Craziest Airline Experience

[Gill635]

Originally Posted by marypoppins38

The airline was VLM. My Dh used to take that flight every week and I used to travel down to London with my then toddler DD to stay with him every few weeks. A friends sister was cabin crew for them so when she was working our flight she would always make sure that DD's buggy had been offloaded and was put up next to the steps so I could just pop her in it as we left the aircraft. We always got fantastic service when she was on our flights

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I worked for VLM. I was dual based between Liverpool and Manchester, so I’ve probably met you!

[Bessie]

Think it was 1999 flying Newcastle to Orlando, in those days you had to refuel at Maine.

After a 4 hour delay we were finally bused to the furthest point I'd ever seen a plane only to find a man, head inside the engine, & his little metal tool box on the ground next to him. They made us wait another 15 mins or so on the bus, all the time this guy changing his tools & popping back inside the engine. I was terrified of flying (still am) but that scene totally freaked me out. After landing in Orlando we met with my in-laws who were travelling back on that plane & learnt that the pilot had problems starting the same engine 2 weeks prior in Maine.

[mrsmickey]

Not really on the flight, but I did enjoy security at Orlando once where a woman in front was arguing her expensive face creams (looked approx 5 very large pots of creme de mer) were too expensive to go in the hold because they may break, and she demanded to take them in her hand luggage. Needless to say, the security officer appeared to enjoy confiscating them.

Craziest was probably on the 10pm back from JFK earlier this year. It was pretty quiet; we were second row from back and no one on the back row. I decided to try to get some sleep as soon as we took off. About 12:15pm I got woken by an air steward as one person had moved to the seat behind me and wanted to eat dinner and my seat was reclined. They could have moved either side, but no, they wanted a full meal at 12:15 at that specific seat. So I had to sit up. After they finished, I was allowed to put my seat down. Then, an hour later, they wanted a G&T. I refused to put my seat up to accommodate the request. The steward got quite annoyed with me for being “inconsiderate”. Which felt a little ironic. They finally decided, 4 drinks later, to try to get some sleep. Just as we were landing and then they got grumpy about it! I think they expected the plane to fly around a bit whilst they had a nap

[boo2]

Craziest airline experience, was just weird and only happened 2 weeks ago! BA flight to Denver DH and I had picked the second from last row where the fuselage starts to narrow so ideal with 2 seats next to each other rather than 3 of 4 in the row. The couple in front were a bit strange but we didn’t think much of it until half way through the flight! The women , who was in the aisle seat climbed over her sleeping husband and processed to try and squeeze down the space between the fuselage and her husbands chair but in the process had nowhere to buy her knees and her legs😐. She then ended up lying with her knees in the foot space that should have been my husbands on top of his shoes and refused to move! She only moved when she heard me saying I was going to alert the cabin crew!
Very weird indeed 😟

[BucksBugsy]

If you want an experience try being on an aircraft that makes an aborted landing coming into Heathrow. Talk about a steep fast climb !

[scottish mama]

1999 we got married in Orlando and went to the Bahamas for a week honeymooning without the family who came over for wedding.

Flight across was on a tiny plane and about the only other passengers were a family going across to their private island, with the nanny and their complete set of Louis Vuitton luggage - the whole range available!

Coming back, plane was a bit bigger he brakes but as we're approaching MCO the captain announces the brakes weren't working properly so we had to circle to lose fuel, and we'd be landing harder and faster than usual. We landed on the long main runway even though we were only an 80 seater. I'm looking out of the window and saying to DH "ooh look at all those firengines. And ambulances! Wonder what they're for?"
"Us!" Replies DH and sure enough, they all started chasing us down the runway. No other planes anywhere to be seen, and we literally did a nhanbrake turn at the end of the runway! One of the passengers told us it that the runway was so long it could land a B52 bomber -and we nearly shot off the end.
All the US passengers got claim forms handed to them as they got off, we got a "thanks for flying with us".

[scooby99]

Our first holiday together at the age of 18/19 was in 1987 and DH (then DBF) & I went to the Maldives for 2 weeks; back then, no-one had heard of the Maldives but the pics in the brochure looked nice & there was a deal of ‘pay for 1 week, get the 2nd week free’ so we went for it.

No direct flights in those days; our route was Gatwick-Zurich where some passengers got off & others boarded, Zurich-Dubai where again, some got off & others got on, Dubai-Colombo where the flight terminated; we then had a 7 hour layover before a flight to Male in the Maldives & then a 2 hour dhoni boat ride to our island; the journey took in excess of 24 hours; together with the time difference, we left on Friday morning & arrived on Saturday night!

1987 was during the height of the civil war in Sri Lanka with frequent attacks by the Tamil Tigers; the previous year, passengers had been killed whilst boarding their flight at the airport by a Tamil Tiger bomb; the government wanted to keep tourists safe at all costs; we landed on the runway at Colombo and on looking out the window could see soldiers with machine guns lined up on either side; they came out to meet, see off & protect every international flight!

[Trusty ian]

My first flight has stuck in my memory for a very long time.
Was to Malta when I was a young child. I remember looking out the window watching the propellers on the 2 engines on that side with the wing flexing as if it was flapping like a bird. I thought at the time that's how the plane fly's . That was the early days of package hols.

[cherub85]

Originally Posted by BerkshireBugsy

It became a bit of a standing joke after that because 3 months before the British Midland crashed into the side of the M1 I was on that one too so if friends or colleagues knew I was flying they would not go near an airport for a while afterwards !

I do remember when I used to fly from Gatwick to Cincinatti quite after on Delta. We had taxed out to the runway and the engines were being revved up and then stopped.

The captain came over the PA and said we would have to return to the stand because a red light had come on and it needed to be investigated

So back we went and after 30 minutes (we had to stay on the aircraft) the captain announced that they could find the cause of the red light so had taken it out

So anyway on we went - the rest of the flight was uneventful

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I had a similar experience flying Luton to Edinburgh about 8 years ago. Plane began moving to the runway then stopped. After a few minutes it returned to the stand thing. We all sat on board for about an hour. Then the engines started and the pilot came on the tannoy saying that a strange noise had been heard which is why they stopped. He said they couldn’t find the source, so they had restarted the engine and the noise had gone away. He said it was the old switch it off and back on trick! I didn’t enjoy the flight at all and wished they’d just says they’d fixed it!

[Mumindevon]

Flying back from Murcia in Spain about 15 years ago with husband, mum, DD5 and DD9months. I’m a nervous flyer anyway but I thought the seatbelt signs had been on a long time. Pilot suddenly announces he can’t get enough altitude to clear mountains so we need to turn back! DD5 kept asking if were going to exit on the ‘slides’. I was visibly shaking. Landed, sat on plane for an age, they eventually decided it couldn’t be fixed, so disembarked to empty in darkness airport in the middle of the night. At this time Murcia was basically a military airport with few facilities. We still had the villa keys as it was a friend’s place and annoyingly we could see our hire car in the garage but obviously had no keys. So two taxis (me and kids in one, DH, Mum and luggage in another) back to villa. Few hours sleep. Then journey in reverse next day. Only to board the same aircraft! They had apparently fixed it overnight! But we flew home without incident!