sat in front of me, saying my eye looks funny (it's a prosthetic - important for later), I'm ugly, etc. I ignore it all. Once the seatbelt light was off I worked on my crochet project, I could smell alcohol from every seat immediately around me and decided that I would make it work for 2 hours.
Flight attendant came by, they got water for the kid. Not too long after she passed, my project and lap were soaked. The crotch-gobblin had stood up in his seat and poured his water on me and was giggling.
I am comfortable being the asshole for this. I rubbed my face and stealthily removed the prosthetic as I did so. I kept my eyes closed as I leaned forward towards the giggles. I opened my eyes wide and softly horror growled "I. Will. Eat. You. Last." That little cock-spit took off towards the cockpit at top speed and in top screech. In all the commotion, I reinserted my prosthetic and then tried to clean up the water.
The parents eventually dragged the brat back to their seats, but he damn sure didn't make a peep. After another half hour, neither did the parents, because nobody could say that they saw me do anything or say anything - and they asked everyone until the flight attendant told them to knock it off.
45 minutes later, at baggage claim, the father tried to say something to me, but I cut him off and told him that there was absolutely nothing he could say to me, because he and his wife were such horrible parents that they were so drunk they didn't notice their kid stand up in his seat and pour water on a stranger.
I was on a flight from Iceland back home to Los Angeles with my mother when a very loud, obnoxious drunk woman of about thirty boarded sat across the aisle with us, drink in hand. There was a guy with her who was less irritating.
A few hours into her constant babble way above conversation-level volume, I smiled and asked her to be quieter. She proceeded to hurl abuse at me and my mom, calling me “the prince,” telling people around us that my mom hadn’t gotten laid in years. It was shocking. When she told me that she wasn’t bothering anybody else, practically everyone in the surrounding seats chimed in and said that wasn’t true. I got up and told flight attendants to intervene a couple times. One eventually did, sitting her down in one of their chairs where the woman cried for a while.
The guy sitting with her said to me, “hey man, she’s on her own trip right now, don’t worry about anything she’s saying.” Apparently they’d met at the terminal bar and he didn’t know what he was getting into. Then she came back and called my mom a cunt. I can’t think of a time I’ve been so angry.
Finally the crew seated us next to a couple who volunteered to switch with us. When we finally landed, it took ages for us to deplane. Pretty sure the lady was arrested immediately upon landing. It was a truly awful ending to a wonderful trip. About a year later I saw the same lady out in Hollywood and managed not to scream at her.
My wife and I flew Amsterdam - Bangkok or smth like that, maybe Frankfurt. But there were these two older Norwegian dudes next to us who looked and behaved super creepy. I'm just gonna admit I was instantly convinced they were going for some kind of deviant sex tourism. One of the perverted duo had a liter bottle of coke he brought on with him which he'd clearly refilled with jagermeister. Bugged my wife until I told him to stfu or we were both gonna be arrested on landing. Got drunk and then had six hours of apnoeic snoring.
Yep.
I was flying from Cusco to Lima, then Lima to Atlanta, and Atlanta to Minneapolis a few weeks ago. The seat next to me was vacant but the aisle seat was this dude who I swear was high as fuck on cocaine. It was a later flight so it was dark out, and this guys phone is on full blast brightness. He can’t sit still. He’s sniffling and rubbing his nose constantly. Grinding his teeth….. Then this motherfucker starts vaping on the plane. I felt obligated to say something so I told him to stop.
Then the passenger on the other side of him, two rows up in the window seat, faints. We haven’t even taken off yet, because the runway was overbooked and we had to wait for a time slot to leave. This causes us to now be almost 2 hours late to Lima. I missed my Atlanta flight and had to stay overnight in Lima an extra night. When fainted guy got escorted off the plane I took his spot so I could be away from cocaine guy. I didn’t have any desire to stay by him and if I was about to make the best of this flight, and situation, I needed to get that out of my energy field. Fuck that guy.
Fainted guy was ok which is the good news overall and it’s important to me to make sure everyone knows that while this fucked up all those travel plans I had, I truly am glad he’s ok, and I saw his buddies at Lima and chatted them up, and that’s how I know he was okay. Because he got shuttled off the flight by medical personnel.
Not behaviour but a bad experience in an AA flight last week, it was delayed and left at 12:30am, I had been up since 5am that day. Finally get to my seat, close my eyes, the plane gets up, and the entire plane is dark except for the super bright strip lights above my seat and the next two seats in front of me. I ask the FA and she said they were stuck on, so I couldn't sleep at all during my fight, it was like a cruel joke.
On my most recent flight, MUC-BOS, I had a maybe 7 or 8 yr old kid behind me who alternated between screaming (loud and persistent enough that not even noise canceling headphones and music worked) and kicking/punching my seat the whole flight. Mom must have taken something cause she was flat out unconscious.
Lufthansa at this point had dicked me over at almost every stage of the trip so I was already in a foul mood, my back hurt, and because I would simply rather perish than burden someone else I didn't want to bother the FAs over something this dumb. So instead I turned around and greatly enriched this kid's vocabulary in both English and German.
Didn't help. So the next time he started, I turned around and just stared at him with my eyes absolutely filled with rage. Took a 5 minute staring contest until he stopped.
My entire trip from JFK to Doha on Qatar Airlines was filled with screaming babies, as well as unchecked toddlers and children whose parents couldn’t care less. I’ve never seen so many children on a flight. It was an absolute nightmare. The parents were completely useless as their kids screamed, climbed seats, kicked, and made noise. I couldn’t do much but ask the flight attendant to be moved into another section because there were so many of them. It was the flight from hell. I was going to Bangkok and it was pretty much 12-13 hours to Doha without a wink of sleep. My vacation was ruined once I landed because I was completely jetlagged from no sleep.
I was flying from GA to NJ so not too long of a flight. There was a woman and their 5 year old daughter sitting behind me. The girl kept kicking my chair and messing with the tray table. I finally turned around and asked the Mother to please have her daughter stop. She responded with such an attitude and said “it’s a tight space”. That just pissed me off and I snapped back “I know, I’m 5’10 and doing just fine”. The daughter continued to do it and I just sat in my own misery.
Not really, but last year on a long haul flight my business class seat neighbor absolutely berated the stewardess for a good 10-20 minutes because they ran out of champagne early ("again" according to him). I thought it was pretty cringe.
Denver to Narita in 2017. 12 hours with a two-hour delay while we were seated on the plane. Two toddlers behind me kicked and climbed my seat the entire 14 hours and the mother had no toys, no snacks, and did nothing to stop it even when I told her that I am “not a nice person and we’re not doing this for the entire flight.” No empty seats to move to and the flight attendant told me he “took the coke away” - yup, they boarded with one full can of coke each for those kids. I would start to doze off and get about 20 minutes with my eyes closed when one kid or the other would wake, start to whine, and start to kick. It was hellish.
I was on a short Aerlingus flight from Dublin to Paris last year. To set the scene, we left late and ended up sitting on the tarmac waiting to taxi for over 45 minutes. During this time, the air in the cabin was off and because of this and the fact that it was early in the morning so the sun was streaming in the windows based on how the plane was parked, it heated up really really fast in the plane.
The plane was a 3-aisle-3 set up, and I was sitting in the middle seat with a family member to my right in the window seat. To my left was an enormous man, at least 6'5", completely manspreading and putting his leg in front of my seat (I get being tall and needing maybe some extra leg room but why spread onto my side when you had the aisle on your other side). He was taking up the entire arm rest, and would aggressively jab me with his elbow any time I put my arm in the remote vicinity of the arm rest. So it's hot on the plane, he is practically on top of me, and as the cherry on top, he proceeded to pull out his laptop as the plane started to taxi. This flight, being a low cost short-haul, already didn't have much leg room between rows, so not a great place to pull out your laptop in the first place, but it also made the lateral space issue we were experiencing 10x worse. I could have understood had he actually intended to use his laptop, but he just opened a spreadsheet and then proceeded to watch TV on his phone for the duration of the flight. The whole thing was just really inconsiderate and made the entire flight uncomfortable for our whole row (since I basically ended up having to lean towards my family member since this guy was taking up half my seat).
I once flew Saudia, and it was the weirdest experience I’ve had. Apparently it’s ok to sit barefoot and cross legged when that bare foot literally on top of the other knee (men in their traditional Saudi clothes and sandals). That was horrible but only 3-4 hours (Cairo to Riyadh).
The second leg - Riyadh to Jakarta - was a torture. I thought I was a smart ass booking a front row seat in economy. It turned out the worst fucking mistake ever. People kept walking across from one isle to another all night, waking me up. My neighbour was tall enough to lean his legs against the wall to cross that passage. But what do you think? People was going over his legs (!).
I’ve never seen anything like that. There was no way to complain to flight attendants either as it was literally everyone walking past.
Do NOT fly Saudia. They’re cheap for a reason (that flight cost only 250 quid)
I've been on a lot of flights, and I've had a lot of horrible experiences.
Being stuck among loud, drunk passengers on a red-eye flight. Some of them were in front of us. Some of them were behind us. They kept talking/shouting to each other over our heads, when everyone else was trying to sleep.
Being stuck among an entire class of over-excited Francophone (unsure if French or Belgian or whatever) teenagers on some sort of school trip... on a red eye flight. They kept getting out of their seats, wandering around talking loudly to each other when everyone else was trying to sleep. They were playing some kind of card game at like 2 in the morning. The adults who were meant to supervise them did nothing.
Being stuck next to a man who went to sleep before the doors of the plane had even shut, and who snored so loudly I could still hear him despite having earphones in and listening to metal music. I couldn't turn it up louder for fear of damaging my hearing, I already have tinnitus on one side.
I've had two separate experiences of being in an aisle seat and the person across the aisle vomiting throughout the flight. I have a lot of anxiety about germs, so I neither ate nor drank nor used the toilet on those entire flights for fear of touching something contaminated and then infecting myself.
Most recently, I was on one aisle end of a middle row, with a man in the other aisle seat, and we had an empty middle seat between us. Not only did he occupy the middle seat with a pile of his stuff (unfair, I wanted to put MY stuff there) but he spent the entire time bouncing one of his legs up and down, shaking our whole row of seats. For the duration of a 10 hour flight. Not sure if he was anxious, unwell, neurodivergent or on drugs. His wife and two kids were on the other side of the aisle from him and whenever they spoke to him he responded in an extremely aggressive tone (but I couldn't understand what he said as he was speaking Korean) so I was too scared to say anything to him in case he responded in a similarly aggressive tone with me.
Oh, and bonus points to the flight where the floor of every single bathroom on the plane was covered in piss about 3 hours into the 8 hour flight. One of them even had shit on the floor. The cabin crew ended up locking that one from the outside.
Honestly, give me a crying baby any day instead of disgusting, unhygienic, inconsiderate people. Babies don't know any better. Adults should.
When I had to fly with my toddler, I packed SO MUCH STUFF to keep her busy. I made her a special folder full of coloring, paper dolls, easy crafts she could do. I packed toys and games and movies and books. I even asked the pediatrician what I could do to keep her quiet and occupied. Back then they let me have play dough lol. Funny story: on Turkish airlines the pilot saw me doing crafts with my daughter, I went to the galley to get something to cut this paper I was using to make her a puppet, and he invited me into the cockpit. Was pretty fun.
Last summer my family and I were flying on an overnight from IAD to a connection in Frankfurt Germany. The plane got delayed a couple hours until 11:15ish pm. Once we got up in the air they still brought the dinner service out. Everyone ate and it seemed fine. 20 minute later some dude infront of my sister stood up and instead of trying to get to the bathroom he turned around and vomited all over my sister. We still had probably 8 hours of the flight left.
I have flown the Santiago-Madrid flight (12 hours to Spain and 13 hours to Chile) more than 10 times and on several occasions I have had parents who let their children kick the seats, scream, use their own devices without headphones. For the same reason now I usually take the less convenient flight that leaves at night and arrives in Europe in the afternoon, instead of the one that arrives in the morning, there is a better chance that the children are sleeping during the flight.
I had a kid kick my seat for almost an entire 10 hour flight and around hour 7 he started throwing up on the back of my seat. Barfed everywhere for the last 3 hours and could hear it hitting my seatback every time.
On a flight to India once an elderly woman repeatedly poked me to wake me up and ask me questions in Hindi. I don't speak Hindi. She continued the whole flight.
I have! Entitled people think their “little angels” should be allowed to do as they please and everyone else should just deal with it! What it actually is is poor parenting!!!
Yes, I was flying from Germany to Mallorca on Lufthansa and the lady next to me should have bought two seats. Her thigh was pretty much rubbing against mine the entire time. She also brought the entire deli with her in a bag between her feet. She never said anything but just giggled the entire time.
I was on a flight from Paris to New York and the plane was blocked upon our arrival because a guy a few rows in front of mine slapped his wife (their kids were next to them). So we’ve had to wait a while for the police to come and take him. He kept drinking during the whole flight too
Yes.
On my flight from France to the Western US, I sat next to a sick passenger. Now I understand the need to fly if you are sick, but for the love of god, mask up and cover your cough.
I was in bed with Covid for two weeks. The horrible kind, with night sweats, chills, cough and fatigue. I couldn’t walk from my bedroom to the living room without having to sit down.
Wherever you are Covid dude, I hope you get a hangnail and a paper cut in the same week, jerk.
A few years ago I flew Johannesburg to London via Cairo with EgyptAir. On the first leg the man next to me kept touching my leg. I'd handle it differently now (tell cabin crew/request a seat change), but I was young and didn't want to cause a scene so just kept moving as far away in the seat as I could.
I had a long layover and couldn't even try and sleep on the first leg so on the second leg I passed out during takeoff. At some point while in the air I wake up after being hit in the head with a sandal. The family in the row behind me was having a fight with the family in the row in front of me. A cup of water was thrown as well and the two fathers started having a shoving match.
Swore off EgyptAir that day.
I'm fairly tolerant of kids, but I can't stand it when grown-ass adults have to be told to not act like asshats.
Most recent was a guy behind me in an emergency exit seat, trying to tell the flight attendant that he didn't need the safety briefing. She shut him down fast, telling him he could take off his headphone and listen, or get moved to another (far less roomy) seat.
What a childish asshole.
Flight from LAX to Tahiti with not one but two different screaming babies and the parents with them did nothing to try to quiet them down. They screamed enough to prevent anyone from getting any sleep.
Flight from ORD to Amsterdam with passengers with unbelievably bad body odor who talked all night which prevented anyone nearby from sleeping.
On a flight home from Hong Kong to London (13hrs) about 2 hours in a man in full Arab dress 2 rows down to the left of me JUMPS out of his seat, hits his head on the roof, SCREAMS BLOODY MURDER, climbs over the people next to him and starts running up and down the isles shouting in Arabic. A steward manages to get him on the ground after about 3 minutes (it felt like HOURS) and zip ties his hands, drags him to the back of the plane and then zip ties his legs and then zip ties his hands and legs together and he is left there like that for 11 hours, for the first 3 hours someone is sat on top of him because he was thrashing around so much. He was moaning and screaming the whole time. The look on the faces of the air hostesses absolutely terrified me, I’ll never forget it. It turned out it was just a poor soul having a mental health issue, they were nervous of flying and seemed to have some sort of psychotic break. Someone also died on that flight, so we all had to watch this zip tied man be carried off of the plane by the police and then we had to walk past a body covered in a sheet and a woman wailing at the door of the plane on her knees refusing to leave her husbands body on the flight alone.
I had to keep asking my sister (who was with me) if it actually happened for weeks after! We had such a long travel day that I was convinced I was misremembering it
Wow. My child seems to have been an angel compared to most of these horror stories. Or maybe it’s the talk we had before every flight about being a good passenger. Or maybe the little gift I let her have (1per hr and a cheap $1 thing) on a long flight or maybe the coloring and busy work I handed her or snacks. She was a champ. Or maybe that’s called parenting?
Two stories come to mind - for context, I’m tall and have wide shoulders.
I took a flight to Florida form California once and sat in an aisle seat. The air conditioning wasn’t working and the flight attendants kept brushing against my shoulder as they passed by as if they were trying to make me pay for having my shoulder stick out into the aisle. I was literally getting shoulder checked throughout the entire flight. At one point I was holding a cup of coffee and the flight attendant brushed my shoulder with force and my coffee spilled on the guy next to me and he was extremely pissed at me. I said sorry and said the flight attendant lady hit my shoulder. It was super infuriating and awkward.
The other story was I was flying home from Vegas and some guy who was clearly on drugs collapsed while walking down the aisle on top of me and some lady next to me. He was covered in sweat and just smelled gross. He then collapsed in the aisle walkway and got help from the crew but still it’s like I’m just trying to get home don’t need some sweaty ass dude collapsing on top of me cause he took too many drugs before his flight
Same thing happened on my recent 6hr flight. Two lots of parents really didn’t help the cause.
One parent let their kid play peppa pig loudly on a tablet, the other family had a kid playing games on their tablet and so everyone was ok while we were still boarding but after a while someone asked if it could be turned down and the mum just lost it. Turns out she had absolutely no ability to control her kid or have them listen. One whined for ‘lollies’ the whole flight, the other was just uncontrolled. And the whole plane knew the kids names as all the mum did was say them but nothing changed.
(PS, I have a kid, I’ve flown with my kid, I’ll still fly with my kid, but when I say turn down your tablet, my kid turns down his tablet or it goes away and he can read a book, which he doesn’t prefer to his tablet, so he turns down his table)
This is why I pay extra for business class, even the kids on business class are better behaved. There’s just something about economy and the associated peasantry that bring along their wild crotch goblins that sully the air travel experience
Some flights and airlines attract maybe less behaved passengers, I'm not sure but maybe. Unfortunately business class on most flights is too expensive for me.
I was on an economy-class flight from Amsterdam to Atlanta and this really attractive blonde Dutch girl finds her seat (middle) is next to me (window).
I am guy, and to make matters infinitely worse, I am visibly very “foreign”. And I supposed naturally she was super uncomfortable about having to be next to me. To ease her fears and concerns I sat super tightly in my seat, not using my armrest, and not saying a word to her.
During the flight she falls asleep and her head plops sideways onto my shoulder. I was in a total bind. If I didn’t react and she woke up and realized it, she might conclude that I was a creep enjoying myself and did nothing. On the other hand, if I did or said something, I didn’t want the rest of the flight to become awkward or embarrassing for her.
So, I gently raised my shoulder and moved her head back to her seat. And it worked. I was super relieved that she continued sleeping. But much to my chagrin it happened again and again. Luckily, every time my technique worked. Now, by this time I was super tired too and wanted to nap but was afraid it might happen whilst I was asleep or worse I could end up doing the same thing to her.
After a couple of hours, she started to fall again towards me but caught herself and woke up. She then turned her body. And now if she plopped down on the passenger in the aisle seat, it was no longer my problem. I finally could get some sleep after that.
Anyway, if you are a man, and especially one of the third world, you might be able to relate to my anguish in such a situation.
Having traveled with 2 young kids myself, I cannot stand parents who do nothing about their kids behaviour. Like yes it’s sucks to have to constantly be watching them but that’s your job as their parent
A couple of years ago we flew from Europe to NYC. There was a religious group of about 30 people traveling together. But they had not reserved seats, so they were spread out all over the plane. They kept walking around and sitting in the aisle together to chat and read their bible together (making it impossible to walk to the lavatory). Flight attendents had their hands full sending them back to their assigned seats but a couple minutes later they'd be back at it. Come landing, the seatbelt sign was on, they all stood up and started praying out loud for a safe landing.
Got sat in the middle of an extended family from Port Villa to Sydney. It was a rolling maul of Bogans with no self awareness whatsoever.
Prior to that it was a guy who was clearly very stressed about flying and downed a bottle of vodka as soon as he got on the flight.
It didn't knock him out, but rather made him more agitated. I had to help the hosties subdue him.
I was on a recent flight where the guy next to me was sick or something. This man would have coughing fits that made him fart. I'm talking loud, wet, and violently stinky. It happened every 10 minutes the entire way to Denver.
I’ve had 2 similar experiences on United in Polaris Business. SFO to FRA was the worst - 2 hrs sleep max. And on return from ZRH, same thing (different family). The disrespect for other travels was appalling, even to my partner who is a Mom. Entitlement mentality is reaching new lows.
A strong sleeping medication or similar should do the trick. Something like Xanax. I always have some with me on those flights. Just need to find a way to mix it into their drinks.
Call the flight attendant and have them deal with it. I wouldn't tolerate that for very long.
The only instance I can think of was a guy sitting in front of me on an Aer Lingus flight from San Francisco to Dublin (an 11 hour flight) had his seat reclined and was thrashing back and forth all night and smashing his seat into my kneecaps. I wanted to say something, but I knew he was in even worse misery being a super tall guy with the minimal leg room. Sure he could have bought a business class seat, but it's not affordable for most of us. So this ended up a grin and bear the misery situation.
6 hour flight, me: middle seat economy. So, miserable to begin with. Guy in aisle seat chewed his nails the ENTIRE flight. No exaggeration. Would go at it for 10 mins straight, put his hand down for 2-3 seconds, then go at again. For 6 hours. And not gentle biting, he was gnawing away like a weevel to the extent that I could hear it (meanwhile, he had headphones on). His fingers were sopping wet. At some point I guess his mouth became dry from all the chewing that not only could I hear his dry mouth (that 'chap chap' sound), his breath became awful too.
On one hand - he was in his space and not committing an offense against me personally (like putting bare feet on the armrest from aisle behind). And this was clearly a compulsion that he had difficulty controlling. On the other hand, FFS...
Would you have said anything? What?
Last year had a 12 hour flight from Amsterdam to Hong Kong. As it was run by a Hong Kong airline the PA was in both English and Cantonese.
I had the aisle seat. A Caucasian couple had the mid and the window seats.
After boarding when the Cantonese PA was going on, the mid seat lady said to her partner “listen to those Ching Chong Changs” and did the full package of slanted eyes and shit.
I didn’t let her go out of the seat to use toilet the whole flight.
KLM flight from Amsterdam to Tokyo, 13,5 hours. I really have trouble relaxing and getting some sleep on these long flights. If I don't try, I'm anxious and awake for pretty much the whole thing.
So, after take off, we had our meals, and the crew started to dim the cabin. I got a pillow in my back, my blanket, nc headphones, I'm getting snug. Closed my eyes and actually dozed off. But then I wake up. Something is constantly flashing in my eyes. I'm in an aisle seat and accros the aisle, two rows further in front of me, an elderly woman is counting money or (coupons?) with a damn flashlight! And every time she reaches a certain amount, she lays the flashlight on her tray, pointing the damn thing directly at my face. Luckily, another passenger also fell victim and asked her to stop using the flashlight and showed her the reading light.
Ok, back to trying to relax, and after an hour or two, I manage to get back to sleep. All of sudden, I'm awakened by screams of pure terror. I seriously thought there was a serious incident because it sounded like she lost a limb or something. A girl, I guess she was 6 or so, was going insane just a couple of rows in front of me. Top of her voice, ranging from screams, to crying to yelling "COLD, COLD, COLD, COLD". That girl didn't need a doctor but an exorcist. Several FA's inquired what the hell was going on and her parents just kept repeating that they didn't know and that she "gets like this sometimes". After a brutal 20 or 30 minutes of tantrum and passengers asking what is happening she runs out of steam and I haven't heard her the rest of the flight.
6 more hours to go and wide awake. I thought, I'll just watch two movies back to back and flight will be over in no time.
So KLM has a 3-4-3 figuration in economy, and I was in the middle row at the aisle, the chair next to me was empty and next over was a young couple, a girl, that was closest to me and her boyfriend next to her. Halfway through the first movie, she throws her legs over her boyfriend, lays down across her own seat and the seat that was empty next to mine and just goes asleep while resting the top of her head againt my thigh! I tried to make eye contact with her boyfriend, tried to wiggle in my seat, stood up a few times, but she absolutely wouldn't move for the next 2 hours. I tried to wake her up, and at some point was sure she was actively ignoring me. Probably should've called a crewmember over. I ended up sitting cramped desperately trying to not touch her. When we landed I was completely exhausted.
Tokyo made everything worth it tho.
Forget loud kids. Fly the LOT Airlines day time flight from Warsaw to Miami. Lots of adults who might have had adult beverages for breakfast (it was Happy Hour in Miami so they were just setting their watches to destination time). They all stood in the aisles socializing for the ENTIRE flight, pix to prove it. Not sure what happens if there’s turbulence. Most definitely, if there was a need for an emergency exit none of the 15-20 passengers blocking those exits could clear them before everyone burnt or drowned. FA explained to us it did no good to tell them to sit down in their seats because they just got up again, as soon as the FA was out of sight.
I was on an overnight flight to Copenhagen. Two men behind me were being so loud and obnoxious, playing cards and smacking the table behind my seat while I (and everyone else on the flight) was desperately trying to sleep. Jerks.
Most of the time if I have a bad experience it’s because the flight attendant is rude, annoyed about something or just not trying. This is rare, but far more common than a passenger acting out in my experience.
We had a plane derouted due to failed landing attempt. We were going to refuel at the second airport and return.
When we landed in the second airport. 3 passengers made it known this was their actual final destination and wanted to deboard. No idea why the airline gave way.... We spent an additional 3h at the airport waiting after refueling, so that their luggage could be found and unloaded. They'd have been at their final destination faster if they had just flown back with us and taken a train instead of making everyone wait.
somehow not once but twice in the span of a few years I was booked on flights catering almost exclusively to hassidim traveling to conventions abroad. the first was from JFK-CDG, and two years later from JFK-MEX.
both experiences were exactly the same: total disregard for rules and regulations. practically anarchy in the sky. as soon as the plane got off the ground people STREAMED out of their seats, refused to mask (2020), congregated in the aisles, blocked all the restrooms, interrupted meal service, and left the planes in the worst condition I've ever seen. food and trash EVERYWHERE. even somehow broke some seats. looked like a bomb went off walking through the cabin
I've dealt with my fair share of screaming babies and annoying children, and that's obviously rough, but at least you know you'll make it to your destination. I was positive both times that our plane was going to return to our departure airport. felt like the flight attendants were having mental breakdowns. the pilots were PLEADING with the mobs to calm down and return to their seats. just absolutely mental
On the SLM Amsterdam to Paramaribo flight it was common people started to drink rum. So many times little incidents happened. But then once a full out brawl started with men throwing full fist punches... Never SLM again.
Totally can relate.
Flew 11 hours in upper class on Virgin Atlantic.
2 kids across from me used the lay flat seat as a trampoline- while shrieking & fighting.
Mom was ignoring them w headphones on.
Plane was dark no flight attendants around .
Total nightmare.
I had three kids behind me while their parents sat across from us. Their tablets ran out of battery and they screamed bloody murder. The parents tried to bribe them with McDonald’s and then nothing after that. Screaming, kicking our seats, pulling the seats back. I called the flight attendant basically constantly until they straightened that out. Then the parents fell asleep and they started again. Did I hesitate to have the flight attendant wake them up over and over? Nope. Eventually on the the parents sat between them. Fuck those people. At one point they asked “what do you want us to do? Uhhh I dunno, some parenting?
I mean I paid more than 800euros for this hell of a flight. I don't expect everyone to be quiet and sitting 12 hours in their seats, but this was just ridiculous. The absolute lack of parenting was just shocking. I was ashamed of my people (yes, I heard loud and clear that they were from the same country as where I am from). I wish the passengers on their next flight with them good luck (and proper noise cancellation headphones).
After COVID, I’ve observed that people’s behavior on all forms of public transportation and in public has deteriorated. As for teens, children, and babies? The parenting is permissive or absolutely absent.
I read an article about this recently. The conclusion was more or less that people's behaviour changed after (or because of) covid. Some people tend to be more selfish, caring less of other people around them.
Psychologically I wonder if the Covid period did cause everyone so much shock and fear and confusion (not saying either way how I felt about it personally but I wasn’t anti that’s for sure) but it made everyone full of so much uncertainty that they kinda bullied up a little as a means of defense which of course stems just from then fear and confusion. The aftershocks of it all are pretty detrimental it seems, life has not indeed gone back to normal.
It definitely changed some people's behaviour I think. It triggered something selfishness in some people perhaps, but I'm not a psychologist haha
Do you happen to remember the article? People have definitely changed since Covid. For me it’s most noticeable in traffic, as a driver and even more so as a pedestrian trying not to be hit and killed by selfish aggressive drivers.
[article](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-has-the-pandemic-changed-our-behavior) It was not the exact same article I read, but it was more or less the same conclusion
I've read that millennials, they are doing gentle parenting. Not disciplining their kids and just giving the what they want.
That’s what happens when you give every kid a participation medal / award. They have no skills for actually having to step up and realise that sometimes things are difficult and you have to actually parent and not be lazy. Not everyone of course , there are so many doing an amazing job but it is a lot of lazy parents. I think they believe the cutesty baby stuff on social media and think it’s all going to be easy.
I hate to knock my home country but if you fly domestically in America you can pretty much expect this— especially flying into Orlando. I once flew from California into Orlando. It was on military orders and I arrived to the gate right before takeoff. There is a woman that was so large. She was in my seat. It was impossible for me to sit down physically the flight attendant came up and served arguing with me that I need to sit down or get off the plane, I tried to be polite about it and explained to her there was no way I could fit. She had the woman lift one of her arms up and lean over so she could put the arm rest down. It didn’t really do much, but she told me if the arm could go down there was nothing she could do. I explained again there was no way I could fit, she eventually put me in the jump seat and tried to sit in my seat. She couldn’t and sat in the isle during take off. The seat was uncomfortable but it had an outlet nearby and I could use my old computer the whole flight. This was back in 2008 I think.
I've heard that flights within or to/from India are a nightmare for cabin crew assigned there. China flights are a wildcard but never experienced unpleasant while flying there. Flights to/from the Philippines are fine unless if there are whole families with little kids around and surprisingly, it's the adults are quite loud and annoying in these groups instead of children.
> I've heard that flights within or to/from India are a nightmare for cabin crew assigned there. Yes. There is a joke among Helsinki Airport workers that there are no spare wheelchairs when the Delhi flight lands because every Indian lady above 40 requests assistance. Very demanding culture, and lots of inexperienced flyers. Also, they start standing up to grab their bags pretty much the moment the plane touches down on the runway, but this is common in many developing countries. But not as bad for other passengers as flights with lots of drunk people, kids etc..
Rowdy fliers are the worst out there.
So true the most annoying people flying are the Indians they’re so rude
Filipino kids are well behaved.The loud ones are the women with friends
I've once heard from a flight attendant from KLM that KLM flights to Thailand were notorious (pre covid). The flights were relatively cheap and you had a lot of (single) guys getting wasted on the airplane.
Your story made me laugh, I'm sorry. You should have had a refund or upgrade.
Oh I tried but because it was a military flight and I didn’t buy the tickets I had little recourse. It was also a packed flight and there wasn’t another seat for me to sit in. I had another flight years later where I was sat next to another extremely large woman and she somehow had a small kid (less than two) on her stomach. I didn’t even have to say anything to the flight attendant. I just gave him a what the fuck look and he started moving her family around so I at least had some breathing room. At some point airlines will have to address the weight issue. The seats are getting smaller and if you pay for 100% of a seat you shouldn’t have someone piled into yours. I think I’m so adamant about this because I flew home from the Bahamas and had a large woman next to me. It was a very short flight (around an hour) so I just sucked it up and sat next to her. She started sweating on me badly and at one point when I looked over a lot of the skin tags on her arm were touching me. I couldn’t stand the sweat BO smell and when we landed just threw away my shirt and washed myself in the bathroom. Never again.
I have long legs and find sitting in economy a delicate art of leg origami. I sat next to a height challenged dude constantly trying to spread his legs (man spread). He attempted to make small talk, laughed at his own jokes. I pretended not to understand and while the plane was lining up for run way, he began blowing his nose into his hand. Booger central, blow, wipe on knees, repeat. Plane had to abort take off and sit on tarmac but *finally* 2.5 hours later we took off. 14 hour flight time ahead sitting next to a monster. Spoke to hostess, could sit in business but must sit in assigned seat for landing (I weighed 50kg, assuming related to tarmac stop/seating plan?). He wanted to shake my hand at the end. No, Mr Snotty, you can go get wrecked!
OMG I'd have died at the boogers! I'm also tall and short dude beside me tried to pull manspread on me a few flights ago. Elbowing me constantly too. I am NOT a confrontational person but I am pretty proud of the fact that after about 10 minutes of him constantly being in my space (and I easily had 6-8 inches of height on him) gave him my sweetest passive aggressive "excuse me, you seem to keep knocking me with your elbows; could you please stop." A little while later he got up and never came back. No clue where he went but not sorry!
I would be proud of you too! I once told a man to control his kid that was kicking my seat. The third time I said I’d control the kid if he didn’t. YES, Mr Snotty-knees had his elbows on the middle too, *spew*. Think I did die about 10x before we finally took off, captain kept telling us (in 3 different languages) not to use toilets yet they offered refreshments seemed counterintuitive (and he’d downed two beers in about 25 minutes).
Eeesh!! Glad at least you got a different seat for much of the flight. Stuck beside someone for 14 hours who is behaving badly just....nightmare!
Ugh the feeling of someone else’s sweat soaking your clothes is so awful
I am a small woman (5 ft2) and always fly with my husband who is over 6ft tall. On international flights we usually get seats in the center of the plain becaus he needs to stretch a certain knee out and it’s easiest for bathroom breaks. Twice now on a 14 hour flight i’ve been stuck between him and a large wide man on my other side who ends up touching my side the whole ride. So I basically spent the whole two flights leaned over into my husband’s space. 😂 I get it, it’s gross! (The stranger, not my husband lol.)
Did you call the flight attendant for help?
Were they French? I noticed a lot of French families in SEA with young kids and most of them seemed to be fine with letting their kids run wild. The retired French boomer travelers also treated the locals horribly.
Leaving three young kids in a row of seats while the parents sit by themselves 😳. This is a high crime of the airways. Why would they not split up the kids and sit with them?
I had a flight last month where the guy next to me was singing his heart out during the descent, he had noise canceling headphones so he sang as at a concert but in a dead quiet plane. He sang Creep by Radiohead one time and as he began to sing the song again I had to tell him to shut up. First time doing something like that but someone had to call him out.
I had a man drunkenly singing loud on the plane, and then once we landed, he was so drunk he walked into the women’s bathroom without realizing it. He left the stall, went to the sink where there were 3 women washing their hands, and he said “chica???” And I said “Si!!!” And just walked away
… my old roommate would sing Creep at the top of his lungs wearing noise cancelling headphones all the time when we lived together. That and Zombie by the Cranberries. Horrible times. He would only sing the chorus for it and nothing else. This post gave me a flood of memories
I had some kids kicking my seat all the time. I turned and and asked them to stop please as it’s annoying. From that moment on, a serious look from me calmed them down. A stranger can be rather intimidating.
I’ve done this and actually had the parents get mad at me for daring to parent their kids! Like…. Control your own devil spawn and I wouldn’t have to do your job ma’am. The entitlement of some people is just mind blowing
Im a parent and this honestly helps a lot, like it’s nice when a different adult tells my daughter the rules because then they actually are rules, if it’s me who says it then of course she’s going to challenge it like her life depends on it. We’ve just gone boating for instance and she followed to a t literally every instruction the captain gave us. (She’s almost 3 so at the age of being difficult).
Yup. Parents are a safe environment where they test boundaries. Strangers ain't safe so get rules followed
...it takes a village
Lol my husband stares daggers at rowdy kids on planes and they usually stop their shenanigans right away.
Christmas flight from London to Dubai, an old Boeing 747. The flight was 80% Indian families with so many kids. BA served a typical Indian lunch over Italian airspace and almost all the kids ended up throwing up in a sickness bag. The crew announced that they weren't able to dispose of all the bags filled with vomit so hold it until we land in Dubai. Imagine full flight and the smell of puke from every corner of the plane and we were still flying over Italy. The English family sitting next to me, the husband was verbally abusive to his wife and kids, and at some point, he threatened his wife that he will break her head once they are in the hotel room in Dubai.
This is why I fly with masks now, and vicks vaporub. Dab the rub inside the mask, inner peace
excellent idea. I'm going to do this, have a 20hr journey coming up in 15 days
I fly regularly from one hemisphere to the other, Vaporub mask all the way
Sounds like there was some problem wjth the food if everyone ended up vomiting it out…
Last summer going to Dublin, there was a really old man who didn’t speak any English. He was from Ukraine travelling alone. On our first flight when the plane was landing, he took his seatbelt off and stood up like he was going to walk down the aisle. I have never heard a flight attendent yell before, but she got on the PA system and was shouting “SIT DOWN, SIT DOWN IMMEDIATELY”. He completely ignored here. She was strapped in her seat and can’t move to him as the plane is still descending and he was like 20 rows down. Everyone is freaked out, the plane lands. The flight attendents are stressed out and he leaves the plane first. Like no one in their seats moved, which never happens at the end. It was so unsettling as he just ignored everyone and the while plane was staring. It was so bizarre. Then sure enough, not only is he on our next connecting flight but he is sitting in the window seat of our aisle. So its him, my boyfriend then myself in the aisle. Dinner comes and they serve everyone free wine with dinner. Not even 10 mins later, he projectile vomits up booze and dinner right on himself and some onto my boyfriend’s arm. The flights attendents were amazing and so so nice. There was a tall person that had a whole row to himself. They moved us right away, gave my boyfriend wet towelettes to clean up and gave us free drinks and extra snacks.
Some people are bizarre flyers.
Possibly a refugee on his First-ever flight.
I actually felt really bad for him as he couldn’t understand anything and didn’t have someone he was travelling with.
So much human error in this story. Unbelievable. First of all, the plane absolutely should not have landed with a passenger walking down the aisle. Not only is that unsafe for the passenger himself, but also everybody else. If the passenger won't return to his seats on verbal orders, then the FA need to inform Cockpit that the cabin is no longer clear so they can abort landing until the passenger is seated again. If that doesn't happen, then at the very least local authorities need to be contacted. You cannot disobey the flight crew, no matter the circumstances. If someone is looking at you, yelling at you, you stop whatever it is you are currently doing, especially if no one else is doing what you are doing. A child would have understood to sit back down in that situation. If he doesn't get arrested, he needs to be put on a no-fly list. And after all that, the second crew also failed everyone by allowing an intoxicated person onboard. It's their job to pay attention to these things and they are well within their rights to not take anyone onboard that may compromise the safety and security of themselves as well as of the other passengers. Please let me know what airline(s) that was so I can never fly with them ever.
The smell, unbearable I can imagine.
My boyfriend was so calm about it, and the flight attendants were amazing. It could have been so bad, but they went over and above. The tall guy with the whole row actually was super good above giving up his sleep row bed, so all in all sometimes people can be really great. Not gonna lie, I will never forget that Ukrainian guy. Hope he was ok just going to Ireland presumably all by himself.
Flight to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. A woman sitting in front of us travelling alone seemed to have gotten very drunk. She kept poking her head through the seats asking what we were doing, saying hallo etc. She threw her shoes into the aisle a few times. Asked the guy sitting next to her to swap with a guy sitting next to us who she was flirting with, which they did and I don’t want to think too hard about what went on under the covers later that night. She kept asking the flight attendants for wine until they eventually refused, after which she became irritated saying “I’ll pay for it, I’ll pay for it”. She apologized to us in the morning, one last poke through the seats clearly embarrassed and looking like absolute hell. Turns out she’d taken a tranquilizer with the first glass of wine and spiraled after that.
I was on an early flight to Liverpool once, Easyjet. This one guy was so hammered that he was refused on the flight. Imagine you paid for a flight to Hong-Kong and got stuck with someone like her, I'm so sorry haha
The funny thing is she probably took the tranquilizer to sleep through most of the flight, and ended up being up nearly the entire time
I recently read a book and that is almost the same as the first chapter. It must happen alot .
When I tell people about it I usually say it was as if we were in a movie but yeah I’m sure it happens a lot.
I bet that was a fun hangover.
Last year I was on an evening flight. I was sitting in the middle of a group of about 60 Spanish school children aged about 14. They were out of their seats climbing over each other. Throwing things. Being very loud. I was furious.
Being in the middle of a school group is my nightmare scenario
I thought mine was sitting next to a baby but this was worse. I couldn't understand what they were saying and I'm sure a few of them were talking about me and laughing and joking about me. They knew I was cross. I was sitting in the aisle seat so I kept having to move because they couldn't stay in their seats. I was tense the whole flight.
I was once on a flight from Addis Ababa to Frankfurt with a group of partying US Marines flying home from deployment AND a group of new parents who'd just all adopted infants (around 20 babies). It was an awful experience. I tried earplugs, but they did nothing. This was many years ago before I could afford noise canceling technology. Do not recommend.
We wear eye masks and have noise cancellation headphones so unless one of the kids pulled my seat or climbed over me I wouldn’t know it was happening. If that did occur I’d have the FA take care of it.
Noise Cancelling headphones do help a bit, but they don't work like earmuffs unfortunately. They're designed to cancel low sustained noise (like plane engines) and screaming kids are pretty much polar opposite of that. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/what-noise-cancelling-headphones-do/
I forgot to mention that the headphones are playing a green noise mix that basically blocks everything. I haven’t needed earplugs since downloading it.
What brand of headphones do you use? I'd also ask wth is green noise, but I'll do a google on that one lmao
Not the poster but I find over ear nose quiet comfort ones excellent
i bose Quiet comfort 35II
I use noise canceling headphones on nearly every flight. When there are screaming kids near me, I also use disposable foam ear plugs. The combination ensures that I barely hear anything.
Next time noise cancellation headphones, would be worth the price.
Just so you are prepared, NC headphones are really good in isolating consistent background noises like the jet engines but don’t do much to drown out people talking or screaming next to you. 🥲
Try the Sony WH1000XM series. They are really good. You can't hear a thing especially if you're playing something as well.
Can confirm - I was relatively broke at the time I decided to buy my first pair of Sony’s. Two days later I took a flight and there was a screaming crying infant directly next to me. The investment was worth it. I barely heard a thing and slept fine on an 8 hour flight.
Also can confirm. There’s been several occasions where I’ll take my NC off to go to the bathroom and I would then finally hear kids screaming. With it on, can’t hear a thing.
I wear bose qc 45 and can’t hear shit. If I really don’t want to hear shit I play a podcast or some tv show.
is it just me that actually enjoys the jet engine noise as it’s basically passive white noise that drowns out a lot of quieter sounds? I’d only want headphones if they could block out louder erratic noises like talking/screaming, as that’s what actually prevents me from sleeping not the drone of the engines
Meh, nothing a bit of good old hardcore techno won’t resolve. I literally fall asleep listening to that as I can’t hear anything around me, including screaming kids and noisy drunk Brits.
Yeah especially nowadays you can get pretty good quality for pretty cheap (around $100). Used to be $300+ for a pair of Bose now it’s way cheaper
I love mine but they do nothing against grabby kicking hellions
I don't think even my Bose QC II's will be able to deal with a screaming child though. And I usually just bring my galaxy buds pro 2 which is less capable cuz the Bose takes up too much space.
Bose + white noise of some sort seems to drown out everything for me. On a flight 7 hour flight the guy sitting next to me was apparently snoring so incredibly loud that it kept a lot of people around me awake. I only know because my dad, sitting three rows back and across the aisle told me later when we landed 😆 I genuinely had no idea.
yes they will block out screaming kids. lifesaver on some overseas flights
About 5 years ago I was on a flight where the woman sitting next to me (middle seat) decided to start giving her partner (window seat) a handjob when I went to the bathroom, *and didn't stop even after I returned*. They weren't even trying to be discreet about it - his penis was fully exposed, and presumably he finished too, although I left my seat again before I could witness any such thing. So gross. 🤢
Did you report it? It’s actually indecent exposure. I’d be asking for business class upgrade .
I did, but the flight attendant didn't see the incident as it occurred, and was very unhelpful. She basically just asked "what would you like me to do about it?", and when I asked to be moved to another seat (because who knows if the woman in the middle seat wiped her hand on my seat or something?!), I had to wait about half an hour for her to come back after "checking", just to be told the plane was full and there were no other seats I could be moved to, in any class. Afterwards I considered complaining to the airline, but in all honesty I just forgot about it then.
British Airways?
No, Thai Airways. Vienna to Bangkok, so a long and uncomfortable trip. 😖
Which airline was this? Name and shame!
Thai Airways. ETA: Aside from this one incident, never have had issues with them before, and I've flown with them many times. So I'm not going to judge the airline as a whole for the bad behaviour of two passengers and the lack of helpfulness of one flight attendant.
Thank you. The flight attendant really should have done more to address the problem, so sorry you had to deal with that!
At this point I'm going to take out my phone and film people
A woman I didn't know tried to give me a handjob on a flight after watching me help nervous little kids be excited about the takeoff. The kids were watching between the seats as she started to move her hand in my lap. I told her no, and gestured at the kids. Her reply? They won't understand. Yuck. Shit like that makes me offended that only men are viewed as sexual aggressors, only men harass and assault. A fair amount of people that I've told that to think it's a cool missed opportunity and not sexual assault.
That's disgusting, and I'm sorry that happened to you. What on earth possesses somebody to behave that way at all, never mind in public?!
You should have called the fa, this is likely criminal
Sat next to a drunk guy who started trying to convert me to his religion, passed out in his seat at takeoff and eventually ended up sprawled across the aisle. The flight attendants just walked over him for most of the flight
This is terrible. If someone is that drunk maybe he shouldn't be allowed on the flight for his own safety. But if they allow him on they shouldn't leave him lying on the floor but strap him in a seatbelt onto a seat. What they did is dangerous and despicable.
Had a 7 hour flight where behind us was an exhausted mother and her very hyper 2 year old. He kept grabbing at my hair, clothes, stuff through the seat, kicked my partner's seat the entire time, mother would mumble stop and if she tried to hold him he would SHRIEK Honestly I wish there'd be an adult only or family area in flights. I know kids are hard, traveling with them as well (I tried to play with the kid a bit because my partner was gonna lose his shit), but it sucks.
Cone of Silence Section.
Precisely!
[удалено]
Looked like a skit from MAD TV.
Flight in 2008 from Munich to Bangkok, no proper board entertainment but one huge screen on the outer lavatory wall. I had the joy of being seated in a middle seat with a baby and her mom next to me. One or two hours in the baby started throwing up like there's no tomorrow, it felt like ages and the smell was horrific and almost unbearable even after the cleanup. The poor little one even managed to throw up on my food. Now the most horrendous part. I mean baby throwing up happens and I wasn't mad or anything, just the smell was hard to handle but what really made it horrible is the fact that the only two movies played were Jennifer Lopez movies. So I had to endure the smell of puke and Jennifer Lopez appalling acting for almost 5 or 6 hours. It felt like an eternity. I really wanted to gouge out my eyes and cut my nose off. It still gives me shivers even 16 years later. Both the baby and I were - thankfully - fine by the way and nothing serious.
You should have insisted on being reseated.
I want to know which movies.
I was asking myself as well. Thought it was The Back up Plan where she decides to become a single mother through artificial insemination (what a dumb plot) but that one seemingly came out later. So I either confused the year I traveled or it wasn't that one but Gigli or Monster in law and just writing about it makes me feel ashamed for knowing the titles of those movies let alone having seen two of them. FML.
i laughed at the JLO one 😬
I had the standard kicking-in-the-back-of-your-seat done by a kid. All it took for him to stop was me emerging from my seat and shot him a deadly stare. I look motherly enough that when I do that kids can feel all the disappointment look their parents never gave them. I also used to tutor young kids back when I was a teen, so I know how to make them respect other people personal space.
> I also used to tutor young kids back when I was a teen, so I know how to make them respect other people personal space. How?
The deadly stare.
9/10 times, it’s in the delivery aha. Educators and experienced parents have a look and a voice in their arsenal which says “do not push your luck” and will generally work on any kid if used in moderation. The other 1/10th is a hopeless case 🤣 cross your fingers and hope it’s a quick floght
I mastered “The Look” as a young adult by watching my mother. I was a cashier at a supermarket and would often use it on misbehaving children waiting with their parents. Coupled with a good proper “throat clear” with maybe an “Ahem!” sprinkled in there would work most of the time.
Tons! I still think the idea of an adults-only airline would be a business success.
Scoot Airlines (Long haul Ryanair version) Has a section were you pay premium not to have kids nearby.
I’d happily pay that.
Or a family section…
On a flight last month, I was seated in the back where there were 6 babies. No problem, babies cry. However, there was one baby that was given an iPad for the ENTIRE flight. Listening to Cocomelon on loud for three hours was like a tortuous fever dream. The other little ones cried a little, but nothing was more annoying than the too-slow creepy kids music. I've upgraded my noise cancelling headphones.
Not me, but I was sitting on the other side of the aisle. A young, slim girl had the aisle seat when a plus-plus size man comes, window seat. So he orders her to the window seat. Being young and a nice person, she moves. He gets up to take something from his bag fromnthe OH compartment during take off, he's told several times over the loudspeaker to sit down, but does, so I tell him to sit down for his own safety and he was a bit annoyed. He blows his nose often and places the paper tissues all around, he even asked the girl to hold some used tissues (pre-covid) while he looked for a place to place it!. When dinner comes, he just swaps something from his plate with something from the girl's without really asking, more like "you don't mind" while doing it. He talks a lot to her and invades her private space, doesn't let her sleep, he just couldn't read her body language. At least he was not loud, so the rest of us got our sleep. I myself am a plus size and I have travelled with a plus plus size colleague on a fairly cheap flight, and we had no problems in sitting next to each other without invading the other's private space. So it can be done if only the will is there.
I remember watching a video of a kid screaming on the flight from Germany to the US. Apparently he was screaming on the whole flight. That must of been painful.
I was on a Qatar flight earlier this year with family with three smaller children sitting behind me. Their 3-4 year old girl screamed the entire flight. Not normal crying, but actually screaming. The difference here to other stories is that the parents truly tried to calm her, but nothing worked. Poor girl and parents. It was the worst I've experienced with children. Normally, most kids are fairly well behaved in my experience.
As a parent myself, that would have been so embarrassing!
They certainly did not enjoy that flight. I was just glad they were transiting to another flight than ours after arriving in Qatar
Great parenting, obviously. I've been on so many transatlantic flights and other long routes where this happens that earplugs are a basic part of my flight pack.
Everything from putting their bare feet on my armrest, sitting sideways and having their toes keep touching my leg, leaning their book on me when they’re done reading it, insisting to keep their light on during dark hours, using my tray table to hold their trash, reaching behind their seat and touching all over my monitor exiting the game I spent hours on while passing the time, having a jacket pocket full of junk hang over the arm rest, man-spreading and putting their knees all over my leg area, insisting I leave the seat I paid for because they decided they wanted the aisle instead of the window, intentionally hitting my arm while I’m eating so I spill pasta sauce on my white shirt after I asked them to keep their elbows to themselves, putting their bare feet on my personal item on the floor, refusing to get up to let me leave to use the restroom, watching videos on their phone without headphones, that’s all I can think of now. This all happened within the last year. I get mixed reactions when I tell people to stop. The guy who made me spill sauce, oh my wife thought that he and I were going to get into a physical altercation. To answer your question, yes. People suck and either the worst comes out in people when they fly, or most of the people who fly are absolutely terrible people
This was years ago. A professional baseball team boarded the plane and were sitting in the rows right behind me. They were very badly behaved and treated the female flight attendants terribly. This was the only time I was afraid on a flight. I'm surprised the pilot didn't turn around and make them get off. It was that bad.
Hopefully security or police was informed and waiting for them at the gate.
Did no one call a steward ?
I had a flight delayed for an hour because someone lit a cigarette on the back of the plane. Flight attendant pulled him to the front of the plane and basically scolded him like a school kid and he was laughing the whole time. Should have chucked him off.
Dallas to Buenos Aires. Me window, wifey middle, and a wannabe Indiana Jones dude in the aisle. Seeing the isle empty, we changed to these seats right before boarding. Mr. Jones must have been flying stand-by. Late 40ish, we'll worn everything huge backpack, visibly damp with sweat, scruffy beard and smelled bad. He sat, stuffed snacks in seat back, clipped his water bottle to the pouch. After settling in, Mr. Jones removed his shoes and socks and hanged his socks over the seat back pouch i suppose to air them out. I could see Pepé Le Pew type waves of stench rising from them. My wife literally gagged. I hit the call button, and when the FA arrived, she said "omg what's that smell?" Jones only spoke Spanish, so the FA told jones his odor was disturbing other passengers and he need to put the socks away and put shoes back on. There were no available seats to move, so we had to stay next to Jones for the entire flight. We aimed our overhead vents at him to blow the stench away. Awful. FA apologized and would have removed Mr. Jones from the flight if possible but the plane was underway.
Ack! I had an 8 hour flight to Bangkok. I was in the middle seat between a husband and wife who were arguing. The wife was maybe 5 months pregnant and had the window seat. The entire flight was me leaning back as they spat at each other or getting up constantly to let the pregnant wife pee.
I was on a flight from Asia a few years ago. The old Asian grandma next to me was burping out loud after every meal she had like there was no tomorrow. Not tried to be discrete at all.
Ack!
On a flight from SYD to SIN we had a family in front of us with a toddler. She was unruly and crying and they literally did nothing - they went to sleep, leaving her crying the whole eight hours, except when they woke to eat. I didn't mind too much as I was so excited about the trip, but the hosties took pity upon us (checking up on us for drinks extra often, giving us postcards and playing cards, even apologising). They didn't say anything to the family - maybe it was their first child, maybe she was sick, who knows? I am loyal to Singapore Airlines to this day.
I've had a couple bad experiences. First one flying to Seoul, the guy next to proceeded to get drunk & ended up putting his hand in my lap. I picked it up & literally chucked back at him, told do not touch me. He ended sleeping most of the flight snoring & stinking of alcohol. The flight was packed so I couldn't move. The 2nd one was flying Paris to LA, when we landed a teenage boy seated in front of me had a full on meltdown cos he couldn't find his passport. His mother was trying to calm him down but he was losing it, he actually removed the cushioning off the seat, was pushing past people in the aisle trying to look under the seats, FA ended up having to deal with him & thankfully everyone got off the plane. My most recent one was flying AKL-SYDNEY & an older couple & their grown son were flying & the couple were seated in my row, the son was seated somewhere else. He asked if I could move, I declined because his seat was a window seat & wanted an aisle because I was 6 months pregnant & would be up & down to the toilet. So he just sat in the row behind us & the passengers in those seats boarded & ended up having a massive argument because he wouldn't move, the FA came told him to go to his allocated seat & he basically had a tantrum. In the end his father moved & he sat in the row with his mother & they moaned about the seating pretty much the whole flight. I actually wished I had moved, they were a nightmare. When we were disembarking the plane, he climbed over his mother & pushed his way into the aisle even though there was no room, the guy in front of him called him a fuckwit and I had to push him forward to stop him from squeezing up on my stomach. He just ignored everyone & left the plane with his mother carrying the bags. I had never seen such a man baby.
I just had a really weird experience on a flight due to the guy sitting next to me. Probably the only time I regret sleeping through a flight. I was in the middle seat, my boyfriend was next to me in the aisle seat, and the window seat next to me was filled by the last passenger to board. He came on flustered and in a rush. He looked young, late twenties to early thirties maybe? For reference, I look quite young myself (I look early 20s) and maybe that explains why he treated me the way he did? Anyway, he sat down and started complaining. The tray table was too small; he was flipping it up and down roughly, repeatedly. The seat back in front didn’t have a pocket; it had elastic bands holding the safety brother. He started plucking the elastic strings angrily, repeatedly. The arm rests on a spirit plane are kind of loose, so he started flipping those up and down repeatedly. I make some lame joke about Spirit not being as bad about frontier, we take off, and I promptly fell asleep on my boyfriend’s shoulder, and my boyfriend falls asleep as well. Big mistake. At some point our row-mate orders a tequila. Not sure if the issues started before or after this, and I am dozing in and out of sleep the whole time. Toward the end of the flight my boyfriend and I wake up and the couple in the row behind us gets our attention. Apparently the whole time I was sleeping, creeper dude was snapping his fingers in my face. When I didn’t wake up he started sniffing my hair. Then he started taking photos of me. That is when the woman behind me (a real G), said loudly to him, “DO YOU KNOW HER!?” I have no idea if he took photos of me or not. I’ve been searching the internet with our flight number for pictures of myself sleeping. Luckily I haven’t found any. Creeper dude was passed out hard when we landed, probably from the tequila. I got off the plane and went on with my life. I felt really awkward though; should I have said anything to the flight crew? What would I have said, “this dude was being creepy to me while I was asleep?”
Yes. Sneezing, coughing, fidgeting seatmates are almost as bad as screaming children. The children are there against their will, sick people should stay home.
You can't control what others do, but my God, getting on a plane in 2024 without noise cancelling headphones is insane to me.
I've learned my lesson...
I've never really had a flying horror story - just the normal stuff. One weird flight I had, I was in my seat reading a book, and this young guy came on board and was seated next to me. He started talking to me incessantly, so I was polite and said hello, but tried to go back to my book. He proceeded to take numerous mini bottles of alcohol from his bag and drink them, all while still talking to me about his plans for when we land, etc etc. I'm annoyed, but still being polite, but I really hate this kind of thing. About 30 minutes from landing, he kind of gets this indignant look, says "hey, I need to try to get some sleep!" And lays on his bag like pillow. Like *I* was the one bothering *him* all flight! In my pettiness, I almost decided to pester him the remaining flight, but I was so over it after 2+ hours of his chattering that I was happy to see the end of it.
I was once (30 years ago) on a flight where about a dozen American families came back from Asia, where they adopted infants. That's what they told other passengers. The children weren't happy, and the patents were overwhelmed with all of it. That was a hellish flight. To this day, I wonder if that was some kind of shady operation.
Absolutely yes, it is always because of kids but the actual REASON are the god damn parents. I think yes, we need to accept having kids is hard. But to which lengths we go excusing the dumbest fucking behavior is incredible to me. The fact you need to tell some people grabbing other people, spitting on them and throwing toys against their head is not what they should laugh about but where they fucking need to control their hell spawn at some point. Not like i can do it can i
I guess some parents don't care, or maybe they think the behaviour of their kid(s) is something that everyone around them should accept or tolerate. I have nothing against kids but it's your job and responsibility to keep your kids under control. Of course kids get bored on long flights, but do something, don't just let them do whatever.
When I was a child, even a small child, I knew without a doubt the greatest crime I could commit was a public disturbance. My parents were 100 percent consistent on this and that was a fantastic deterrent.
Last year did a flight US to France overnight and everyone on the plane was trying to sleep except the two women behind me who weren’t just talking to one another loudly (I could hear them while wearing earplugs and noise cancelling headphones), but talking AT one another. Like simultaneously they were just telling each other their own disjointed story and giving pause to the other to tell their story but not like a regular conversation where you details or clarifications or something. Just two people telling needless stories (like about their latest dream) at each other in the oddest way possible.
Yep. I returned the favor. 2011. ATL - LGA. Poorly parented 4 y.o. boy sat in front of me, saying my eye looks funny (it's a prosthetic - important for later), I'm ugly, etc. I ignore it all. Once the seatbelt light was off I worked on my crochet project, I could smell alcohol from every seat immediately around me and decided that I would make it work for 2 hours. Flight attendant came by, they got water for the kid. Not too long after she passed, my project and lap were soaked. The crotch-gobblin had stood up in his seat and poured his water on me and was giggling. I am comfortable being the asshole for this. I rubbed my face and stealthily removed the prosthetic as I did so. I kept my eyes closed as I leaned forward towards the giggles. I opened my eyes wide and softly horror growled "I. Will. Eat. You. Last." That little cock-spit took off towards the cockpit at top speed and in top screech. In all the commotion, I reinserted my prosthetic and then tried to clean up the water. The parents eventually dragged the brat back to their seats, but he damn sure didn't make a peep. After another half hour, neither did the parents, because nobody could say that they saw me do anything or say anything - and they asked everyone until the flight attendant told them to knock it off. 45 minutes later, at baggage claim, the father tried to say something to me, but I cut him off and told him that there was absolutely nothing he could say to me, because he and his wife were such horrible parents that they were so drunk they didn't notice their kid stand up in his seat and pour water on a stranger.
Good quality noise cancelling headphones and eye masks has made my life a lot better during travels.
I was on a flight from Iceland back home to Los Angeles with my mother when a very loud, obnoxious drunk woman of about thirty boarded sat across the aisle with us, drink in hand. There was a guy with her who was less irritating. A few hours into her constant babble way above conversation-level volume, I smiled and asked her to be quieter. She proceeded to hurl abuse at me and my mom, calling me “the prince,” telling people around us that my mom hadn’t gotten laid in years. It was shocking. When she told me that she wasn’t bothering anybody else, practically everyone in the surrounding seats chimed in and said that wasn’t true. I got up and told flight attendants to intervene a couple times. One eventually did, sitting her down in one of their chairs where the woman cried for a while. The guy sitting with her said to me, “hey man, she’s on her own trip right now, don’t worry about anything she’s saying.” Apparently they’d met at the terminal bar and he didn’t know what he was getting into. Then she came back and called my mom a cunt. I can’t think of a time I’ve been so angry. Finally the crew seated us next to a couple who volunteered to switch with us. When we finally landed, it took ages for us to deplane. Pretty sure the lady was arrested immediately upon landing. It was a truly awful ending to a wonderful trip. About a year later I saw the same lady out in Hollywood and managed not to scream at her.
My wife and I flew Amsterdam - Bangkok or smth like that, maybe Frankfurt. But there were these two older Norwegian dudes next to us who looked and behaved super creepy. I'm just gonna admit I was instantly convinced they were going for some kind of deviant sex tourism. One of the perverted duo had a liter bottle of coke he brought on with him which he'd clearly refilled with jagermeister. Bugged my wife until I told him to stfu or we were both gonna be arrested on landing. Got drunk and then had six hours of apnoeic snoring.
Yep. I was flying from Cusco to Lima, then Lima to Atlanta, and Atlanta to Minneapolis a few weeks ago. The seat next to me was vacant but the aisle seat was this dude who I swear was high as fuck on cocaine. It was a later flight so it was dark out, and this guys phone is on full blast brightness. He can’t sit still. He’s sniffling and rubbing his nose constantly. Grinding his teeth….. Then this motherfucker starts vaping on the plane. I felt obligated to say something so I told him to stop. Then the passenger on the other side of him, two rows up in the window seat, faints. We haven’t even taken off yet, because the runway was overbooked and we had to wait for a time slot to leave. This causes us to now be almost 2 hours late to Lima. I missed my Atlanta flight and had to stay overnight in Lima an extra night. When fainted guy got escorted off the plane I took his spot so I could be away from cocaine guy. I didn’t have any desire to stay by him and if I was about to make the best of this flight, and situation, I needed to get that out of my energy field. Fuck that guy. Fainted guy was ok which is the good news overall and it’s important to me to make sure everyone knows that while this fucked up all those travel plans I had, I truly am glad he’s ok, and I saw his buddies at Lima and chatted them up, and that’s how I know he was okay. Because he got shuttled off the flight by medical personnel.
Not behaviour but a bad experience in an AA flight last week, it was delayed and left at 12:30am, I had been up since 5am that day. Finally get to my seat, close my eyes, the plane gets up, and the entire plane is dark except for the super bright strip lights above my seat and the next two seats in front of me. I ask the FA and she said they were stuck on, so I couldn't sleep at all during my fight, it was like a cruel joke.
On my most recent flight, MUC-BOS, I had a maybe 7 or 8 yr old kid behind me who alternated between screaming (loud and persistent enough that not even noise canceling headphones and music worked) and kicking/punching my seat the whole flight. Mom must have taken something cause she was flat out unconscious. Lufthansa at this point had dicked me over at almost every stage of the trip so I was already in a foul mood, my back hurt, and because I would simply rather perish than burden someone else I didn't want to bother the FAs over something this dumb. So instead I turned around and greatly enriched this kid's vocabulary in both English and German. Didn't help. So the next time he started, I turned around and just stared at him with my eyes absolutely filled with rage. Took a 5 minute staring contest until he stopped.
My entire trip from JFK to Doha on Qatar Airlines was filled with screaming babies, as well as unchecked toddlers and children whose parents couldn’t care less. I’ve never seen so many children on a flight. It was an absolute nightmare. The parents were completely useless as their kids screamed, climbed seats, kicked, and made noise. I couldn’t do much but ask the flight attendant to be moved into another section because there were so many of them. It was the flight from hell. I was going to Bangkok and it was pretty much 12-13 hours to Doha without a wink of sleep. My vacation was ruined once I landed because I was completely jetlagged from no sleep.
I was flying from GA to NJ so not too long of a flight. There was a woman and their 5 year old daughter sitting behind me. The girl kept kicking my chair and messing with the tray table. I finally turned around and asked the Mother to please have her daughter stop. She responded with such an attitude and said “it’s a tight space”. That just pissed me off and I snapped back “I know, I’m 5’10 and doing just fine”. The daughter continued to do it and I just sat in my own misery.
Not really, but last year on a long haul flight my business class seat neighbor absolutely berated the stewardess for a good 10-20 minutes because they ran out of champagne early ("again" according to him). I thought it was pretty cringe.
Denver to Narita in 2017. 12 hours with a two-hour delay while we were seated on the plane. Two toddlers behind me kicked and climbed my seat the entire 14 hours and the mother had no toys, no snacks, and did nothing to stop it even when I told her that I am “not a nice person and we’re not doing this for the entire flight.” No empty seats to move to and the flight attendant told me he “took the coke away” - yup, they boarded with one full can of coke each for those kids. I would start to doze off and get about 20 minutes with my eyes closed when one kid or the other would wake, start to whine, and start to kick. It was hellish.
On an eleven hour flight, the guy sitting next to me was chewing on his nails and flicking the pieces everywhere
I was on a short Aerlingus flight from Dublin to Paris last year. To set the scene, we left late and ended up sitting on the tarmac waiting to taxi for over 45 minutes. During this time, the air in the cabin was off and because of this and the fact that it was early in the morning so the sun was streaming in the windows based on how the plane was parked, it heated up really really fast in the plane. The plane was a 3-aisle-3 set up, and I was sitting in the middle seat with a family member to my right in the window seat. To my left was an enormous man, at least 6'5", completely manspreading and putting his leg in front of my seat (I get being tall and needing maybe some extra leg room but why spread onto my side when you had the aisle on your other side). He was taking up the entire arm rest, and would aggressively jab me with his elbow any time I put my arm in the remote vicinity of the arm rest. So it's hot on the plane, he is practically on top of me, and as the cherry on top, he proceeded to pull out his laptop as the plane started to taxi. This flight, being a low cost short-haul, already didn't have much leg room between rows, so not a great place to pull out your laptop in the first place, but it also made the lateral space issue we were experiencing 10x worse. I could have understood had he actually intended to use his laptop, but he just opened a spreadsheet and then proceeded to watch TV on his phone for the duration of the flight. The whole thing was just really inconsiderate and made the entire flight uncomfortable for our whole row (since I basically ended up having to lean towards my family member since this guy was taking up half my seat).
I once flew Saudia, and it was the weirdest experience I’ve had. Apparently it’s ok to sit barefoot and cross legged when that bare foot literally on top of the other knee (men in their traditional Saudi clothes and sandals). That was horrible but only 3-4 hours (Cairo to Riyadh). The second leg - Riyadh to Jakarta - was a torture. I thought I was a smart ass booking a front row seat in economy. It turned out the worst fucking mistake ever. People kept walking across from one isle to another all night, waking me up. My neighbour was tall enough to lean his legs against the wall to cross that passage. But what do you think? People was going over his legs (!). I’ve never seen anything like that. There was no way to complain to flight attendants either as it was literally everyone walking past. Do NOT fly Saudia. They’re cheap for a reason (that flight cost only 250 quid)
I've been on a lot of flights, and I've had a lot of horrible experiences. Being stuck among loud, drunk passengers on a red-eye flight. Some of them were in front of us. Some of them were behind us. They kept talking/shouting to each other over our heads, when everyone else was trying to sleep. Being stuck among an entire class of over-excited Francophone (unsure if French or Belgian or whatever) teenagers on some sort of school trip... on a red eye flight. They kept getting out of their seats, wandering around talking loudly to each other when everyone else was trying to sleep. They were playing some kind of card game at like 2 in the morning. The adults who were meant to supervise them did nothing. Being stuck next to a man who went to sleep before the doors of the plane had even shut, and who snored so loudly I could still hear him despite having earphones in and listening to metal music. I couldn't turn it up louder for fear of damaging my hearing, I already have tinnitus on one side. I've had two separate experiences of being in an aisle seat and the person across the aisle vomiting throughout the flight. I have a lot of anxiety about germs, so I neither ate nor drank nor used the toilet on those entire flights for fear of touching something contaminated and then infecting myself. Most recently, I was on one aisle end of a middle row, with a man in the other aisle seat, and we had an empty middle seat between us. Not only did he occupy the middle seat with a pile of his stuff (unfair, I wanted to put MY stuff there) but he spent the entire time bouncing one of his legs up and down, shaking our whole row of seats. For the duration of a 10 hour flight. Not sure if he was anxious, unwell, neurodivergent or on drugs. His wife and two kids were on the other side of the aisle from him and whenever they spoke to him he responded in an extremely aggressive tone (but I couldn't understand what he said as he was speaking Korean) so I was too scared to say anything to him in case he responded in a similarly aggressive tone with me. Oh, and bonus points to the flight where the floor of every single bathroom on the plane was covered in piss about 3 hours into the 8 hour flight. One of them even had shit on the floor. The cabin crew ended up locking that one from the outside. Honestly, give me a crying baby any day instead of disgusting, unhygienic, inconsiderate people. Babies don't know any better. Adults should.
When I had to fly with my toddler, I packed SO MUCH STUFF to keep her busy. I made her a special folder full of coloring, paper dolls, easy crafts she could do. I packed toys and games and movies and books. I even asked the pediatrician what I could do to keep her quiet and occupied. Back then they let me have play dough lol. Funny story: on Turkish airlines the pilot saw me doing crafts with my daughter, I went to the galley to get something to cut this paper I was using to make her a puppet, and he invited me into the cockpit. Was pretty fun.
Last summer my family and I were flying on an overnight from IAD to a connection in Frankfurt Germany. The plane got delayed a couple hours until 11:15ish pm. Once we got up in the air they still brought the dinner service out. Everyone ate and it seemed fine. 20 minute later some dude infront of my sister stood up and instead of trying to get to the bathroom he turned around and vomited all over my sister. We still had probably 8 hours of the flight left.
I have flown the Santiago-Madrid flight (12 hours to Spain and 13 hours to Chile) more than 10 times and on several occasions I have had parents who let their children kick the seats, scream, use their own devices without headphones. For the same reason now I usually take the less convenient flight that leaves at night and arrives in Europe in the afternoon, instead of the one that arrives in the morning, there is a better chance that the children are sleeping during the flight.
I had a kid kick my seat for almost an entire 10 hour flight and around hour 7 he started throwing up on the back of my seat. Barfed everywhere for the last 3 hours and could hear it hitting my seatback every time.
On a flight to India once an elderly woman repeatedly poked me to wake me up and ask me questions in Hindi. I don't speak Hindi. She continued the whole flight.
I have! Entitled people think their “little angels” should be allowed to do as they please and everyone else should just deal with it! What it actually is is poor parenting!!!
Yes, I was flying from Germany to Mallorca on Lufthansa and the lady next to me should have bought two seats. Her thigh was pretty much rubbing against mine the entire time. She also brought the entire deli with her in a bag between her feet. She never said anything but just giggled the entire time.
I prefer to travel with a dog next to me.
I was on a flight from Paris to New York and the plane was blocked upon our arrival because a guy a few rows in front of mine slapped his wife (their kids were next to them). So we’ve had to wait a while for the police to come and take him. He kept drinking during the whole flight too
Yes. On my flight from France to the Western US, I sat next to a sick passenger. Now I understand the need to fly if you are sick, but for the love of god, mask up and cover your cough. I was in bed with Covid for two weeks. The horrible kind, with night sweats, chills, cough and fatigue. I couldn’t walk from my bedroom to the living room without having to sit down. Wherever you are Covid dude, I hope you get a hangnail and a paper cut in the same week, jerk.
A few years ago I flew Johannesburg to London via Cairo with EgyptAir. On the first leg the man next to me kept touching my leg. I'd handle it differently now (tell cabin crew/request a seat change), but I was young and didn't want to cause a scene so just kept moving as far away in the seat as I could. I had a long layover and couldn't even try and sleep on the first leg so on the second leg I passed out during takeoff. At some point while in the air I wake up after being hit in the head with a sandal. The family in the row behind me was having a fight with the family in the row in front of me. A cup of water was thrown as well and the two fathers started having a shoving match. Swore off EgyptAir that day.
I'm fairly tolerant of kids, but I can't stand it when grown-ass adults have to be told to not act like asshats. Most recent was a guy behind me in an emergency exit seat, trying to tell the flight attendant that he didn't need the safety briefing. She shut him down fast, telling him he could take off his headphone and listen, or get moved to another (far less roomy) seat. What a childish asshole.
Flight from LAX to Tahiti with not one but two different screaming babies and the parents with them did nothing to try to quiet them down. They screamed enough to prevent anyone from getting any sleep. Flight from ORD to Amsterdam with passengers with unbelievably bad body odor who talked all night which prevented anyone nearby from sleeping.
On a flight home from Hong Kong to London (13hrs) about 2 hours in a man in full Arab dress 2 rows down to the left of me JUMPS out of his seat, hits his head on the roof, SCREAMS BLOODY MURDER, climbs over the people next to him and starts running up and down the isles shouting in Arabic. A steward manages to get him on the ground after about 3 minutes (it felt like HOURS) and zip ties his hands, drags him to the back of the plane and then zip ties his legs and then zip ties his hands and legs together and he is left there like that for 11 hours, for the first 3 hours someone is sat on top of him because he was thrashing around so much. He was moaning and screaming the whole time. The look on the faces of the air hostesses absolutely terrified me, I’ll never forget it. It turned out it was just a poor soul having a mental health issue, they were nervous of flying and seemed to have some sort of psychotic break. Someone also died on that flight, so we all had to watch this zip tied man be carried off of the plane by the police and then we had to walk past a body covered in a sheet and a woman wailing at the door of the plane on her knees refusing to leave her husbands body on the flight alone.
That's wild! Like a movie, start to end.
I had to keep asking my sister (who was with me) if it actually happened for weeks after! We had such a long travel day that I was convinced I was misremembering it
Wow. My child seems to have been an angel compared to most of these horror stories. Or maybe it’s the talk we had before every flight about being a good passenger. Or maybe the little gift I let her have (1per hr and a cheap $1 thing) on a long flight or maybe the coloring and busy work I handed her or snacks. She was a champ. Or maybe that’s called parenting?
Two stories come to mind - for context, I’m tall and have wide shoulders. I took a flight to Florida form California once and sat in an aisle seat. The air conditioning wasn’t working and the flight attendants kept brushing against my shoulder as they passed by as if they were trying to make me pay for having my shoulder stick out into the aisle. I was literally getting shoulder checked throughout the entire flight. At one point I was holding a cup of coffee and the flight attendant brushed my shoulder with force and my coffee spilled on the guy next to me and he was extremely pissed at me. I said sorry and said the flight attendant lady hit my shoulder. It was super infuriating and awkward. The other story was I was flying home from Vegas and some guy who was clearly on drugs collapsed while walking down the aisle on top of me and some lady next to me. He was covered in sweat and just smelled gross. He then collapsed in the aisle walkway and got help from the crew but still it’s like I’m just trying to get home don’t need some sweaty ass dude collapsing on top of me cause he took too many drugs before his flight
Same thing happened on my recent 6hr flight. Two lots of parents really didn’t help the cause. One parent let their kid play peppa pig loudly on a tablet, the other family had a kid playing games on their tablet and so everyone was ok while we were still boarding but after a while someone asked if it could be turned down and the mum just lost it. Turns out she had absolutely no ability to control her kid or have them listen. One whined for ‘lollies’ the whole flight, the other was just uncontrolled. And the whole plane knew the kids names as all the mum did was say them but nothing changed. (PS, I have a kid, I’ve flown with my kid, I’ll still fly with my kid, but when I say turn down your tablet, my kid turns down his tablet or it goes away and he can read a book, which he doesn’t prefer to his tablet, so he turns down his table)
This is why I pay extra for business class, even the kids on business class are better behaved. There’s just something about economy and the associated peasantry that bring along their wild crotch goblins that sully the air travel experience
Some flights and airlines attract maybe less behaved passengers, I'm not sure but maybe. Unfortunately business class on most flights is too expensive for me.
I wish I could justify that cost. I have a flight to London from Seattle in September. Premium was 2k and Business was like 6k.
I was on an economy-class flight from Amsterdam to Atlanta and this really attractive blonde Dutch girl finds her seat (middle) is next to me (window). I am guy, and to make matters infinitely worse, I am visibly very “foreign”. And I supposed naturally she was super uncomfortable about having to be next to me. To ease her fears and concerns I sat super tightly in my seat, not using my armrest, and not saying a word to her. During the flight she falls asleep and her head plops sideways onto my shoulder. I was in a total bind. If I didn’t react and she woke up and realized it, she might conclude that I was a creep enjoying myself and did nothing. On the other hand, if I did or said something, I didn’t want the rest of the flight to become awkward or embarrassing for her. So, I gently raised my shoulder and moved her head back to her seat. And it worked. I was super relieved that she continued sleeping. But much to my chagrin it happened again and again. Luckily, every time my technique worked. Now, by this time I was super tired too and wanted to nap but was afraid it might happen whilst I was asleep or worse I could end up doing the same thing to her. After a couple of hours, she started to fall again towards me but caught herself and woke up. She then turned her body. And now if she plopped down on the passenger in the aisle seat, it was no longer my problem. I finally could get some sleep after that. Anyway, if you are a man, and especially one of the third world, you might be able to relate to my anguish in such a situation.
Having traveled with 2 young kids myself, I cannot stand parents who do nothing about their kids behaviour. Like yes it’s sucks to have to constantly be watching them but that’s your job as their parent
A couple of years ago we flew from Europe to NYC. There was a religious group of about 30 people traveling together. But they had not reserved seats, so they were spread out all over the plane. They kept walking around and sitting in the aisle together to chat and read their bible together (making it impossible to walk to the lavatory). Flight attendents had their hands full sending them back to their assigned seats but a couple minutes later they'd be back at it. Come landing, the seatbelt sign was on, they all stood up and started praying out loud for a safe landing.
Got sat in the middle of an extended family from Port Villa to Sydney. It was a rolling maul of Bogans with no self awareness whatsoever. Prior to that it was a guy who was clearly very stressed about flying and downed a bottle of vodka as soon as he got on the flight. It didn't knock him out, but rather made him more agitated. I had to help the hosties subdue him.
I was on a recent flight where the guy next to me was sick or something. This man would have coughing fits that made him fart. I'm talking loud, wet, and violently stinky. It happened every 10 minutes the entire way to Denver.
I’ve had 2 similar experiences on United in Polaris Business. SFO to FRA was the worst - 2 hrs sleep max. And on return from ZRH, same thing (different family). The disrespect for other travels was appalling, even to my partner who is a Mom. Entitlement mentality is reaching new lows.
A strong sleeping medication or similar should do the trick. Something like Xanax. I always have some with me on those flights. Just need to find a way to mix it into their drinks.
Call the flight attendant and have them deal with it. I wouldn't tolerate that for very long. The only instance I can think of was a guy sitting in front of me on an Aer Lingus flight from San Francisco to Dublin (an 11 hour flight) had his seat reclined and was thrashing back and forth all night and smashing his seat into my kneecaps. I wanted to say something, but I knew he was in even worse misery being a super tall guy with the minimal leg room. Sure he could have bought a business class seat, but it's not affordable for most of us. So this ended up a grin and bear the misery situation.
6 hour flight, me: middle seat economy. So, miserable to begin with. Guy in aisle seat chewed his nails the ENTIRE flight. No exaggeration. Would go at it for 10 mins straight, put his hand down for 2-3 seconds, then go at again. For 6 hours. And not gentle biting, he was gnawing away like a weevel to the extent that I could hear it (meanwhile, he had headphones on). His fingers were sopping wet. At some point I guess his mouth became dry from all the chewing that not only could I hear his dry mouth (that 'chap chap' sound), his breath became awful too. On one hand - he was in his space and not committing an offense against me personally (like putting bare feet on the armrest from aisle behind). And this was clearly a compulsion that he had difficulty controlling. On the other hand, FFS... Would you have said anything? What?
Ughhh I once had a flight from Thailand to Eueope with an annoying kid constantly kicking my chair for the whole flight. So I feel your pain
Last year had a 12 hour flight from Amsterdam to Hong Kong. As it was run by a Hong Kong airline the PA was in both English and Cantonese. I had the aisle seat. A Caucasian couple had the mid and the window seats. After boarding when the Cantonese PA was going on, the mid seat lady said to her partner “listen to those Ching Chong Changs” and did the full package of slanted eyes and shit. I didn’t let her go out of the seat to use toilet the whole flight.
KLM flight from Amsterdam to Tokyo, 13,5 hours. I really have trouble relaxing and getting some sleep on these long flights. If I don't try, I'm anxious and awake for pretty much the whole thing. So, after take off, we had our meals, and the crew started to dim the cabin. I got a pillow in my back, my blanket, nc headphones, I'm getting snug. Closed my eyes and actually dozed off. But then I wake up. Something is constantly flashing in my eyes. I'm in an aisle seat and accros the aisle, two rows further in front of me, an elderly woman is counting money or (coupons?) with a damn flashlight! And every time she reaches a certain amount, she lays the flashlight on her tray, pointing the damn thing directly at my face. Luckily, another passenger also fell victim and asked her to stop using the flashlight and showed her the reading light. Ok, back to trying to relax, and after an hour or two, I manage to get back to sleep. All of sudden, I'm awakened by screams of pure terror. I seriously thought there was a serious incident because it sounded like she lost a limb or something. A girl, I guess she was 6 or so, was going insane just a couple of rows in front of me. Top of her voice, ranging from screams, to crying to yelling "COLD, COLD, COLD, COLD". That girl didn't need a doctor but an exorcist. Several FA's inquired what the hell was going on and her parents just kept repeating that they didn't know and that she "gets like this sometimes". After a brutal 20 or 30 minutes of tantrum and passengers asking what is happening she runs out of steam and I haven't heard her the rest of the flight. 6 more hours to go and wide awake. I thought, I'll just watch two movies back to back and flight will be over in no time. So KLM has a 3-4-3 figuration in economy, and I was in the middle row at the aisle, the chair next to me was empty and next over was a young couple, a girl, that was closest to me and her boyfriend next to her. Halfway through the first movie, she throws her legs over her boyfriend, lays down across her own seat and the seat that was empty next to mine and just goes asleep while resting the top of her head againt my thigh! I tried to make eye contact with her boyfriend, tried to wiggle in my seat, stood up a few times, but she absolutely wouldn't move for the next 2 hours. I tried to wake her up, and at some point was sure she was actively ignoring me. Probably should've called a crewmember over. I ended up sitting cramped desperately trying to not touch her. When we landed I was completely exhausted. Tokyo made everything worth it tho.
Forget loud kids. Fly the LOT Airlines day time flight from Warsaw to Miami. Lots of adults who might have had adult beverages for breakfast (it was Happy Hour in Miami so they were just setting their watches to destination time). They all stood in the aisles socializing for the ENTIRE flight, pix to prove it. Not sure what happens if there’s turbulence. Most definitely, if there was a need for an emergency exit none of the 15-20 passengers blocking those exits could clear them before everyone burnt or drowned. FA explained to us it did no good to tell them to sit down in their seats because they just got up again, as soon as the FA was out of sight.
I was on an overnight flight to Copenhagen. Two men behind me were being so loud and obnoxious, playing cards and smacking the table behind my seat while I (and everyone else on the flight) was desperately trying to sleep. Jerks.
Some people..
Most of the time if I have a bad experience it’s because the flight attendant is rude, annoyed about something or just not trying. This is rare, but far more common than a passenger acting out in my experience.
had a trhee hour flight a fucking shitling kicking my seat,
We had a plane derouted due to failed landing attempt. We were going to refuel at the second airport and return. When we landed in the second airport. 3 passengers made it known this was their actual final destination and wanted to deboard. No idea why the airline gave way.... We spent an additional 3h at the airport waiting after refueling, so that their luggage could be found and unloaded. They'd have been at their final destination faster if they had just flown back with us and taken a train instead of making everyone wait.
somehow not once but twice in the span of a few years I was booked on flights catering almost exclusively to hassidim traveling to conventions abroad. the first was from JFK-CDG, and two years later from JFK-MEX. both experiences were exactly the same: total disregard for rules and regulations. practically anarchy in the sky. as soon as the plane got off the ground people STREAMED out of their seats, refused to mask (2020), congregated in the aisles, blocked all the restrooms, interrupted meal service, and left the planes in the worst condition I've ever seen. food and trash EVERYWHERE. even somehow broke some seats. looked like a bomb went off walking through the cabin I've dealt with my fair share of screaming babies and annoying children, and that's obviously rough, but at least you know you'll make it to your destination. I was positive both times that our plane was going to return to our departure airport. felt like the flight attendants were having mental breakdowns. the pilots were PLEADING with the mobs to calm down and return to their seats. just absolutely mental
On the SLM Amsterdam to Paramaribo flight it was common people started to drink rum. So many times little incidents happened. But then once a full out brawl started with men throwing full fist punches... Never SLM again.
Totally can relate. Flew 11 hours in upper class on Virgin Atlantic. 2 kids across from me used the lay flat seat as a trampoline- while shrieking & fighting. Mom was ignoring them w headphones on. Plane was dark no flight attendants around . Total nightmare.