I was going from Washington DC to Hartford CT. I was in line to check in and a young woman was crying, saying her father had suffered a major cardiac event and she had to get home to have any chance of seeing him alive again. She had a ticket for a later flight and was asking if anyone would switch with her. A nice man said he would, to the applause of many. She just happened to be seated next to me and, after the plane was in the air, told me that her father didn't have a heart attack, she just didn't feel like sitting in the airport for another 3 hours.

Not in a plane, on a train here in New Mexico. Returning home from Albuquerque, I was one of two in the car.

A man sitting way in the back of the car was conducting battles, snapping out orders. Then he had a conversation with somebody I couldn't see. Finally he started singing.

I perked up. He was singing Baptist hymns. I knew those. So I harmonized.

I am pretty sure he never knew I was there.

Guy behind me on a flight from London to the US took his shirt off. The flight attendant asked him nicely several times to put it back on. When he raised his voice she left, then I saw the captain barreling down the aisle and he did not ask, nor was he nice.

“You WILL put your shirt back on or you WILL be arrested when we land. This is NOT a discussion. You have 3 seconds.”

The dumbass finally shut up and put his shirt on.

one interesting flight crew NYC memory. Not the flight itself but the crosstown limo ride from LaGuardia to JFK. occasionally crews land at one of the NYC airports and depart from another. In this case we landed at LaGuardia, departed from JFK, and the company making all the ground travel arrangements.

on this one occasion, the limo pickup with the friendly driver was as expected, and everything went as expected until someone noticed and spoke up: "Are you trying to take us to Newark by mistake? You do know we're suppose to go to JFK, right?"

After a few minutes of conversation in a foreign language on his CB with his dispatcher, the driver said "sorry, no problem" and immediately tried to correct the mistake by doing a U-Turn on one of NYC's 50-lane expressways. Yep, by jumping the median. And he almost made it. But he Instead impaled the limo crossways on the elevated median divider. The driver then told us to get out and lift him over the median. Which we did, all 10 of us. NYC drivers whizzing by at 100 mph, inches away as we lifted the limo over the hump.

We survived, and made it to JFK. Me thinking that this merits combat pay and the driver never breaking a sweat, like "opps just a little mistake, no big deal."

Another, my last for the day ...

For a spell, cab drivers were reluctant to pick up uniformed crew members at LaGuardia. Try to flag down a cab and the response was often "F--- you!".

Why? one of the major airlines had made a voucher deal with the cab company where the crew members would simply give the cabbie a voucher and all the financial details had been worked out between the cab company and the airline, and the cabbie would collect his/her due from his/her cab company. And that left individual cab drivers no room to "negotiate" a higher fare, or intimidate the passengers for a bigger tip. And since all uniformed crew members sort of looked alike, regardless of airline, everyone suffered.

Speaking of negotiated cab fares, there was the heart breaking story in the early 70s abut a cab driver charging a vacationer from Italy all the money she had for a cab ride from JFK to a hotel in Manhattan. She was clueless about the value of US currency and counted on the honesty of the cab driver to help her count out the right amount. When she later valued what was left she was practically broke. The fleecing somehow became a news story and as I recall, Frank Sinatra stepped up and funded the lady's vacation.

I was a fairly new pilot maybe about 100 hours as pilot in command of my little Piper aircraft. I checked the weather and was told that the houte I intended to fly was clear and sunny. I filed my flight plan and lifted off on the 1 hour flight to home base. I had barely got to cruising altitude when I noticed that there was a tremendous updraft that required me to trim the aircraft nose down just to keep from climbing higher than my flight plan had stipulated. I throttled way back almost to idle and did a ground speed check. To my amazement I was travelling 180 mph over the ground even though my airsped showed 120 mph. Then there was a blinding flash of lightning off to my left. then a similar one to my right. Then one straight ahead. I realized that I had somehow been drawn into the centre of a very violent thunderstorm. Strangely the little airplane was smooth in flight with no major ups or downs or other shakes as the lightning continued to flash all around me. Then I began to worry. I was nearing home base but the aircraft was in such an updraft I had the power reduced to idle. How do I get down? Suddenly and very smoothly the vertical airspeed indicator showed 300 per minute down and the storm was gone as quickly as it arose. I landed safely without incident and was amazed at how smooth the flight was in the eye of the storm.

:) I still have a million stories .... this one the funniest, about the bus shuttle between Laguardia and The City .... AKA Manhattan.

I was safely on the bus waiting to depart for the City. But the terminal traffic was at a standstill. Nothing moving, and at departure time the bus driver closed the door and advanced the bus about 6 inches before putting it in "Park", then he sat back and started reading the newspaper.

Then along comes a late passenger wanting to get on the bus. A eighty-ish lady yanking at the door. The bus driver never looked up, nor did he open the door. He just yelled back: "We already left, catch the next one."

The lady made a couple of more pleas: "Please let me get on. Please open the door."

The bus driver has no response. He just continues reading his newspaper.

The lady then walked directly in front of the bus, directly in front of the driver's windshield and started banging her umbrella directly in the driver's face, and yelling an unending stream of profanity, until ...

... until the bus driver reaches up and opens the door. Still while reading his newspaper.

The lady then says "thank you" in the sweetest voice and takes her seat.

The Army's MRE Meal Ready to Eat had it uses; one meal was packed with 3300 to 4000 calories because you may not get to eat much or often so when you do you get packed with calories to keep going. Also eating one MRE would back my bowls up for a week: les shit les shit the enemy could count and get an idea of your force strength. The Army thought all the lovely stuff out for you.

Now that I gave this wonderful education here is my flight story with it. We boarded Another c-141 for a wonderful ride from Germany to the Middle East the Air force pilots all got packed sandwich lunches from the dining hall and as we boarded the plane, they handed us one MRE each and a 16 oz bottle of water. As I entered the plane the pilot came back and asked what I was given, and I told him an MRE sir. He looked at the brown plastic bag and said, "Oh Wow" "Do you want to trade" I looked at his ham and cheese sandwich and roast beef and cheese sandwich, orange milk apple juice and chips and said, "hell yeah, I will trade with you sir". I sat up front and the other co-pilot came back and traded with another sergeant for his MRE. We could hear the two Captains up in the cock pit preflight opening the MRE bags and saying, "Oh wow cool look at this and look at that". Myself and that other sergeant ate as quickly as we could to keep from having to trade back once they started to eat their MRE's. They never asked to trade back so we told them once we landed that they won't shit for a week and be prepared for that.

On my last job, my boss and I were doing a video shoot at Chicago O'Hare on construction of a new runway. When we were checking in, we plopped our O'Hare hard hats on the counter and insisted we had confirmed first class tickets for the flight home. They had us booked somewhere else but gave us the first class seats anyway. On the flight, we sat there drinking wine still wearing those hats. We didn't take a picture tho

Quite a few. The morning of the first Air Traffic Controllers wildcat strike in 1969. A flight from LaGuardia to Chicago. The controllers walked off their jobs just after pushback and absolute chaos followed. Taxi time from pushback to takeoff was 6+ hours. 50+ planes lined up for takeoff an everything at a standstill. The gates were all filled with new arrivals and planes and departing travelers were stuck and no one knowing what happens next. Stories of passenger revolts with popped emergency exits .

3 in the morning red eye flight from Atlanta to Seattle. Guy in the seat in front of me. Big individual. At least 6'5. And a huge fan of Wheel of Fortune apparently.
Everyone is drooling. Half asleep. Snoozing. Out of nowhere guy jumps up. Arms raised in a V and yells. WHEEL!!! OF!! FORTUNE!!! and proceeds to jump up and down yelling YAY!!! VANNA!! YAY!!!
Just about gave the entire section a heart attack..

Close call shortly after 9/11 and had to pick up someone at the airport. Entry to the airport parking garage was blocked with police and National guard waving cars in one by one and crandomly checking trunks. When my turn came they waved me through.

Thank God! Because I had a box cutter in my trunk. The image of myself spread eagle, face down on the concrete with a dozen firearms pointing at me hung with me for a while.

On a three seater going from California to Toronto I was seated in the middle.
I noticed a huge lady boarding (musta been 3-400 pounds.
I thought Omg don't sit here.
Well she sat beside me. She had to ask for special seat belts.
I had to keep my arms in my lap the whole way ..... she was nice tho. Just sayin. haha

Some of the funniest were as a pilot mispronouncing check points in other countries. France the funniest. And the funniest there was my hello call to a French Air Traffic Controller approaching Dieppe. Earned me a few laughs and a short lesson about "when in Rome ...'.

I was on a C-141 with other troops seated in jump seats scrunched up and crowed as the cargo bay was full vehicles on our way from Florida Mc Dill AFB to the Middle East. it was going to be a 20-hour flight. I looked at my sergeant stripes as we hit 30,000 feet, unbuckled myself and looked meanly at mt Leftenant as I crawled under a vehicle to stretch out and nap. I woke up several hours later with everyone shoulder to shoulder under the vehicle and other vehicles all sleeping. That Stupid Leftenant stayed in his jump seat the entire time, and complained he was cold and soar.

You can lead them to water but you can't make the Asses to drink!

one of the most precious flight experiences was flying with our daughter at the age of awareness of the rest of the rest of the world. About the age of 5 or 6. I did my best to provide a running commentary from home to the airport, the parking, shuttle bus, ticket counter, waiting, boarding, taxing, and finally takeff.

At some point her gee-whizz took over and she started pointing out the cars below, the houses, trees, the river. When all the hedgerows came into view she proclaimed: "LOOK!! WE CAN SEE ALL THE STATES!"

I was once piloted by James Bond.

My friend told me that she was sitting next to a man who turned out to be the third in command at the Vatican. He was dressed in someone elses clothes because they lost his luggage. He was headed to Miami because of a sex trial for one of the priests. he told her a whole lot of stuff. he ran the finances for the whole shebang

Not a flight, but on a Greyhound. One time a woman with a toddler sat next to me. He was crying at first; then quieted, looked at me, and started trying to claw at me. She stopped him, but he kept doing it every time he’d remember I was there.

Years and years ago (before they hyped up security)I was on a flight with a guy who had a knife strapped to his leg. The stewards confiscated said knife in front of us and allowed him to stay on the flight. He then spent 4 hours drinking water manically and pacing up and down the aisle nonstop. It wasn’t very restful.

Sat beside a girl on her way to her wedding. She even had her wedding dress hanging up in the first class closet. She laid her head on my shoulder, looked me in the eyes, and started snuggling and telling me how much she was going to miss certain parts of single life

A flight that lost partial cabin pressure. The oxygen masks were not released, but it was noticeably hard for passengers to breathe. After landing, the captain still had the microphone on (unknowingly) and said thank God we landed safely.

People are disgusting!!!

A buddy of mine did coke in a first class bathroom w Keizer Sutherland on a flight from Hawaii to LAX many years ago. Lol

A woman went to sleep with her mouth wide open and snoring. On the little fold down table she had a large lettered note asking to be woken when the food was served.

Nothing sensational, just a bad winter storm where firetrucks waited along the runway incase we didn't make the landing.

Don't know. I don't take flights anymore since the fvcking Pendemic brought the worse in people there.

Flew from Texas to California for an interview and the plane (Boeing 747?) flew so high that my ear drums wouldn't stop throbbing in pain. I kept hoping they would pop to release some of the pressure but no. The entire flight was spent with inner ear pain that never went away. When we finally dropped to about 20,000 feet it finally ended. Will never forget that.

That's disrespectful.

I flew from Dallas to Chicago to get a flight back to London. It was a 6am flight. Just me, the flight marshall and air hostess. It was eerily silent the whole flight. He sat right at the front and I was sat towards the back.

😂😂😂that was funny 😂😂😂

I saw Joan Rivers at the airport in Calgary in the nineties

I was airsick on a flight, and the woman next to me happened to have like six extra airsickness bags. She said she was psychic, and that something had told her to bring them.