Your experiences of air travel

Best - British Midland domestic. Were always outstanding.

Worst, Aeroflot. The USSR days were an adventure. Post USSR just plain rough.

Virgin Atlantic IMO are a close second to Aeroflot.
 
Worst. UK to the Falklands, via Ascension, sat next to a diplomat's squalling brat the whole way.

That was probably the only kid to travel to the Falklands in five years!

Most interesting Aden City to Firq (now Yemen) with half a dozen free roaming goats in the cabin, and sundry tribesmen brewing tea on a spirit stove on the floor!
 

Furryanimal said:
What is your best- or worst- airplane experience?
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Travelling to visit family in the U.S. shortly after 9-11. Flying from Canada.
We were to land in Boston Logan airport which was the starting point for some of the terrorists who flew the planes into the twin towers.

When we landed we were kept on the tarmac and not allowed to taxi in.

Then the plane was surrounded by police vehicles. When I looked out the window, there were police on the hood of their cars with rifles pointed at us.
I looked down and there was security police patrolling with automatic weapons..

Then later a ladder was put on the plane and security people came on board.

We were kept there for an hour.

We found out later that there was a threat of a bomb on board which turned out to be false.

I was going to take pictures. I had my camera with me but I decided not to as the flash might have gone off and I might have been shot.
 
There is a long story about the security at Orlando airport that's way too long to go into here. My mom was in the"secure area". I needed to back into that area to get her. I told her to wait there for me. Anyway, I'm standing at this desk, waiting to go be escorted into the "secure area".:D:D:D In front of me is a couple, who flew from Paris. They left the airport, but now decided to go to NYC. They had an enormous cart filled with bags. To my left were humongous lines of people waiting to go through security. The couple paid for their ticket and they and I were escorted into the "secure area". That couple didn't stand in any line, nor was their baggage ever checked. OKAY. But because of "security reasons", they wouldn't tell my 80 year mother that I was waiting for her on the other side of the " secure area" door.
 
None have been exceptionally good and many were bad in trivial ways compared to others.

My worst memories are of sitting on the runway, on a Friday night, in the middle seat, with sweltering heat, in a darkened plane, waiting for a slot to take off! It happened more times than I can count.

When I first started flying it was sort of special, the airlines treated you the best they could and made an effort to provide some personalized service. By the time I stopped working, traveling by air was worse than taking a bus in a third world country. I don't miss it at all!
 
Falcon said:
Flying over Germany on a bombing run @ 14,000 feet. Flack was heavy (105mm) and thick.
Two planes on either side of me were hit and went down no chutes were seen on one (all killed)
other one crashed and 3 guys had bailed out and survived & returned to base in Belgium, to fly again.
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Now that's what I call guts. You deserve a medal. I hope you got one.
 
No flying since 9/11. Only at most maybe a dozen flights before that, unless you count transfers, so not much to go on. I've really had no problems at all.

One suitcase lost on a return trip to Atlanta, but they delivered it to my home for free 60 miles away the next day. Can't beat that. Easier than carrying it from the airport to the car. :) Once the X-ray machine detected a pair of scissors in a carry on, and they confiscated them. My fault. I didn't know the rules.
 
Most fun was a ride around the local area in a 1927 Ford Trimotor.

Longest was Tampa to Melbourne Australia which was 5 connections each way. We did have fun "down under".
 
When I was young my Mom and Dad liked to take a vacation traveling through the New England states. One year we came upon a farm where the farmer would take people for rides in his crop duster. I loved it and have a very vivid memory of black and white cows walking two by two to the barn. From high above they looked like dominoes with legs.
 
Loganair was fun. It's a small airline that now mainly serves the Western and Northern Isles of Scotland. They fly small planes - only 8 or 16 seats and they sound like a bee in a tin can. The main thing was the food - first class - smoked salmon, whisky etc.. better than most other airlines..

They also fly the world's shortest scheduled flight from the islands of Westray to the neighbouring Papa Westray. The scheduled time is 2 minutes, but on a good day it can take less than one! Another one of their interesting routes is the the island of Barra. The runway is the beach and the timetable is determined by the tides.

You can get a 'sightseer' ticket that allows you a round trip of the major islands. I wouldn't mind trying that some time.
 
Alleghany airlines pittsburg to parkersburg, if we flew any lower I could talk to the people in the cars on the highway.

Leaving Vietnam than son nhut with firefight at airport. climbed so fast my ears never adjusted all the way to atsugi japan.

Guam to the states on 747 when we hit an air pocket. pilot came on and said we had been at 40000 ft but were now at 30000, you could hear the engines rev up to regain the altitute.

states to clark afb pi 8 hrs in the air.
 
The absolute worst plane ride was when I was in the Navy. I was flying from our base in Cuba to Norfolk. It was a prop cargo plane. Our "seats" were strap webbing hung on the sides of the plane. It took me 5 hours to fly down in a jet. Well, we flew and flew and flew and flew. I had to urinate. In the BR was a funnel with this unbelievably loud sucking sound. I'm a guy and I was terrified to get near that funnel. I didn't want to come out a female. We left at 8 AM, it's now about 10PM, without any food or water. We found out that we've been circling Norfolk for at least 4 hours, because the pilot wanted to get in "flying time."
 
I love the new entertainment systems and being able to follow flight progress, speed etc. Just bring a good pair of noise cancelling, amplified headphones. Now that they have wifi I will take my new laptop when I fly to Alaska this summer. I haven't had any bad experiences.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
The absolute worst plane ride was when I was in the Navy. I was flying from our base in Cuba to Norfolk. It was a prop cargo plane. Our "seats" were strap webbing hung on the sides of the plane. It took me 5 hours to fly down in a jet. Well, we flew and flew and flew and flew. I had to urinate. In the BR was a funnel with this unbelievably loud sucking sound. I'm a guy and I was terrified to get near that funnel. I didn't want to come out a female. We left at 8 AM, it's now about 10PM, without any food or water. We found out that we've been circling Norfolk for at least 4 hours, because the pilot wanted to get in "flying time."
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That's terrible, Fuzzy. I bet you felt like getting in some "punching time" when you found out!
 
My first trip to Greece, with my son who was 9 months at the time in 1985. Got on the plane and had the third seat occupied by a woman who said to me and we had not even taxied yet."I hope your child will not be crying the whole trip ! Steward heard her and moved said woman to another seat. So I was ok this is not to bad. Son was great on flight barely made a noise. Get to Amsterdam airport. Had to transfer to Olympic Airways.. plane built in 1969 old dirty but ok I am on an adventure. We boarded and the plane took off. First huge drop stomach went into mouth... second drop, back up again circles airport. Pilot says "we have to make an emergency landing." Tries an emergency landing aborts at last second, back in the air. Was like riding a wave.. Circled airport in wavy plane for 1 hour I assume to burn off fuel. People getting sick, I had tears cause I was holding my son thinking great we are going to die.. Tries another landing aborts, circles and lands on third try.. Plane erupts into clapping hands. Taxis off the runway. Disembark plane. No word on whats going on for 4 hours. Then over heard something by staff about waiting for part and something to do with wing flap? Finally boards 6 hours later , yes the same plane. I tell you waiting for that antique plane to get up into air was an eternity. Get to Athens have to wait 6 hours for next flight to local island. It was a jet.. but here is the kicker they lost our luggage and we did not get it for 3 days. lol.. That is story number one..^.^
 
I booked a flight on Southern Airlines, Tampa to New Orleans, supposed to arrive in NO at 10am. Plane never showed up. eventually I got a flight to Atlanta with a connection to NO. Arrived at 4pm. This was to start a job. Fortunately I had worked for the company before and my boss was someone I had worked with before.

2 weeks later, same flight on Southern, this time the plane was there. We took off and when we were out over the Gulf the flight engineer came back into the cabin, lifted the floor boards and looked down below with a flashlight. Talk about a confidence builder.

There was no third time, the company moved the southeast office to Jacksonville.
 

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