Foo - Flying Sucks

Although, sometimes it sucks more than others...


Passengers on a Continental Airlines flight had to hold their noses for hours as sewage overflowed from toilets while they were high over the Atlantic (http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_061907WAB_continental_sewage_flight_TP.1cc511cf.html).



Nearly 400 passengers were stranded aboard a Cathay Pacific Airways jet for more than seven hours Tuesday at San Francisco International Airport, adding yet another planeload of angry consumers to a growing industry backlash. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/06/20/MNGSLQIDEN1.DTL)

Anyone want to share their horrair story?

Yeah- mine are pretty benign compared to these, but annoying as hell anyway.
1. Had a flight from LA to Denver then to Philly (the Denver leg had a 2.5 hour layover, mind you- should have been plenty of time, right?). The LA flight was late leaving becuase of "mechanical problems" with the gateway. Missed the Denver connection (yeah, we sat buckled in for over two hours in LAX- no air, no drinks, no nuttin'). "Customer Service" (I use the term broadly here) representative met us with connections (for the next day, of course) and handed us these useless hotel discount slips to get a room for the night- no more flights to Philly or NY or DC that night. All hotels were booked. So, I hiked to the other terminal in Denver to see what I could do to get at least a little closer to Philly. After waiting 3 (yes, THREE) hours in a line of very angry, sweaty passengers, I got the last seat (a middle, natch) on a flight to Chicago. Got there around 12:30 and spent the night. Now Chicago is one of my very favorite towns, but ORD is not my idea of luxury accommodations. ALL NIGHT LONG they played that stupid, insipid, meaningless, fear-mongering TSA announcement "The Transportation Safety Agency announces that the security level has been raised to..... (drum roll please) Orange." All night long! Anyway, got the first flight to Philly, at 6am, and arrived home in time for a 3-hour meeting at work. Fun, huh?

2. A flight from SF to Seattle to Philly- another missed connection. Got to SFO on time, only to find out that the flight from Seattle to Philly had been CANCELLED! Why? Because it was Alaska cruise season, and the airline (I'll tell ya who in a second) didn't schedule enough equipment (I call them planes, but go figure). Sooooo, I spent the night in SFO (one of the dingiest, most un-user-fdriendly airports in the US, IMO) but with a ticket in hand for an 8:30am direct to Philly, I felt like I had won a consolation prize. Or so I thought. Little did I know that this was the last day of the air traffic controllers' contract, and they had issued a work slowdown. So traffic was like impossible. Finally took off from SFO around 2pm, after no sleep, no food (like I said, SFO is inhospitable), and lots of angry people and crying kids.

The airline in both cases was...... United- I never fly them except these were codeshare flights with US Air (and unlike many people, I have little problems with USAir). I will never fly United again.

Oh, there are other stories- weird irate passengers that get thrown off planes, inconsiderate passengers who throw their seat back on top of you after checking to make sure you're working on a laptop on your tray, and of course, the seat back grabbers who tug at your seat as they make their way down the aisle for the head- always on overnight flights, of course. And one last one- the guy who's throughly enjoying (shall we say) his porno DVD collection in the seat across the aisle, invariably within a little kid's viewing range.

Oh yes, we love air travel. Just love it to pieces! (And I actually do love to fly- just not commercial so much anymore- crowded skies, the TSA, and crappy "equipment" have really taken the fun out of it.)

A Turkish Airlines F28 flight from Ankara to Istanbul was at a cruising altitude of some 12000 feet when the front door blew open. The captain had his seatbelt off and was sucked out the door. The copilot had his belt fastened and brought the craft to a safe landing. A few days later a shepard found the captains' body. I got this from the Ankara English language paper while I was working in Turkey.

US Air got mad at me cause I sat at an aisle seat, when I was under 15. Luckilly we always fly American so, seeya US air.:D

A Turkish Airlines F28 flight from Ankara to Istanbul was at a cruising altitude of some 12000 feet when the front door blew open. The captain had his seatbelt off and was sucked out the door. The copilot had his belt fastened and brought the craft to a safe landing. A few days later a shepard found the captains' body. I got this from the Ankara English language paper while I was working in Turkey.


Holllly crap! I actually like the Fokkers- now I'm not so sure :eek:

US Air got mad at me cause I sat at an aisle seat, when I was under 15. Luckilly we always fly American so, seeya US air.:D


And American's seats have more leg room.

My last job in Vermont was refininishing jet airplane parts
for a number of different engines. Thats pretty scary to me.

I was on Aloha Airlines flight 243 traveling from Hilo to Honolulu in 1988. The roof of the plane ripped open and I saw a flight attendant get sucked through the hole. This is what the plane looked like when we landed:

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/4323/alohaairlinesdisasterkr0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I was pretty shaken up. I refused to fly home from Maui to Honolulu - my parents ended up chartering a boat to get me home. I didn't fly for a few years but I have no problems getting on a plane anymore.

An elderly lady boards a red eye carrying two large shopping bags, which she sets down in front of her. A Co-worker of ours then notices something moving in one of the bags but thinks nothing of it. The lights are dimmed, people are falling asleep, and then there are screams and shrieks from all over the cabin. Then he hears the flutter of wings coming and going, along with more screams. There were two birds in the shopping bags and they were flying back and forth, lightly touching the tops of the passengers heads. They were yelling and screaming like a scene out of Airplane The Movie.
+++
I'm on a flight to Detroit, the plane's on taxi and all of a sudden we hear shouting in the back of the cabin.
"Ladies please sit down immediately! I'm an Air Marshall and you need to sit down!" Well, there were these two innocent Asian women who were making their way to the bathroom. We look and see an 80 year old man who said he was the Air Marshal. We look at each other and say "That's an Air Marshall???!!!"

Then we hear another voice, "I'm the real Air Marshall and everyone better sit down now!!!" The Fake Air marshall was escorted off the plane at Detroit by Cops in full riot gear.

+++

An old lady checks her dog into baggage in a container. This airline had a rash of animals dying in the Cargo Hold due to lack of O2 and as they unloaded the baggage they noticed her dog was dead. Not wanting to have another claim on their hands, they run out and buy another of the same type of dog.

Lady faints when she picks up her baggage and the dog. She was transporting the dog to bury him at her destination.

And American's seats have more leg room.

Yeah that's pretty true. I was in the CRJ a few weeks ago going to Pittsburgh, and damn I was cooped in there. This one guy next to me was pretty big, and he had his elbow on the armrest the whole time. I was practiclly along the window the whole time just staring out the window, with no slouching room.

No real horror stories - a few garden variety late flights, one or two misdirected luggage tales, nothing major. For me, it has never been an accute horror story so much as a chronic comfort issue. Of course, being 6'3" and 285 on a coach budget will do that. :rolleyes:

My comfort issues have less to do with leg room (although that's bad enough) as it has to do with the lack of shoulder room. I'll pretty much do anything up to and including begging to get an aisle seat, and just deal with the fact that I am going to whacked by pretty much every passing person and at least twice by the beverage cart.

Yes flying does suck. With todays cheap seats the bus crowd is flying now. I average 100 flights per year and I hate it. I enjoy riding in a cab much more than flying.

More of a minor inconvience, but kind of cool none the less. I was returning from a youth trip from the D.R. Our plane got delayed 8 hrs. at the D.R. airport (nothing to do there). We finally got a flight to Miami, they put us in the downtown Miami Raddison for the night because we of course missed our flight, then instead of flying directly to Detroit, we had to fly to Houston and Dallas airports before getting to Detroit again.

I remember that!
Damn... What a story!




I was on Aloha Airlines flight 243 traveling from Hilo to Honolulu in 1988. The roof of the plane ripped open and I saw a flight attendant get sucked through the hole. This is what the plane looked like when we landed:

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/4323/alohaairlinesdisasterkr0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I was pretty shaken up. I refused to fly home from Maui to Honolulu - my parents ended up chartering a boat to get me home. I didn't fly for a few years but I have no problems getting on a plane anymore.

With todays cheap seats the bus crowd is flying now.

The bus crowd, eh? :rolleyes:

All I can say is that if they tried to keep me on the jetway for 7 hours, I'd open the door and jump off. Seriously, I wouldn't take that kind of crap.

I just wish someone would make a hassle free airline. If they did, people would be highly willing to pay more, and it would make competition, causing everyone to raise the bar for service. Sucks, but ****ty service is a fact of life with every airline I've ever been on. That is why I drive unless I absolutely have to fly.

I was on Aloha Airlines flight 243 traveling from Hilo to Honolulu in 1988. The roof of the plane ripped open and I saw a flight attendant get sucked through the hole. This is what the plane looked like when we landed:

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/4323/alohaairlinesdisasterkr0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I was pretty shaken up. I refused to fly home from Maui to Honolulu - my parents ended up chartering a boat to get me home. I didn't fly for a few years but I have no problems getting on a plane anymore.

:eek: You were on that!?

I actually do this for a living, can I play? All I ask is that you do not shoot, lynch, torture, burn at the stake, apply thumbscrews, send to the rack, and/or strap into an electric chair the flight crew. The crew is doomed to the same fate of being stuck in a small aluminum tube with the passengers and, like the passengers, is subject to the same mushroom treatment of being kept in the dark and fed crap. It wasn't the vision I had of the job when I signed up.

My worst to date started in Cabo, Mexico. It sounds far more glamerous that it is. We fly to DFW, dodge a few thunderstorms, and land. We are supposed to take a different jet to Mexico City. It is delayed due to thunderstorms. Go figure. A couple hours pass and our jet shows up.

We load up and fly to Mexico City. The ground folks there are frantic to get us turned to fly back to DFW. We rapidly get the jet loaded it when the load planners tell us we are overweight due to the decreased performance of a high altitude airport like Mexico City and we are carrying fuel for an alternate airport. So, they take 4 unhappy people off the jet. Now, they have to pull the bags of the four passngers from the three cargo bins. This takes a while. In the middle of this mayhem, the airport authority tells us they want the gate and we have to move. The bag searching stops and we commence to be towed to another location. The bag searching resumes and the bags are pulled. We taxi out and execute the longest takeoff roll I have ever seen in 20+ years of flying.

So far, so good. Until we get near DFW and are vectored off the arrival. No problem. Then we are instructed to hold. This is a problem. We don't have the fuel to hold. We can do a lot of things with the jet but flying without fuel is not one of them.

We divert to Oklahoma City landing at 11pm on a Sunday night. I have a public education so doing math in public is not my strong suit but I do manage to figure out we have been working for 15 hours. FAA rules says we can work 16 hours and there is no way in hell we will be back at DFW with the throttles off in 16 horus which means we are finished, kaput, stick a fork in me because I'm done.

Combine this with the fact that the Customs and Immigration people don't seem to work on Sunday nights in OKC and we seem to have a problem because we can't get off the jet. I liked the call from Ops about 1am asking us about the 911 call. A passenger called 911 and said he was being held hostage. Nobody would have been happier than me if the SWAT team had actually shown up but the SWAT team was also sleeping.

To make a long story painfully shorter, we eventually make it to DFW about 415am after another crew flew up from DFW to fly us home. I think we started out on the jet in Mexico City somewhere in the neighborhood of 8pm. Our day started in Cabo around 7am and I still had to drive over an hour to get home.

Sprocket Man, that's horrifying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_disaster
^^^
My uncle was Victor Grubbs, the pilot of the Pan Am.

I saw a man in a 2 propeller engine who couldn't get his landing gear all the way down circle the airport till he got the perfect descent and then went down. Minute he tcouehd the ground his landing gear crumpled naturally because it wasn't able to go all the way down so it couldn't lock. Thankfully he managed to land it and kill the engine such that aside from a few sparks everybody was in great condition .

When I was going to Pittsburgh, I was staring out the window for like 90% of the time. Well all of a sudden, I saw this 757 for maybe 1 second below us, and I saw the contrail come out and it was very very cool cause it was so close. Maybe 500 feet below at most. The contrail lasted about 2 seconds before all disappeared (sure was huge), but when I first saw the 757 it looked like it was heading straight at me!

we saw some b-52 bombers fly past us when i flew up to seattle.

Oh, and I took this at Oshkosh.
http://homepage.mac.com/awcg/.Pictures/Bike/Boom.jpg

I was going to junior olympics. My flight was delayed about 14 hours. We ended up taking off right when the registration for my strongest event was closing.

That sucked.

I have a training thing for work near LA on Friday. The company would have flown me for free, but I chose to drive a car I hate for ~12 hours (round trip) instead. I really have no desire to board a commercial airliner in this day and age, nor support the airline industry in any way.

To be honest, I kind of wish the government hadn't bailed out the airlines after they pulled their "Oh boo hoo we had to close for two days now we don't have any moneys please help!" schtick in 2001.

I remember that!
Damn... What a story!

Weird coincidence - I just finished rereading Airframe, by Michael Crichton, and he refers to this... I didn't know it was real, I thought it was just made up for the novel!


PS - I am the only one who likes flying? Maybe it's just because I don't do it enough to be bored/irate with it.

I love flying. Anywhere outside of the US. TSA has taken all the fun out of it 'round here. stupid useless ineffective employment gimmick... At least they've gotten better. (meaning less invasive) It took long enough, but I finally found a TSA supervisor with (drumroll please) Common Sense. and on occasion they will even be polite to the herds now. I can't emphasize enough what a difference a little courtesy makes. then again when the starting point is feeling up old ladies, babies, and mentally handicapped boys (and yes, these were people I knew, not just something i read from a red journal somewhere) there's really only one direction you can go.

oh, and as far as wrecks, etc... I live in Alaska, enough said. seriously, though, pretty much anyone who flies around here regularly (in the small planes) is pretty much guaranteed to have a wreck sooner or later. Bush pilots say that any landing you walk away from was a good landing. I've got a couple favorite stories, but everything said and done all I've seen are a lot of good landings.

I was on Aloha Airlines flight 243 traveling from Hilo to Honolulu in 1988. The roof of the plane ripped open and I saw a flight attendant get sucked through the hole. This is what the plane looked like when we landed:

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/4323/alohaairlinesdisasterkr0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I was pretty shaken up. I refused to fly home from Maui to Honolulu - my parents ended up chartering a boat to get me home. I didn't fly for a few years but I have no problems getting on a plane anymore.



So, would you like to be seated in a window, aisle - or OUTSIDE THE AIRPLANE.. :D ?

For all this, they make you get undressed? No thanks, I'll take the train.

I was on Aloha Airlines flight 243 traveling from Hilo to Honolulu in 1988. The roof of the plane ripped open and I saw a flight attendant get sucked through the hole. This is what the plane looked like when we landed:

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/4323/alohaairlinesdisasterkr0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I was pretty shaken up. I refused to fly home from Maui to Honolulu - my parents ended up chartering a boat to get me home. I didn't fly for a few years but I have no problems getting on a plane anymore.

Crazy. Do you still have your ticket stub from the flight?

Last minute flight, seated by the toilets in front of screaming, barfy baby and this elderly man who paced the aisle (by me) in front of the bathrooms as he made one of his 40 trips. 5 hrs.

I think I mowed over a few people as I grabbed my stuff and ran off the plane. hehe, even left Mom to fend for herself.

It seems for some cyclists it really sucked.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6761925.stm

george

Anyone who has ever traveled on one of Europe's fast, comfortable, and punctual trains has to be very disappointed over the lack of hi-speed rail in the US.

No horror stories but one goal I'm striving for. We've flown to Key West at least one a year for the past 5 years. Usually two stops between OKC and KW. Not once have we made it anywhere near on time. Usually at least 3 hours late. One time it was 8 hours. And we've flown Continental, Delta and American. Just once I'd like to get there, or home, when the schedule says we will.

oh, and as far as wrecks, etc... I live in Alaska, enough said. seriously, though, pretty much anyone who flies around here regularly (in the small planes) is pretty much guaranteed to have a wreck sooner or later. Bush pilots say that any landing you walk away from was a good landing. I've got a couple favorite stories, but everything said and done all I've seen are a lot of good landings.

My wingman and I found a Cessna sitting in some trees with a dome tent set up nearby about 25 miles SSW of Fairbanks. We called Flight Service and passed coordinates and description. Turns out the plane had crashed the night before and the Army helo's from Fort Wainwright ended up picking them up.

The most number of junked hulls I can recall was on a gravel strip called Gold King Creek located on a ridge in the foothills on the north side of the Alaska Range. There was 6 or 7 trashed airplanes sitting in the trees around that strip.

As a former flight attendantm myself and having a wife that is still one, we have our share of insanely crazy days/experiences, albeit often from the other side of the coin. The common frustration involves in the incidents where the gate agents are in a rush to board the plane to get it pushed back on time, and the door closes and the plane pushes back, sometimes even beginning to taxi, and something happens (mechanical, traffic, etc., etc.) and we're stopped on the tarmac. Adding to that frustration are the few times when the pilots don't bother to update the crew/passengers on what's going on.

Don't even get me started on the story of one passenger reaching into my flight bag to grab a magazine and proceed to take it with him into the lavatory and walk out 20 minutes later and attempt to put it back into my bag . . . or the time when the frazzled mom rang her call button repeatedly as we were ready to takeoff, and handed me her baby as she attempted to clean up the vomit the baby had left on her shirt - only thing was, the baby wasn't quite done. Can you say projectile vomit on my shirt, the seat and the aisle (after I realized what was going on, I attempted to spin the baby around to avoid getting the rest on me). And to add insult, I usually pack two or three shirts in my bag when I'm going on a multi-day trip, but that was supposed to be a quick turn to Seattle and back so I didn't even bring my big layover bag with extra clothes . . . and lo and behold, scheduling calls me when I get back and sends me on my way to what ended up being a 3-day trip. Suffice to say, I found an excuse to go shopping, not only for clothes but for some Shout, cologne, and toiletries.

Crazy. Do you still have your ticket stub from the flight?:lol: No, but in hindsight, maybe I should have taken it. I wonder how much something like that would sell for on ebay?

When I was going to Pittsburgh, I was staring out the window for like 90% of the time. Well all of a sudden, I saw this 757 for maybe 1 second below us, and I saw the contrail come out and it was very very cool cause it was so close. Maybe 500 feet below at most. The contrail lasted about 2 seconds before all disappeared (sure was huge), but when I first saw the 757 it looked like it was heading straight at me!

Flights are staggered at 1000 feet intervals, and planes are always at least twice as far away as they look. Still, that's pretty cool.

--

Sprocket Man, amazing that you were on that flight. As I recall the one flight attendant was the only life lost, although quite a few people hurt. It sounds like the pilots did a good job keep their cool until they got the bird on the ground. I remember seeing a little bit of the movie Miracle Landing. I don't know how accurate it was, but it was certainly intense.

I just looked up a little background on that flight. The 737 airframe is rated for 75,000 cycles. Aloha 243 had almost 90,000! Carriers don't push the limits like that anymore.

Luckily not one I was on, but this has got to be the winner: (http://gothamist.com/2007/06/21/poopy_plane_wor.php)


Poopy Plane: Worst Flight Ride Ever?

Okay, so being stranded on a grounded Jet Blue flight for hours and hours on end with the airport in sight is no good. But we think the passengers of a Continental flight from Amsterdam to Newark win the "Woe in my plane ride." Because they had to endure a flight with backed-up toilets that caused sewage to seep down aisles.

Last week, passengers flying back to Newark had to stop in Shannon, Ireland because the plane's toilets weren't working. The stopover became an overnight stay, and then the passengers boarded the same plane, only for the sewage to overflow after takeoff. And then the sewage actually ran down the aisles.

One passenger, Colin Brock, took photographs as evidence of the horrible flight and said, "I've never felt so offended in all my life. I felt like i had been physically abused and neglected. I was forced to sit next to human excrement for seven hours." He added that flight attendants told passengers not to eat or drink much, "To be told that we were supposed to monitor what comes out the other end of us was insulting. Shame on continental. It was the worst flight experience I have ever had."

Metblogger Dana Bushman described her journey on the smelly plane (she cashed in 200,000 Continental frequent flier miles for a trip for herself and her boyfriend) and added this amazing punchline: "Eight hours later, 32 hours into the whole ordeal, we are in Newark, ready for the fun of customs and immigration, and on our way out of the gate Continental issues the final slap in the face--a voucher for one free drink the next time we fly with them!"

I see this cycle with airlines:

1: Airlines do something to cut costs.
2: Passengers get annoyed, take *any* other method of transportation than air.
3: Airlines whine about losses, cut more flights, and jam more seats together on already overcrowded planes.

Maybe if airlines would make it at least bearable to travel, people would patronize them.

Maybe if airlines would make it at least bearable to travel, people would patronize them.
It's a money game. Aviation is so expensive because of both labor and litigation, it's kind of amazing you can pay $70 and fly to LAX from SFO. Supernatural, even. As an airplane mechanic, I can't believe that aviation is still profitable at all! You can pay around $30 for a little screw. And it better be a FAA-PMA screw or they will come and screw your livelihood. A turbine engine bearing? I've seen them around $12,000 EACH. Just a bearing about the size of a small pizza. And get this, one of these parts may not last more than 5,000 hours (I don't know how much real time that is, depends on the airline) if you're lucky.

Can you say "put the squeeze on"??

Passengers on a Continental Airlines flight had to hold their noses for hours as sewage overflowed from toilets while they were high over the Atlantic.

Having grown up on a farm, I utterly fail to be impressed by that. Heck...having used public restrooms before, I utterly fail to be impressed by that.

I don't have anything horrifying, but here's my worst.

12 hours before flying back from Chicago after new years I get a message on my phone saying my flight had been canceled. No reason given. I manage to dig around a little and find out it's weather related...wait a second...it's clear, calm, and 45 degrees?!? Oh, apparently it's due to weather on east coast earlier in the day (keep in mind I'm flying west the next day).

So I call United and manage to rebook for what they told me was the last seat on the last flight to Portland that day (14 hours after my original flight). Dodged a bullet there. I was supposed to be at work the next day.

I step inside O'Hare to see the line reaches all the way to the doors (which is saying a lot given the unusual time and the size of United's check-in area at O'Hare). There's so many people there's new crews filming them. Turns out their entire, nationwide booking computer system is down. They were writing boarding passes by hand. They didn't even have a way of actually checking if I'd bought a ticket. They just had to take my word, although I did get a special frisking.

By this time I'm an hour late for my flight, but they're holding it because of the problems. I get to the gate and find a huge crowd gathered round. Fortunately they were mostly standby and I confirmed my pass was good for a seat on the plane. I sit there for a little bit and all of the sudden the plane starts backing away from the gate!

Ok, it turns out the plane had mechanical issues and they wheeled up another one. We board, but then sit for probably close to an hour while they swap baggage forward because they'd put too much weight aft. 3 hours late (+14 from above), we take off. I slept like crap.

Then in Portland it turns out my luggage wasn't on the plane. Fortunately it turns out it was on the next flight...which came in at 3 AM. I wait an hour for it, get my suitcase, then decide I'm not paying $20 for a taxi and grab a quick nap before public transit starts running at 5:30.


At this point I absolutely swore my troubles were done with, but somehow TriMet managed to join the fray, too. I board the #40 bus for home and zone out. I snap too when the bus driver asks me why I hadn't gotten off at any stop. It turns out, I'm not on the #40, I'm on the #4 on the opposite side of town! So I ride all the way back to the transit center and get off. I turn around to watch the bus leave and double check the sign: #40! That 8!7c4 had the wrong number on her bus!

I verbally confirm the next bus and get home at 9 AM...only 22 hours late and up pretty much all night. Then I took a shower, ate breakfast and drove to work... :cry: