Posted on 09/16/2005 12:56:14 PM PDT by Maximus of Texas
On the flight home this morning, I was unfortunate enough to have a bleeder sit next to me. By bleeder, I mean he was invading my space because he was large and his body was spilling over into my seat. I've seen worse cases than what I had today but let's hear your experiences.
Don't you mean a melter?
Or a dripper?
Or an oozer?
I would have laid the baby out there in the aisle before I would have crammed 3 people into that flying portapotty.
Made me giggle.
Melter is ok, the other two choices are gross.
Maybe I should have tried that! : )
Went to a conference in Vegas. Flight out was scheduled during Memorial Day weekend. TONS of traffic.
So we go to the airport three hours early, and get in line. And wait. And wait.
Our departure was getting pretty close, and we were still standing in line to check our baggage. Someone from the airline comes walking through the line, asking if anyone is on flight number so and so. We were, so they rushed us to the front of the line, checked our baggage, and told us to run like hell.
Right there, I got a little pissed. We were in THEIR line, they knew there were people in their line who were supposed to be on that flight. Could they not have maybe told the flight to wait, as there were passengers coming?
So we get up there, and go to the ticket lady. She says, "Oh geez, really sorry honey, you were supposed to be here at least twenty minutes before boarding. We gave your seat to someone else."
WHAT??
I was in your friggin line, you took my friggin bags, and put them on your friggin airplane, and now I can't get on?
It gets better. They had not given away my husband's seat, even though he had also violated the golden twenty minute rule by waiting in their line.
They told us we could spend the night in Vegas (all our bags were lovingly placed on the flight to which we had purchased tickets two months prior), and they would pay for it, then get us on a flight the next day that would take us to Dallas, but from there we were on our own. It was a holiday weekend you know, and they were very busy. Simply could not be bothered dealing with customers they have already screwed. They really needed to spend their time getting to the next screwees.
We gave my husband's ticket to an elderly lady, who was crying because she had also gotten the big screw.
We rented a car, and drove home. Had to go to the airport after driving for fricking ever (I live in KS), to try to find our luggage. They gave us some pos tickets to use within a year. I burned them.
My father in law swears to this day that he saw me on some t.v. special about pissed off airport happenings.
Like bleeder is really tidy and sweet.
Man, that sucks! I had the 20 min thing happen to me earlier this year. They wouldn't give me a boarding pass even though I was there 20 minutes before the flight left. There was no waiting at security and the gate was right there and yet they refused. They said they could get me on the next flight, which left 2 hours later. I said "fine", took the ticket, went through security and walked onto my original flight via standby. I wanted to call the ticket person and say "Screw you! I got on!".
Ha. God I hate flying. It is SUCH a nightmare.
One story I can relate happened a few years ago. After Christmas break we were flying from Louisville to VA Beach with a stopover in Baltimore. My 7 yr old autistic son's don't-wanna-wear-a-seatbelt tantrum slightly delayed the Louisville - Baltimore leg (the stewardesses were SO helpful, understanding and didn't kick us off the plane, God bless them). The kicker was that by the time we finally got off the ground and to cruising altitude he was sound asleep and snoring (and stayed that way for the rest of the flight). To make things even MORE interesting, the turbulence was bad enough the WHOLE way so that we were stuck in our seats the entire time. No matter - my four year old son sat next to me and said 'WHEEEEE' every time the plane lurched. That got a few laughs.
Ohhh you are lucky you didn't suck a duck on that takeoff. The takeoff at John Wayne is steep because they have to climb at a steep angle to avoid the Newport backbay wildlife area. The pilots like to call it an "E ticket ride"*. Every so often they have to do an emergency landing because they have sucked a duck and it blows out the turbines.
It also is a bit unnerving to be able to wave at the office workers in the buildings next to the 405 freeway as you are coming in for a landing.
For those of you that don't know what an E ticket ride is, it refers to a Disneyland ride that was a premium ride. It goes back in the days when you had to have tickets to ride the rides along with the admission price to the park.
My flight was landing at sunset in DEN a few weeks ago, and a couple of miles to the west was a viscous micro-burst.
It looked like a bag of flour was being poured out of the lighting laden clouds, as a circular wall of dust hundreds of feet tall was being kicked up around the downpour.
The video game sounding avionics alarms went off as we suddenly lost too much of what little elevation we had left.
The pilot did a swell job out saving our bacon, and his face howed a bit of trauma when I congratulated him after our safe landing.
**LOL** now that is scary :)
..and have her sit down next to him and continue to throw up during the entire flight!
He wanted to burn his clothes (just in case!)..whe he arrived home.
Flight out of Reno, about 20 yrs. ago: As we were taking off, the vent at my seat began spewing smoke (and I have asthma). The jerk in the aisle seat yelled "Fire!", then stuck his foot in the aisle, tripping a pregnant flight attendant who was rushing uphill with a fire extinguisher.
The pilot did a screaming U-turn and headed for the ground. The crew worried aloud whether we would land before the plane blew up. We took crash position. There wasn't a peep from anyone except one scared child. Some were writing farewell notes.
The cabin was completely filled with choking smoke by the time we landed, but it took awhile to open the only usable exit door until the flight attendant remembered the correct code words. By this time, most of us were crawling on the floor. We were evacuated to the runway, but other air traffic was taking off around us. A guy in an asbestos suit refused to go on the plane to take care of the problem, and we had to wait for buses to remove us from the runway. The flight attendants, males included, huddled tearfully in a corner. Two of them quit that day.
The passengers fell into three categories: Advance planners who ran to the ticket counter to get other connections out of town (hubby), people feeling lucky who headed for the slots (I won $7.50 from the quarter I invested), and the majority who headed for the bar the airport opened up for us at 7 a.m. on a Sunday.
The rest of the day as we traveled home, we endured nasty glances and comments due to the horrible smell of our clothing (imagine burning rubber). I could taste it and feel it in my sinuses for about a week. But we were smiling, and very happy to be alive.
I feel your pain! After taking my 12 mo old son from Atlanta to Madrid Spain, and his being sick and crying for 7 hours, I have never got in a plane again. Well, except the return trip, and that’s because I didn’t have a choice. Since then, if my parents want to see their grandchildren, they are welcome to come over here!
After years of leaving from JFK, I LOVE Atlanta International Airport. I reckon everything is relative!
the 60 minute flight that takes 2 hours which means you miss the meeting
That falls under "I'm late for work because traffic was heavy."
Don't cut it close and you won't be disappointing.
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