What's your worst experience flying? Have you ever got the wrong flight? Or found yourself next to the wrong passenger on an aircraft? Maybe you've had a terrible experience with cabin crew. Or been turned around because you had the wrong paperwork.
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Jet2 plane diverts halfway from Canaries so passengers can use the loo
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/jet2-flight-diversion-toilet-b2217513.html
One from Munich to Sofia was a breeze until we went into the clouds on the descent, where the turbulence was absolutley crazy. Bounced around like a kite in a storm, and when we popped out of the cloud base and had the lights in Sofia as a reference, you could see just how awful it was. We got off and I assumed there would be a gale blowing, but the lightest of breezes was all there was. Horrible.
Flying up through the Bay of Biscay. If you check the date you will know.
My mum gained a fear of flying for the rest of her life - and I was so young I just liked looking at the 'wings bouncing up and down' much to the other passengers horror.
My dad says we landed about an hour early and remembers the pilot coming on the tannoy saying we were going along at an airspeed of 800mph* (or whatever the number was) hence it was a 'bit bumpy'. The jet stream pushing the hurricane up was our tailwind. It was mental.
We were supposed to be going to Rhodes for two weeks.
When we got to passport control we were informed that we couldn't fly as we had not filled out the Covid on line forms correctly.
My Mrs thought it only applied to over 18s.
The grandkids at the time were aged 10 and 8.
Because of Covid every help desk was closed and there was no one to help us sort the problem out.
Bottom line is I lost the best part of 5k as I couldn't claim back any money as the mistake was made by me and not the airline.
We tried to reapply the online forms and book a later flight but we couldn't.
Never felt so pissed off in my life I can tell you.
Another "worst" one was coming back from Bali. After changing in Singapore, we flew 14 hours back to London...which was fog-bound! The pilot said he didn't have enough juice to do many go-arounds so we diverted to Manchester. We sat on the ground there for two hours (away from the terminal so nobody - even those bound for Manchester! - could get off) and re-fueled, then flew back down to Heathrow. 19 hours on one plane equalled a very sore bottom!
Finally, my most memorable "worst" flight was coming back from New York on Virgin in 1991. Basically, and to cut a long story short, we had to land in Newfoundland due to a fire alarm going off in the hold and the oxygen masks deploying. The airfield was not able to service the jumbo jet, and we were eventually bussed off to a hotel for a few hours, 50 miles away (Newfie is not used to putting up 350 people with no notice!). Another plane arrived the next evening, and we left some 24 hours after first getting on the plane in New York. It didn't end there...we got back to Gatwick only to be fog-bound and had to divert to Heathrow so anyone with revised connecting flights etc was royally stuffed again! The plane "catching fire" made the papers (a small side-piece only). I was given a refund of one free flight anywhere I wanted on Virgin due to the delay (and took it the next year flying home from SF).
For the first time, I actually checked the tickets and they were right 🤦🏻♂️ I’d specifically told the travel agent we needed to come back on the Friday. Mate was going to a wedding with his gf and I was going to the Charlton game. They’d said no problem at all.
I spent the next hour on the phone to the airline to see if we could get another flight. After searching for ages, the girl on the phone came back and said “I’ve only got seats on one flight”. OK says I. “It’s the one you’re on tomorrow” says she. My response was a little short to say the least.
Made the most of it. Walked back into the bar we’d made home, got a lot of funny looks and did it all again.
The flight home was uneventful, although my pal wasn’t with his gf for long after that 🤷🏻♂️😱😂
I also had a dodgy landing coming from Newcastle to Gatwick in very high winds. The pilot managed to land the plane on the third attempt. It didn't help that there were 3 or 4 off-duty BA crew on the flight, two of whom were screaming. After we landed, the pilot amused me and said, "I can tell you that we are the last plane coming into Gatwick tonight. The Air France plane that was due in behind us has turned back to Paris". I sensed the pilot was making a point - England 1 France 0.
I've had a few. One aborted take off on our way to Orlando at an USAF airbase after refueling in Maine (presumably in the days when not all planes had the range!) was a step too far and proper sh*t me up for years and I hated everything about flying. Worst one I can remember was Gatwick to Amsterdam to watch Spurs play PSV in the Europa League 1/4 final around 2007/8ish. Force 8 gale in 'Dam. Flight was delayed an hour. We got bundled on the plane in 2 mins flat and had a small window to take off otherwise the flight was being cancelled. Have never been on a flight rougher than that and will never know how we landed safely.
I had a good few years without flying after that but since meeting my wife, we fly 4-5 times a year now so it doesn't bother me at all now.
But...ok, I can cope with flying but heights, forget it. I cant even look down from my bedroom window as I feel too giddy.
Imagine how I felt at 1,500ft above Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe on a microlite. Sod that. My fingers were still white from holding on for dear life for about an hour after landing.
First 10 mins was absolutely horrific but the remainder of the flight was without doubt one of the best things I have ever done.
Took off fine and then the captain comes over the intercom and says preparing to land in 10 mins......look out of window and wonder why I can see the sea?, think nothing of it and then we land and Captain says 'welcome to Glasgow Prestwick' bollocks (at this point I've no idea how far away we are)......get off plane, it's snowing (hard), come out of airport and wander up to taxi driver.
'York St please mate'
Taxi driver 'eh?' he says
'York St please' I say
Taxi driver 'where?'
me 'York St - Glasgow'
me 'exactly how far are we from Glasgow'
Taxi driver laughs 'about 45 mins'
cue £80 cab ride.....
late for meeting, and realise we are booked on a return flight at 3pm..............from Prestwick - doh
take train back to the airport which takes roughly the same amount of time and cost £3.80
didn't live that one down for quite a few years !
All strapped in ,the engines spool up, and the whole plane is vibrating like a jelly on plate. Engines run down and we wait. After about 10mins a jeep appears and the door opens of the aircraft and the pilot speaks in arabic to a lad who looks like he is an extra from Raiders of the lost Ark..
Engines run up again, vibrate, the mechanic opens a flap on the side of the right hand engine an with screw driver a chippy would use starts winding at something. Flap closes, thumbs up from the mechanic, plane taxis out to run way.
Engines run up vibration is now worst than ever, but we take off. Vibration now constant and pretty violent. 45mins of sheer terror. Land back at Luxor to be meet with Red series 1 land rovers with 4/5 chaps with fire extinguishers trailing along behind us.
As we disembark i look into one of the engines to see fuel and oil leaking out.
I asked our guide what were the people kissing on the way off the flight to be told, the Koran was carried behind a glass panel, and people gave thanks to Allah for arriving alive, as any plane crash was Allah will, not because of some mechanical fault.
As for our conversations over the following week.
The less said the better.
But I’ve had two awful experiences.
One flight to India we were sat in the seats that separated business class.
As we sat down the air hostess looked at us and apologised that she couldn’t move us as the plane was full. Hubby and I looked at each other as we had no idea why she said it.
Until every other seat in that row (another 8) had a woman with a baby in it.
The wall between business class had pull down changing mat/bed specifically for babies. It was the longest flight of our lives. All we could do was just crack on. While the food was being dished out I think I held every baby in that row so their mum could eat hers.
Another flight to India. I woke up and the total stranger next to me had her head in my lap. Not just touching in but full on in my lap.
I woke her up and asked, ‘think you fell asleep and fell into my lap by accident’.
’No’ she said. ‘You were asleep, I didn’t think you’d mind’. 😳
I believe my Irish side came out as I said, ‘Get over yourself girl! You’re not my type’.
Cheeky fecker 😱🤣🤣🤣🤣
We were delayed leaving Faro so we missed the eye of the storm as it passed over Manchester and during the journey the pilot kept coming over the tanoy that we were probably aware of the storms and he kept assuring us it would be ok. Once down, he came back on and said "ok, I'll come clean, that was the scariest landing I have ever done, but then again I've only been qualified for a month" Never knew if that was serious or not lol