12 People That Make Flying An Absolute Nightmare

1. “I was doing a back of the clock shift last week and we each take it in turns to have a crew nap in row 30 so we can last through the night. I’d finally managed to fall asleep during mine when a man started tapping my shoulders saying “excuse me”, so I sat up and asked if he was okay assuming it must’ve been something urgent and he said “just thought I should make you do some work for your money, I’d like a sauvignon blanc please””

2. “Got into a conversation with a flight attendant recently. She was particularly frustrated with people who would try to get her attention by tugging her skirt or her sleeve. The worst was a guy who literally grabbed her by the shoulders and swung her round, presumably so that she would face him, but she lost her balance and fell into a seated passenger’s lap. The offending passenger was promptly booted off the flight.”

3. “Not a flight attendant, but I fly a lot. Once saw a lady get out of her seat on a 50 min flight while the seat belt sign was still on and do a full 20 min yoga routine. She was also completely barefoot. One of the best parts; she couldn’t find her flip flops after doing yoga and had to ask if anybody had seen them.”

4. “Passengers of a certain ethnicity are by far the most rude and obnoxious in my experience, especially the older ones. Had a gentleman aggressively push his food off his tray, falling all over my shoe and some of my pants, because we didn’t have a choice he liked. Had a gentleman straight up spit on the floor when asked him to put his tray table up. Had people sh*t literally on the toilet seat, not in the toilet. People leaving DIRTY diapers in the seat back pockets. Had near riots and on board theft.”

5. “There was a family that was understandably upset because we had to do a plane switch, which meant that their seat reservations were suddenly reset – this happens because it’s a new plane configuration and flight attendants do not know until they board, or just before. So the matriarch is trying to arrange it, but none of her children or her husband nor her father want the seats she feels like assigning. She’s walking up and down the aisle continuously DURING boarding and against everyone else while making a big fuss to the flight attendants. Finally, after everyone is settled, she asks me to go to her husband several rows up and bring her purse back because she left it there. Her husband asks me for a favor and says, “When you bring this to her, can you tell her a joke? Tell her she’s high maintenance! She’ll love that!” I decided to just present her purse.”

6. “The man next to me on a flight struck up a conversation with me, of which was all fine and dandy, but I couldn’t help but notice he was deeply engrossed in looking down my shirt the whole time. He wasn’t even trying to hide it, he looked up sparingly during our conversation; me being barely 16, I didn’t quite know how to handle the situation Anyways, at one point he suddenly excused himself to the bathroom. When he came back I looked over and saw him closing out pornhub on his phone. I’ve forgotten every single flight I’ve been on but this one.”

7. “One woman was a nervous flyer and claimed it was her 39th birthday. She managed to buy herself a drink from at least every flight attendant, even after a few of us cottoned on not to serve her too much. Within the first couple hours she must have downed five drinks between the flight attendants and her audacity to try to find the pilot for free birthday drinks. She’s so drunk she comes to the back in her giddiness to chat with the flight attendants and when offered a cookie, she force fed it to another passenger that happened to be standing there. Her two children traveling with her were perfect angels.”

8. My worst experience was when it was 10 minutes to landing and a passenger mid 40s male wanted to use the already occupied toilet. i just told him there was someone already in it so you’ll have to wait but please wait in your seat as we have to secure and he went off on one. Shouting at me that its a human right to use the toilet and it’s illegal that im not letting him use it. Not letting him use an already OCCUPIED toilet… anyway he just starts geting more and more aggresive saying “I know people high up at [airline] and you’re going to be fired by the time you next go to work” “you’re incapable of looking after people, you should be ashamed of yourself, you’ll be fired in no time ill make sure” “you’ve made a big fucking mistake” I’m mostly ignoring it now and just trying to secure for landing as the toilet is still occupied and the man is refusing to use the one at the other end of the aircraft but he’s all up in my face and now swearing i then say. “You can’t talk to me like that sir, please stop cursing” this next thing he says still makes me angry 2 years later.. “I can talk to you anyway i want because i pay for your wage. You wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for me, so i can say whatever i want to you and there’s nothing you can do about it” I’ve never had to walk away from someone so fast because i would have lost my job if i had done and said what i actually wanted to do.”

9. “One time a boy was laying on his mother’s lap, taking two seats basically. We were about to land and we asked her to put her armrest down, where the kids head happened to be under. She just would not comply. Even after repeated attempts and getting very stern. At this point we were so close to landing, we were ordered to sit down for our own safety. When we landed, the armrest swung down and just slammed on the kids head. He’s now bawling, and a man sitting next to her, presumably her husband, slaps the woman across the face. Presumably for not following our direction, even though he was there the whole time too.. “

10. “Passenger experience. 747 La to London overnight. Me and another lone traveller are stuck in the middle two seats of the middle 4 block. Two women on the aisle seats of the 4 spent the entire 12 hour flight yelling conversation at each other across the 2 of us. The plane was full so there were no empties. When we suggested that they might prefer to sit next to each other, both women refused to switch, since they had booked the aisle seats for extra leg room.”

11. “Not a flight attendant but I work the ramp at a small airport in Washington. About a year ago we close up the flight, marshal it out and it immediately turns around and comes back. Apparently this younger dude had projectile vomited across 4 rows and was unconscious. Turns out he forgot that you can’t bring marijuana on a plane and he at like 15 edibles in the bathroom before the flight. Dumb kid but he’s okay now”

12. “Lady changes her toddler’s diaper on the seat during boarding, then hands me said full diaper to dispose of, and was upset to have to hold it longer when I said I’d find her a disposal bag. Lady, I have to handle food. Please don’t hand me a dirty diaper.”