Post Your Airport/Plane Horror Story

[laughingperson5]

Didn't find one of these so here we go. I know I'm not the only one in these forums with an airport/plane horror story.
Mine: It was Summer of 2008. My family and I were taking American Airlines from John Wayne Airport to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to La Guardia Airport. It was all going well until we hit the Inland Empire. Our captain said that "something was wrong with the wings" so we had to go back to LAX. Turns out it was just a pre-cautionary cause at the same day this happened: Smoke in cabin sends flight back to LAX When we got to LAX, the American Airlines customer service was packed with about 300 people or so to exchange tickets. After waiting about 2-3 hours in line, we got to the front only to be told that our tickets can be used for the exchanged flight and we would be at gate number [I forgot.] Plus since there weren't any available flights at DFW till next morning, so they gave us a complimentary room at a hotel in Dallas. So after another 45 minutes passed. We started boarding our plane. But when we go to the ticket-scanner thing. We were rejected because we had tickets for John Wayne. The stewardess sent us back to customer service where we waited ANOTHER Hour. Again. When we got to the front of the line, a different receptionist gave us tickets to a flight that was now-then boarding... at a different terminal. After rushing to the terminal, we made it on board...
However, the story doesn't end.
When we got to DFW, we received our hotel information and called for a shuttle bus. Since it was midnight when we arrived, the receptionist who picked up the phone started arguing with my mom on how that their last shuttle was at 11:30. They argued until the hotel manager talked to my mom and sent a shuttle bus. But that shuttle bus never came to our terminal so we had to sleep at the airport. I couldn't fall asleep after all these freaking fiascos so I decided to just have an all-nighter. That all-nighter felt like 30 hours because there was no Wi-Fi, only CNN was playing on the TVs, my iPod was dead, and back then I had an LG Chocolate that had nothing entertaining. When 6 AM came, we got to the terminal and finally got to our plane.
The. End.
Haha sorry for the super duper long rant. How come MR doesn't have a rant and rave forum?

 

[yoyo5280]

That sounds awful!

Our disaster flight was a little less severe.

So we were flying Qantas from Narita Airport to some airport in Australia. The flight wasn't that bad, except for the Windows running entertainment system crashed numerous times, giving us the blue screen of death. The flight attendants were fairly ditsy and weren't very kind about it. Fair enough I suppose.

But then the meals came. Airplane food isn't good but I usually eat it...i'ma hungry kid. So my family nibbled on it a little bit, and gave me the rest of theirs. Skip forward a little bit, somebody throws up. THen another person. Than another person. Our whole block of economy seats had a rather unfortunate case of the spews. And as you can imagine, I ate the most food out of anybody.... yea.... The flight attendants, understandably so, wanted nothing to do with the barf bags being passed left and right.

The plane landed, everything was fine, everybody recovered, all was well..


I then bought I fruitcup from the coffee shop in Oz right after we landed, the expiry date was a week ago. Good thing my paranoia got the better of me and I checked before I ate that.

-omi

 

[aethelbert]

One upon a time, I went to work. It was awful. The end.

 

[anjinha]

I went backpacking around Europe this Summer. When I was in Rome I got sick, so I decided to come back early.

I checked the flights and the only one I could afford was at 6am. I didn't want to pay for a taxi and the last direct train to the airport was at 11pm so I decided to just get that one and spend the night at the airport. I really regretted it. I was already sick, the airport was too cold, the seats were extremely uncomfortable and and there was a lady there snoring louder than I ever heard anyone snore.

By the time I got in the flight I felt even worse than before and because I'm living on my own in a new city I had no one to pick me up at the airport and take care of me when I got back. It really wasn't a good ending for an otherwise amazing trip.

 

[tabasco70]

I'm flying today.. thanks for all these nice stories.

I may have something to post here in 24 hours, though.

 

[quagmire]

Nothing too bad in my memory. Only thing close to a bad experience is when we went through security with cakes on the morning of the attempted bombing of the British Airways flight into the US. Security kept on hounding us making sure they were just cakes.

 

[yoyo5280]

Nothing too bad in my memory. Only thing close to a bad experience is when we went through security with cakes on the morning of the attempted bombing of the British Airways flight into the US. Security kept on hounding us making sure they were just cakes.

Once we had bars of soap in the bags and they thought they were donuts. That was funny They searched the bags and were like oh...

 

[The Californian]

I haven't had any really bad stories, actually I've always been the lucky one. I was in Europe with some mates and we were flying home from London-Heathrow right after some terrorist activity. Needless to say, the security was quite heightened. They were randomly strip searching people in a tent outside of the terminal, then once again they were doing random strip searches at the security checkpoint to reach the gate. I didn't get checked either time, about half of my group did.

Another time my girlfriend and I went to DisneyWorld in Florida for a week and due to problems with the return flight in Orlando we missed our connecting flight in Atlanta. They were refusing to put anyone up in a hotel because they claimed the problem was "out of their control". I looked around and found a wheelchair, had my girlfriend sit in it and look like she was in pain, and talked nicely to a gentleman at the customer service counter. All the while there were a group of teenage girls yelling at the other customer service representative. The guy first offered us 50% off hotel accommodations and after talking a little more he put us up in a hotel free of charge, he then told us that there was no shuttle to our hotel so he wanted to upgrade us to a better one with a tram. Needless to say it was a pleasant experience, then we spent the next day in Atlanta and realized we never wanted to go back ... haha.

 

[Creative One]

Beat this.

Was going on a week long trip to Dominican Republic and was flying through Skyservice. Needless to say my flight was at 5 am so went down to T.O the night before (I'm and hour and a half away.) Wake up at 12 to go to the airport... Get their at 3 (After getting ready and breakfast) and then see a huge old style line to sign in (Probably one from the 70's) There wasn't even a automated sign in.. So anyways, stood in line for 2 hours to find that I was in the wrong line and because my flight was delayed (Due to the pilot putting a hole in the plane while taxing, I had to stand in line for information about the delay) So I get in another 50 ft line and wait for about 10 min to find that my FLIGHT IS DELAYED 23 hours and I am being put up in the nearest crappiest hotel available. I say to my self, okay could this get worse? YES. I get to the hotel and find out its got bugs everywhere... Great... Next I go online to try to find my flight status only to find that it lists as "departed 5:45 : Early" ... Yeah im sure... (It stayed this way all day and night too.) ... By this time im getting to know all the other victims... Some who were only going for 4 days, and had broken into tears. After about 12 hours of dealing with all that drama we get a call saying they've found another airplane and are going to ship us out in about 2 hours. So we go back to the airport and stand in line for 30 min to find that the plane had service issues and we must go back to the hotel while they charter an American Airlines plane from New York to come take us. Well we wait another 5 hours (It is now very late at night) and they call and say they have the plane. We go to the airport sign in get to the gates and are waiting... 20 minutes later the plane arrives. We cheer, then they say "Ok, now all we need is a crew..." 10 minutes, Great crew is here . "Ok, all we need is a pilot then were good to go. 20 minutes "Ok, we may now board the airplane". I get in this only to find is a 757 THAT SEEMS LIKE IT IS OUT OF A JUNK YARD. Like jesus god, I walk in to the worst smell, the oldest interior i've ever seen, and "big luke" as my seat buddy. Well... Needless to say, I only got a coupon for a $125 voucher on my next Skyservice Premium flight.


Anything to top that?

 

[yoyo5280]

Not from my end, no.

As horrible as it was for you, I am sure somebody has worse.

-Omi

 

[steve2112]

Mine isn't that bad, but it was annoying. I was coming back from a conference in Las Vegas to Atlanta, and then a small commuter plane back to the regional airport at home. Murphy seemed to follow every step of the way. We were starting to pull away from the gate in Vegas, when this old lady sitting in the row in front of me starting throwing up. Thankfully, a quick acting attendant got an ice bucket under her before she let loose completely. So, we pulled back up to the gate, they got her off the plan, and got the next standby person on.

OK, one thing I forgot to mention. There is only about 1.5 hours between landing in ATL and our connecting flight home. And it was the last flight of the day.

Anyway that whole ordeal takes about 30-40 minutes. Because of that, we lost our spot in line to takeoff, and had to wait another 10-15 minutes. Finally, we get airborne and cruise for a while, when I notice that it feels like the plane is going in circles. The pilot announces that we are waiting for some storms to clear out, and in orbit around Meridian, MS, which is about 1 hour from my home town. I was thinking just land here, I can find a ride home! So, I was hoping that if we waiting for storms, maybe ATL is delayed. We finally land with about 2 minutes to spare, and we go running to the gate, just in time to see the plane leaving, just like in movies. We argued with Delta, but they swore they didn't pay for hotels for weather delays. Nevermind the whole deal with the lady getting sick. Finally, we decide that ATL is only 4 hours from home, so we will drive. Not a single rental agency would give us a one-way rental. So, I got to sample how well the chairs in the ATL airport sleep. (Not very well) Oh yeah, sharing the terminal with us was a group of 12-15 (or so) year old soccer players.

I hate flying. I'm not scared of it, but I just hate airlines, airports, and the TSA. To paraphrase Douglas Adams: There is a reason no culture on earth has ever come up with the phrase "as lovely as an airport".

 

[Les Kern]

I was on a flight to Jakarta about 10 years ago. Had to connect on a flight out of 'Bama to Chicago, where I boarded a plane non-stop. During the changeover I decided to eat some authentic Chicago food, so I had some pizza, and some beer, and some Chicago dogs, some more beer, and to top it all off had a few shooters. I was in business class, so i knew I could sleep it off in a nice comfy seat.
It didn't turn out that way.
About half way across the Pacific my stomach was going NUTS, and I was farting some kind of death-fume from outer space. The folks around me where far enough away, so I was safe, and the aisle seat next to me was open. A little bit later I cramped up and HAD to go to the restroom NOW. I jumped out of my seat and made it to the toilet... almost. My bowels let loose about 5 feet from the restroom door and it was like someone spilled a gallon of brown gravy. It shot out of me like a volcano, and poured down my leg. I could NOT stop it, and my GOD the stench! A stewardess was right there and almost vomited, but she helped me into the cubicle. So here I was, covered from the waist down in liquid crap, in a bathroom the size of a casket. I pulled off my pants and underwear and started rinsing them out. While I was doing that I had ANOTHER eruption, and this one painted the door. Then I threw up (You would have too!) I continued on cleaning myself up... and ran out of towels. OH NO! I decided to just crack the door and ask the stewardess to get me some more, when all of the sudden some turbulence threw my out of the restroom. And what was blocking my way? The drink cart. I grabbed a hold of the handle but succeeded in knocking every can of pop and bucket of ice off the cart. THEN, I get wedged between the cart and the door frame, naked, covered in crap, then vomited again. People were screaming. One old guy threw up. A lady covered her young child's eyes and shouted "Don't look baby, don't look!" I was trapped. The steward called for assistance, and one big guy came over and tried lifting me up. I heard a crack... it was my arm. "I THINK I BROKE MY F***ING ARM!" I shouted. (I didn't) I overheard a steward call the pilot and tell them what was going on, and maybe he'd better get back here. I wasn't even humiliated. It was like a dream... or a nightmare.
Well, they finally got my up and back in the bathroom where I cleaned up best I could. The stewardess cleared a few seats around me by putting a few folks in first class. I slept.
I landed in Jakarta, went to my hotel, called my wife and sons, ordered room service and fell asleep.

 

[aethelbert]

Was going on a week long trip to Dominican Republic and was flying through Skyservice.
Anything to top that?

Hmm, my one experience with Skyservice was pretty good. But it was part of a pretty awful trip that may be worse than yours.

Back in 2001, I was going down to Tegucigalpa for about ten days to help with a music education project. I was actually able to find a vacation tour group with a better total charge (airfare + hotel) so I opted for that. The charter, operated by the now-defunct Southeast Airlines, left Columbus, Ohio at 8:20 am on a Saturday so I made the 250 mile drive over there leaving at about 1:30. All was going well, I even had a coupon to save 50% at the parking lot. At about 6:15 I walked into the terminal and headed for the "charters" check-in desk to join a line of about twenty people.

I got up to the front to be told that the flight would be delayed for two hours
due to a medical emergency on the inbound aircraft: no problem, someone's health is more important than me making it exactly on time. I got my boarding pass and headed to the gate, C1. Nicely enough, C1 is walled off when a flight is arriving so that people can head downstairs to immigration/customs. So I have no gate to go to, but was able to call my friend, who was director of security there, and we went to a bar in the concourse. The plane ended up arriving about three hours late (probably 10:30 or so) and the wall was eventually opened allowing us to enter our gate area. We sat there for an hour with no boarding call, until they finally made an announcement that the crew from the inbound flight had gone over their flying limits and we had to wait for a new flight crew.

Well, that cannot take too long, can it? Since Southeast had no personnel at CMH (it wasn't a regularly scheduled city for them), nobody was able to give us updates. We sat around for many hours, nobody having any idea about what was going on. At about five in the afternoon, someone comes out and tells us that the flight that the new crew is on has just become airborne. At 6:30 or so, they tell us that said flight is on approach. It was "on approach" until about eight... The crew arrived, and since the a/c was loaded with cargo, fuel, etc, we were ready to board. We all get on board, they don't bother to apologize for the delay, and we start taxiing. We get to the holding point for the departure runway having only made right turns since leaving the gate. And guess what? The aircraft can't turn left.

We sat on board for about ninety minutes after that until a bunch of emergency vehicles with lights and all surround the plane. So they make us walk out of the tailcone exit onto parking lot busses that take us to the jetway to walk up the stairs. We get back up to the gate to see that the wall had been closed again, so we were stuck in there. At 10:30, they opened the gate and told us to stay in the concourse, and at 11:00 they called everyone up (all at once) to the single agent to get hotel rooms.

At midnight, I had my room, and went down to baggage claim to get my checked luggage. After waiting for an hour, they told us that we were at the wrong carousel and had to go to the one in international processing, so that was an hour wasted. So at 1:00 am I walked out onto the arrivals curb looking for a shuttle. But of course, they don't have shuttles, so says the rent-a-cop. Eventually one came and took us on a thirty minute drive to a hotel which seemed to be an old Holiday Inn but then had the sign covered up with a tarp; it seemed as if some random third party owned the place to use for situations like this. I get inside and there is one person processing all 180 people from the flight. I was probably in the middle. So at 2:30 I get a room, which was gross with a booger on the door knob, and go to sleep. They said that they would call with updates on the flight.

I wake up with no further updates at 7:30 and go downstairs. Since there was nothing close by for breakfast, I had to eat there. They had a "special menu" for us, where the cheapest thing was about $16. So I sucked it up and ate. Same thing with lunch. Then at 2:30 we get a call to go to the airport. So I get there, wait in the same check-in queue as the day prior, and get the same boarding pass for the same gate, even with the date from the day prior... Lo behold, we get to the gate and there's no aircraft. Southeast was apparently sending a replacement, but they didn't decide to scratch that idea until six. So we sat, and sat, and sat. I later took a nap. At six, they announce that another airline is sending a plane to fly us from Winnipeg. At seven they tell us that it's airborne, and it shows up to the gate at ten. We left at eleven, got into Honduras at about 02:00 on Monday. I ended up arriving to the site after five, hearing no apologies for the delay from anyone. Skyservice did well as the replacement though.

 

[Luigi239]

Boarding a plane in Florida, and sitting next to my ex-girlfriend who lives in Maryland and who I hadn't seen in about a year.

It wasn't really a horror story, it ended up ok since we talked and all, but yeah, what are the chances? I know it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the stories, but oh well.

 

[laughingperson5]

Boarding a plane in Florida, and sitting next to my ex-girlfriend who lives in Maryland and who I hadn't seen in about a year.

It wasn't really a horror story, it ended up ok since we talked and all, but yeah, what are the chances? I know it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the stories, but oh well.

I know it's not as horrific as the ones posted already. But your situation just made me yell out, "OUCHH." At least your ex isn't a psycho.

 

[Love]

Not too bad, but annoying.

Air Canada, 141 from T-Dot to Cowtown. A320.

The hour and a half long connection in YYZ (originated in YYT St. Johns NL) seemed like an eternity. Took forever to get off the plane from The Rock, and welcome to, *sigh* Toronto. Treated myself to a slight bit of relaxation with a Tim's coffee. Wi-Fi wasn't free, so I went to use my iPhone - dead. I just went to my gate where I would take off to Calgary. The endless droning of a very annoying-voiced gate agent was droning about 18 times "Final boarding call for Air Canada 183 to Edmonton. *some dude* and *some dude* please come to gate 155 for immediate boarding please. Appel final d'embarquement pour Air Canada 183 vers Edmonton. *some dude and some dude* veuillez venir pour déclencher 155 pour l'embarquement immédiat si vous plait." Finally, the time came. "Now boarding Air Canada 141 to Calgary International." I got on just wanting to settle in to my seat and pass out for a few hours for my 12:55AM arrival in to Calgary. But, no. A family had decided to take our seats because they checked in late and weren't seated together. I can appreciate that, they had a small child. Apparently though, more than a few weren't seated right because a number of people checked in late. It took about 15 minutes to get this settled, and I ended up a couple rows back in the middle seat. This airplane has the new enRoute OnDemand PTVs, touchscreen TVs in the back of every seat. Apparently, the window seat person beside me found something that was so ****ing funny that he laughed loudly enough for those lucky *******s in Executive First to hear. This generally caused a lack of sleep. I fell asleep in the taxi home.

 

[mbpnewbie]

I go on holiday a lot during holiday seasons.. Skiing in the alps-that sort of thing... I remember a couple of years ago, we were going to one of the european countries that have the Alps, and the charter was late... we waited about 3 hours for a plane and they didn't give us jack....



A few weeks ago, I was flying to the states to visit my family. this trip had been planned for a couple weeks and I already had a plan of what I was going to do on that flight... I got mad baked before the flight( so I could make it through security without killing anybody ) and bought a couple litres of vodka at duty free( mad cheap)... the plan was to drink myself to passing out on the 9.5 hour flight, but instead, I just got mad drunk... anyway... I got on the plane and started drinking... I got through 1/4 of one of the bottles and had maybe 4-5 airplane bottles of vodka. Anyway, I ended up having to be moved from my exit row seat because the flight attendants deemed I wasn't able to help in the event of an emergency... No probs I can deal with that... It was only about 30 mins... anyway, I got to passport control( I was flying internationally) and found I lost my passport.. I freak out to the guy and he takes me to the back room( I'm an american citizen and hold an american passport) After immigration cleared me, the let me out... unfortunately, the place where they took me, wasn't in the international arrivals area, so I got confused... I confused myself into a panic attack and fainted(denting my umbp beyond being able to close) anyway, I had a cop and a paramedic attending to me and I was cursing up a storm... I finally found my parents( who were picking me up)... I was relieved... I was suppose to land at approx 19:30 and ended up getting out of the airport sometime after midnight... the craziest thing is that I brought only a back back with me... no checked luggage

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

Eh, nothing too bad. Once flying into St. Louis, we hit some crazy turbulence upon descent. I just closed my eyes for 15 minutes and waited to feel the tires hit the ground.

As I was leaving the terminal, he saw another pilot walk up to my pilot and go, "Man, good job. I didn't think you were going to be able to land that one."


..........

 

[huntnboy04]

Last summer I went to Ghana, West Africa, on a Service Learning with my college. On our way home, we arrived to the airport about 6 hours before our flight departed, our Professor was very paranoid about getting us there and making sure everything went smoothy. Well as it turns out as we were the first people to check into our flight, we were informed by our airline, KLM that there was no fuel at the airport to fill the plane and we would have to make an un-scheduled stop in Logos, Nigeria to fill up. Stopping to re-fuel was going to make us miss our connecting flight as we only had a 2 hour layover in Amsterdam. So all 11 of us were re-booked on a new flight. Good thing we arrived early.

Not really a horror story, but from the time I got to the airport in Accra Ghana, till I was home, was 31 hours, with no sleep.

 

[Mr. Giver '94]

About two years ago we were flying to Denver for Christmas. As everyone knows, holiday travel is difficult no matter how close your destination is. We usually fly out of LAX with no issue, but we had gotten a really good deal flying out of the Inland Empire, which is like suburban hell to the extreme. Basically they decided to build millions of identical homes in a place about as desolate as the Bonneville salt flats.

So we were driving to the airport and got stuck in HUGE traffic, I mean no movement at all for an hour. Even though we had planned to be 3 hours early for our flight, we knew we weren't going to make it. So we called the United customer service reps and they said they'd put us on a different flight. So no problem, until it stared to rain watermelon sized drops and caused another accident that delayed us even further.

We called the customer service again, and they were aware of the crazy weather and helped us no problem again. When we arrived at the airport, the lady at the ticketing/baggage check informed us that the flight we had been assigned to was a flight number that hadn't been used for 5 years and that the last flight to Denver was at the airport, but we were too late to make it through security with enough time to board. So we were hopeless. We decided that it would just be best to drive home and drive back again in the morning.

When we arrived at the airport the next day, they informed us that the flight we had been assigned to was actually departing from John Wayne Airport in Orange County. They put us on a shuttle right away, but the driver was one of those stereotypical crazy cab drivers who nearly ran us off the road 5 times on the way there. Finally, we arrived in Orange County and were able to depart with no problem.

We had a nice trip, but our return flight was cancelled for two days because of snow. When the weather improved, we were called and told we had been moved to Ted, the low class cousin of United. WORST AIRLINE EVER. Our flight number changed twice, and we were at the airport for 8 hours. When we finally got boarded, we waited on board, no air conditioning, no water, grounded for 3 hours while they sorted out the de-icing situation etc.

Probably not as bad as some experiences, but it was really annoying.

 

[aethelbert]

Ted, the low class cousin of United. WORST AIRLINE EVER.

Such a shame that you've never heard of Tower Air.

 

[Mr. Giver '94]

Such a shame that you've never heard of Tower Air.

You're right I haven't. I should change that to worst airline I've flown on.

 

[torbjoern]

My most stressful airport experience (as a traveller) was somewhere in Central Europe after a 15-hour-flight. This was not caused by the airport itself, rather by the fact that the airline had misinformed my wife and me about which terminal to transfer from. The instrumental "On the Run" is very descriptive for how I felt at the time.

We had only 1 hour of transfer time (barely enough by itself) and after passing through the security check, it turned out that we had gone to the wrong terminal. And now we had only 30 minutes left until boarding! First, we had to pass through an immigration control for entry to the Schengen area, and the queue was longer than I could see. That would easily take 20-25 minutes. Besides, we would have to run to the other terminal and go through another security check after that.

We actually made it - but I had to take bold actions for that to happen (which is a different story).

 

[stubeeef]

I was coming in to land in Manchester NH and on short final my flaps would not come down ( i was the captain in the left seat in a G-100) I didn't have enough fuel for any better divert (the northeast was socked in with bad weather) and the runway was a snow packed ice rink.
No flap landings mean landing hot (fast) and need a longer rollout. On a good runway that is no problem, on ice BIG PROBLEM. My CoPilot and I did a great job and it was as should be, uneventful.
Landing in the azores (lajes) in January. Crosswind was exactly 90degrees at 35 knots (which was the exact maximum crosswind component of my airplane, Navy P3C UII.5).
Could not see the runway because of rain and turbulence till short final. It was out my left window! (winds where right to left)
With help of the final controllers (on-ah glide path, on-ah course, don't ah touch-ah nothin) I got it on the runway early, but with the massive crosswind, my huge billboard vertical stabilizer, and HYDROPLANING. I found my self quickly staring at and going to the right side of the airport pointing 60degrees right of runway heading. I could have sworn I was going off the runway. I jammed my right 2 engines forward and put my left 2 in slight beta (reverse) and made it to center line. I almost through the engines to TakeOff power but my nearest divert was Rota Spain 3 hours away. It took me 20 minutes to get out of the seat once parked, and I thought my legs would give way coming down the crew ladder.

 

[steve2112]

Landing in the azores (lajes) in January. Crosswind was exactly 90degrees at 35 knots (which was the exact maximum crosswind component of my airplane, Navy P3C UII.5).
Could not see the runway because of rain and turbulence till short final. It was out my left window! (winds where right to left)
With help of the final controls (on-ah glide path, on-ah course, don't ah touch-ah nothin) I got it on the runway early, but with the massive crosswind, my huge billboard vertical stabilizer, and HYDROPLANING. I found my self quickly staring at and going to the right side of the airport pointing 60degrees right of runway heading. I could have sworn I was going off the runway. I jammed my right 2 engines forward and put my left 2 in slight beta (reverse) and made it to center line. I almost through the engines to TakeOff power but my nearest divert was Rota Spain 3 hours away. It took me 20 minutes to get out of the seat once parked, and I thought my legs would give way coming down the crew ladder.

Woah, the P3 Orion. Are those Harpoons slung underneath?