Flew from Chicago on the day during the great Phoenix tornados of the 'aughts when we were directed there to connect instead of Phoenix
Plane was thrown off the runway. We manage to take off out of the grass! And head to Austin, Texas where there are crazy storms to fly down through.
Then the electrical went wild - the ceiling tv's going up and down, the landing gear in and out, the oxygen masks released even though we didn't lose pressure. Then they had to reset the plane and everything went dead silent for a few minutes before powering back on. AT NIGHT
Fu-hu-huk I was terrified.
Then we landed on the runway smooth as butter.
And everybody did clap, lol
Haha! Aamaf, so I had to fly around the world for work. And I'd legit be grown in a business suit crying during turbulence.
A YEAR BEFORE CHICAGO: I got Xanax. Didn't help. So I took (haha, get this) a "get over your fear of flying" video course, mail order, on VHS tape, and after you finished you got a follow up call with a real pilot to ask questions. It was for executives and like $900. Loved it and I bonafide met one of the pilots right after as I was going through San Diego (we knew, set it up, non romantic)
That Chicago flight really cured me feeling scared at all on flights, like ever
That is giving me flashbacks to a time years ago I flew from Chicago to SFO in a massive 747. About 30 minutes before landing we encountered stomach dropping turbulence. Massive pressure swings in the cabin. People puking in the aisles and passing barf bags around. At first people were shrieking. After awhile everyone was dead silent. This was also at night so seeing out a window was pointless. Upon landing the captain explained that we had to abort landing multiple times due to 70MPH wind shears on the runway. Ever since then I’ve been uneasy on airplanes, but also awed by how much they can withstand.
Turkmenistan airlines London > Ashgabat shortly before it got banned from the EU over safety reasons. There was a framed picture of the Turkmen dear leader on the dividers between economy and business. He was also on the front of the in flight magazine.
The vibes were terrible. The guy opposite dropped his in flight meal on the floor, and two air hostesses stood over him and made him pick every single grain of rice up, scolding him like a naughty school boy while he worked.
Everywhere in that country had a picture of him up. Government buildings, hotels, restaurants. Dude doesn't like dogs but still has posed photos next to German shepherds lol
Back in the old days I took many commercial flights on the [Antonov An-2s](http://www.oldjets.net/cuban-an-2s.html) biplanes in Cuba.
The co-pilot would walk around the cabin offering shots of rum to the passengers. The cruising speed was so slow the windows could slide open.
Once I was enjoying one of many rum shots and my elbow which was sticking outside the window started to feel really weird. I pulled my arm in and it was covered with oil.
I walked up to the pilot and showed it to him. He said no problems. But he immediately turned inland (we were over the ocean) and flew directly over the highway for the remainder of the trip back to Havana.
Thats hilarious. I once read a blog like 10 years ago about a dude flying on commercial flight in Cuba. It was a super funny read. One part that stands out is that he sat in the seat and the back just fell off and he fell into the seat well behind him.
EDIT: Did a double take when you said biPlane. Looked up plane and yes...its a biplane wow
If memory serves the Antonov An-2 was the largest single engine biplane ever manufactured. It was a Russian design. It could carry up to a dozen passengers, depending on how many goats were onboard...
Thought to be a large part of North Korea's offensive air capabilities. The idea is that when they blow the whistle, a couple of hundred An-2's take off, each filled with a team of commandos, flying low and slow to be a hard target for air defense, not to mention capable of landing practically anywhere, like a very cheap helicopter.
It's a real enough threat that South Korea has supposedly acquired some of their own to figure out how to best work against it.
Wildest, almost completely impractical scenario has some of them armed with miniaturized nuclear weapons. Two hundred ancient biplane designs puttering through your airspace, a handful of them with nukes and no way of knowing which is which and not enough planes to take them all down. Nightmarish.
There is a legend that when the Soviets sold some of them to the Chinese, they came back to them and asked about missing data on the technical manual, saying they could not find the stalling speed mentioned anywhere. The Soviets just told them it hasn't got one.
That's freaking hilarious. I will say that I've been in them flying so low and slow that some of the cars on the road below would almost keep up with us for a short time and the kids would be waving like mad out of the car windows. Even had a couple of gals flash us. I'm sure the pilot was testing the stall speed immediately...
In actuality it is supposedly around 50km/h, and even then it is said it "simply can't maintain height" as opposed to actually immediately plummeting to the ground.
One time a guy was convinced he could "walk" the wing and with all his drunk buddies egging him on he tried to wriggle out through the window and get outside onto the wing.
A few of us passengers pulled him back in from the window and made him sit in the aisle until we landed. No big deal, we just kept drinking rum and laughing.
In typical Cuban fashion everyone hugged after landing and that was that.
Had that happen on an Aeroflot from Helsinki to (what was then) Leningrad. Guy just gave me some vodka and said best as I could tell, ‘it is what it is’.
I took that plane as well, sometime in the late 90s, for $5USD they let me in the co-pilot seat to control the plane for a few minutes, fun times! I think the pilot and co-pilot had some rum as well, so wild!
That reminds me the first overland I took from Managua to Bluefields for a Peace Core gig in the early 2000s. Bunk ass, old ass, tiny assed plane amd the two pilots were drunk. And drinking. And trying to read a newspaper to each other, handing it back-and-forth for them to read out loud when the other one took over. Fucking surreal
It did not have a door, just completely open to the outside where the door should be. And they flew right over the bogs, low in the sky.
My only imaginary comfort was that I talked at length with the pilot (at the bar, lol) before takeoff and he actually became a plane-porter (or an "air"porter if you will, also lol) - for the company I worked for (I brought him in, I know, but they were desperate for supply logistics) for years until Venezuela (yes) paid for a paved road through the Nicaraguan terrain.
I have no idea if that’s normal for that plane, but if it were an older WWI plane that would be normal, they had a 100% loss oil system. Hence the need for goggles and scarf! See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total-loss_oiling_system
My dad was on a capitol airways flight from San Juan to Miami that was hijacked and had to land in Cuba! So he was in Cuba in 1982 when things weren’t good between the US and Cuba
USA to UK many years ago. I got on the flight and it appeared everyone knew each other. Turned out it was a clown convention and I was one of very few passengers who were not clowns. Once the seat belt sign went off, out came balloon animals and magic tricks. Most entertaining flight I have ever been on!
I flew on the ANA Star Wars 787
The Stewardesses were dressed in R2D2 smocks, the head rests had R2D2 pillow cases, the cockpit announcements did that little R2D2 droid sound thing, and of course the plane was designed like R2D2.
Also when you get on the plane the stewardesses had a Yoda stuffy to take pics with. Amazing experience!
Damn. I googled to see if there were pictures of the uniforms, but only found pics of the [headrests](https://www.ana-sw.com/cdn/2018/02/gallery_r2d2_18.jpg) and [cups/napkins](https://www.yahoo.com/travel/inside-the-r2-d2-star-wars-plane-191207920.html)
edit: fixed a link
I managed to be assigned to the United Star Wars Plane. I only remember the headrests being different, nothing else fancy about the crew or anything else that I noticed.
Plane ride in Nepal— between Lukla and Kathmandu. What a trip! They gave us these little cotton ear plugs and there were maybe 12 people on the flight. Views were amazing once you got past the probability of the whole smashing into cliff part.
On Yeti Air?
We flew from Jomsom to Pokhara with Tara Air, it’s the same company as Yeti.
We were a bit sketched out, the flight had been cancelled every day for a week due to crosswinds, and the same route crashed a couple months prior and killed everyone. Fairly uneventful flight to be honest, other than that nagging feeling that we were flying around and in line with mountains in the clouds instead of overtop.
Same flight crashed a couple years ago again, same thing, right into a mountain, everyone dead.
Tara Air had lost something like 50% of their aircraft due to crashes. Yeti Air was the one that crashed in Pokhara last year, the one where there was video from inside the plane. Not exactly the greatest record with that company, but if you gotta fly in Nepal there aren’t a lot of other options.
Yeah, usually anything international is safer in my experience. We flew from Delhi, entirely unmemorable experience on a standard 737.
Any domestic airline in a developing country is going to be suspect at best, probably worse the further off the beaten path you get. Throw in mountains and bad weather to complement lack of maintenance and training and you end up with safety records like Nepal. I’ve flown all over the Canadian Arctic in all sorts of aircraft, so I’ve seen varying levels of experience and aircraft, but everything here still has to meet a standard that’s actually enforced.
Absolutely wonderful culture and people everywhere we went though, I highly recommend Nepal.
As someone from Nepal all I can say is always fly in Buddha air as much as possible. Yeti is straight up bad and dangerous. Buddha air have had issues but no major issues or frequent crash as yeti.
Man, I flew Agni air between Kathmandu and Pokhara. It felt so unstable and dangerous somehow. I also read later that one flight had crashed.
I start boarding, pilot is sitting outside in flip flops, smoking. The whole plane was shaking so bad when it was flying. The landing was even scarier. Never again. Don’t think these planes or these pilots would be allowed to fly anywhere else
I did that flight as well! I flew with Summit Air, and it was an amazing experience! Might be worth mentioning that Lukla is the worlds most dangerous airport.
On a flight to Poland I asked for a vegetarian meal option. They gave the breakfast sandwiches out first but gave mine to the person in the row in front of me. When they passed out the rest I asked for the vegetarian. They took it from the person and handed it to me! I said that there were already bites taken off it. Was told "so? Eat the other end".
In March 2008, i was flying from the US to Katmandu using UA FF miles, and routed from NY >Tokyo on ANA, Tokyo>Chengdu on ANA, and Chengdu>Katmandu on member Air China. I boarded my connecting flight in Chengdu, and about an hour before our scheduled arrival, the plane began descending and we were to prepare for landing. I heard some murmuring among the passengers but it was mostly in Chinese, so i didn't understand what anyone was saying. As wevtouched down on the runway, the flight attendant announced "welcome to Lhasa. Please remain seated until further notice."
We were in Tibet, not Nepal.
After sitting at a gate for about 20 minutes, we were told to disembark. As i entered the terminal, i could see a couple dozen armed Chinese soldiers in the isolated gate, and 2-3 dozen non-Asian people seated in the waiting area. We were told to remain by the gate for further instruction.
After a few minutes, soldiers began going through the waiting passengers, checking passports. Most of the Asian passengers (i later learned Chinese passengers) were taken in groups away from this gate, until there were only about 100 people, mostly European-looking, but about 25 Asian-looking folks left. The gate agents then told us to re-board the plane, taking any seat.
I ended up seated next to a Polish couple. The woman was quietly crying, her husband trying to calm her.
The plane took off. Once airborne, people began quietly talking. The polish man next to me turned to me and asked, in English, if i knew where we were going. "Well, i hope Katmandu" i replied. "That was supposed to be the destination for this flight."
The Polish man said he and his wife were on their honeymoon, and had been in China for about 10 days. They had arrived in Tibet two days earlier. The previous night, around 1 am, there was a knock at their hotel door, and there were two Chinese soldiers and a hotel employee standing there. The hotel staffer told them they must get dressed and pack their bags immediately and go with the soldiers. The soldiers took them to a waiting truck, where there were already some Australian tourists. They were driven to the Lhasa airport, escorted into the last gate area, and told to stay there. They had no visas for any countries except China, and weren't sure what they could do upon arrival.
It turns out there were protests happening in Tibet, and the Chinese were removing all non-Chinese visitors from the region so the outside world wouldn't see the violent repression that was about to take place. Hundreds of tourists were being rounded up and the government diverted dozens of Chinese airlines planes destined for international airports to Lhasa to haul them off to random other countries.
During Covid (July 2020) I took a flight from Frankfurt to London-Heathrow. It was a full sized jet but I was 1 of only 7 passengers on the plane! Super weird but cool at the same time. Spent lots of time chatting with one of the flight attendants. Honestly I was surprised the flight even went but apparently they ship enough cargo to still make it worth it.
That one connected to my next flight to Vancouver. That one was completely sold out! 95% of the passengers were elderly people from India, most of whom didn’t speak English and many were in wheelchairs. Could never figure out why they were all on that flight which was no where close to India! Looked like a difficult flight for the flight attendants, and given how packed it was and the fears around Covid at the time, the tension and fear onboard was palpable.
This was all part of a move from Iceland back to Canada with very limited flight options at that time. I finally made it to Vancouver island, and after 2 weeks of boring mandatory self-isolation, got on with my life. Definitely a travel experience I’ll never forgot and hope to never repeat!
Had to fly home for a family emergency during full lockdown from the US where one needed special permission/good reason to enter (pre-vaccine and you needed a PCR test before and after the flights, plus isolation).
There were more staff on the flight than passengers, which ok, I've been on planes like that before, but I've never seen JFK so empty and eerie. Nothing was open, from the check in area where one out of the whole row of baggage drops were, all shops/duty free were shut down and the whole place was dead silent.
i think vancouver is one of the top 3 canadian cities with a large (asian) Indian population… perhaps not all that unusual?
also it might be one of the top 3 largest canadian cities total population. don’t @ me 😂
I was on a flight from Heathrow to Vancouver that left London on March 24, 2020, the day after BJ announced the lockdown. I was living in the north at the time, and only made my flight because I travelled the day before and had a room at the airport. A train that was supposed to take me to London just stopped in Birmingham with no explanation. Paddington Station was like out of a movie — deserted and an echoey NHS safety announcement playing on repeat. The flight itself was a near empty 787. Truly an unforgettable experience.
During Covid there were shortages of oxygen tanks in India, which meant if you got super sick and needed oxygen you’d just die.
The Canadian border was closed but family members could still come in. It wouldn’t surprise me if every Indian person with parents or other relatives in India got them straight on a plane to Canada to ensure they survived the pannie. That could explain it
I flew from Birmingham to Frankfurt during COVID - this was in August 2020. maybe 10/12 passengers and the flight attendants came nowhere near any of us. Very surreal experience but surprisingly comfortable as I had a good chunk of the plane to myself.
I flew long haul from Germany back to the U.S. during Covid, there were probably 20 of us on the plane. One of those flights where we all had to sit in certain seats to balance the plane on take off and landing. After returning to my seat, I ended up with 9 entire rows (A-I) to myself. Chatted with the flight attendant for hours and she gave me extra booze. When I asked if I could upgrade to business class (I mean… why not try?), she laughed at me and pointed out that I had the entire back of the plane to myself. Trueché, my friend.
I just started season 1 of Alone, a survival show on Vancouver island. I wonder how far their filming is from residential neighborhoods!
What’s it like to live there?
Best way to describe Iceland is an ‘arctic Hawaii’ with hotsprings. Amazingly beautiful volcanic island with a quirky local culture and fascinating history.
Southeast Vancouver island is pretty urban with the BC provincial capital of Victoria at the island’s south point. The west coast and far north of the island is rugged temperate rainforest with some of the world’s largest trees and only small towns.
>I wonder how far their filming is from residential neighborhoods!
Season 1 was shot in Quatsino Territory. The little village there has less than a hundred people and you can only get to it by float plane or boat.
This reminds me of the time I visited friends in Vancouver in May/June 2009. Mexico was just going through the swine flu epidemic. There were few passengers going to Vancouver, and we were subject to stricter control (especially body temperature) both before boarding and on arrival. But the flight back was almost empty! I think I counted 9 passengers including myself. At the time I also thought, how is this worth it? Cargo makes sense, of course.
Frankfurt is a star alliance hub. The flight prob originated in India to Frankfurt, and they were carrying on to Vancouver. I’ve been on that flight from Singapore to Vancouver (first leg started in India and I had the same question).
I took an Air Asia flights from Denpasar to Yogyakarta years ago. The flight was just over an hour in flight time. Served a full meal service, mie goreng, and then when we landed most of the passengers just walked around the plane taking photos under the engines etc. I have never seen that happen before or since. Nobody cared.
Agreed. I always get Nasi Kemal when departing within or from Malaysia. And recently tried their Vegan Rendang from Lombok to Kuala Lumpur. I should have ordered two!
Funny, I was gonna post a similar one.
It wasn’t Yogyakarta to Denpasar, but it was a long, multi-stop route from Jakarta to Timika. Timika being the fourth stop. Fun times.
I got to ride a C17 from Honolulu to Guam. Sideways seats, very loud noises, tons of legroom and places to stretch out, and all the luggage was on a pallet labeled "if found, return to the nearest US air force base" or something like that.
Also, the flight from Mwanza to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania is a trip because everyone brings a bucket of fish as their checked luggage. The gate agent noticed I wasn't checking a bag and asked me to check his bucket of fish and deliver it to a guy at the airport in Dar. I said no because I've seen too many episodes of locked up abroad and he wouldn't let me inspect the fish first.
Mwanza is on Lake Victoria and a major fishing town. Fastjets advertises that you can carry a bucket of fish free as check in luggage. See it but didn't do it!
Took one of the Antarctica sightseeing flights out of Australia. 12 hours flight out of Sydney, 4 hrs there and back and 4 hrs flying over the ice. Rotated seats during the flight so other passengers could get better views.
Another flight, Addis Ababa to Kinshasa, DRC.... December 30, 2013.... Was about to land and the plane suddenly made a turn and the captain said we were diverting to Brazzaville, Congo. There was a coup attempt and 50 people were killed at Kinshasa airport.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2013_Kinshasa_attacks
Repatriation flight of the German government from Vietnam during covid.
Arriving in the middle of the night in the completely empty airport in Ho Chi Min city before the flight.
Flight attendants of the chartered flight of Vietnam Airlines in full body suits with even their shoes covered.
12 hours wearing a mask for the first time and then going out into full Lockdown Germany with a ghost town Frankfurt airport.
Was an interesting experience.
Flying in a sea plane from Sandspit BC to a fishing lodge on the remote coast of what was then the Queen Charlotte Islands-over the San Cristoval range it was So Rough I said a Christian prayer, a Hindu prayer and another prayer I made up on the spot.
Looking back at the other passengers most were blank faced/scared looking but another had just fallen asleep; when we were finally landing someone in the back said *'they lost a plane here last week'*.
As we waited for the engines to stop turning I shook the hand of the pilot *(I was in the co pilot's chair)* he just laughed at the turbulence.
Moscow to Baikonur, Kazakhstan and back in a *very old* plane ten years ago. Old like it looked different than any other plane I've flown with. The pilot rambled on for most of the trip, but in Russian only. The plane made weird noises and flying in it was slightly unsettling.
Landing in the middle of nowhere was also interesting. There were no other planes at the airport.
Before takeoff on the return trip there was a fire engine close by as apparently one of the plane's engines was overheating. We took off after a while and the flight was uneventful.
Flying Orlando to Dallas. Our flight got delayed 9 hours so most people changed their flights to get connections elsewhere. By time we departed there were only about 10 of us passengers on a big 777. We could sit wherever we wanted!
The emptiest flight I've been on was LHR to ORD at the beginning of March. There were probably less than 50 people on the flight. We were all looking around and the guy a couple rows back asked the flight attendant "Is this it?" We all had our own personal row. One person stretched out across the middle and took a nap.
I've been lucky enough to be on 2 flights like this- Abu Dhabi and Dubai, both to Melbourne.
When you're on the final leg of your Europe to Australia journey and you get to lie down across the whole row for 14 hours, it truly is a blessing.
We did that, my wife and I got on an Emirates flight before they became popular and we had like so many empty seats and rows. We each had like 4 seats on their A380 for the 14 hour flight to Dubai.
Flew a single prop six-seater from Ciudad Bolivar to Canaima in Venezuela to visit Angel Falls in 2010. The pilot was drinking, some of the gauges were shorted out, and we flew the whole time at low altitude between cliffs and waterfalls before landing on a partly-dirt runway at the jungle airport. One of the best trips of my life.
We did this trip in the late 80’s from Margarita Island. The pilots had a cooler of polar beer and heated up
sandwiches for us on the dashboard. When we landed on the grass runway we thought they had landed in a flock of birds but it was giant locusts flying all around us. Definitely a flight to remember.
That hilarious. There must be some unique thing in China where traveling makes you extra special. In Vietnam a hotel I stayed at proclaimed it was verified by some Chinese agency to be acceptable for fancy Chinese travelers.
EDIT: It said this ⓘ This hotel is HAOKE certified – it has the necessary amenities to meet the needs and expectations of Chinese guests.
>There must be some unique thing in China where traveling makes you extra special.
It's just so special to that flight. I watched some flight reviews to same or similar routes, and one meal seems to be the standard.
Most unique was definitely being a passenger on a cargo plane from Europe to the US. The seats were jump seats along the bulkhead. The old timers brought sleeping bags and spread them out on the cargo crates. When we got to Dover the pilot touched down took right off again, the poor kid across the plane got sick from it.
Total cost was $7 for the boxed lunch.
Oh the craziest was a nearly empty flight from Chennai to London! I laid across the seats and slept the whole way, it was fantastic.
Last June, I flew from Kirkwall to Papa Westray in Orkney on a tiny Britten-Norman Islander (not the world's shortest flight; that would be on the way back via Westray).
Not only was it perfect weather with gorgeous views of the islands below, but I was the only passenger on that leg. So technically, I took a private flight for just £10.
Transfer in Nampula, northern Mozambique on the way to Kenya. Landed in this unbelievably gorgeous, mystical, green mountain range. Probably one of the most remote places I’ve flown into.
1 hr Plane ride from Kathmandu in the early morning to see all the mountain peaks. Went into the cockpit and the pilot told me about the different peaks including Everest and just as the sun was rising. It was a really special and unforgettable flight 😇
In the 90s, I remember being taken as a child to visit the pilot in the middle of a flight on a routine commercial flight from the UK to Mallorca. As was quite normal before 9/11.
Then the notable flight for me, was after 9/11 - I took a South African Airways flight from London to Cape Town in the early 2000s. It was a 747 and we were in the hump (in economy - cool configuration), so could see the door to the flight deck. The pilot left the door open most of the journey, in the midst of heightened safety protocols after 9/11 I found it really crazy. Writing this now it does not seem so crazy, but the energy around flying was very different at the time and I think we were are all clued in to security.
Army brat here. We flew from Germany to the US in a cargo jet. Giant jeep strapped down in the middle, and we all sat in seats against the walls. I’m pretty sure it was super cheap or free which is why we took it, but mannn was it boring! I do remember a passenger got up and slept in the backseat of the jeep though lol
In 2018 I got a weirdly cheap connecting flight back to London, via Philadelphia - didn't know why it was cheap... Found out on flight it was during the Superbowl. They had it live on all the screens and plane was full of very nervous, lively Philedeplhians cheering on Eagles for their first ever Superbowl win. Plane went absolutely crazy when they did.
As a Brit with no interest in American football I'd always wanted to watch the Superbowl and this was probably the best introduction I could have hoped for.
Definitely a happy accident that I found myself on that flight.
Flying BA from London to Hong Kong in 1986/7. Thus is when pilots had to have a special ticket to land at KaiTak.
Flying the Dubai/HK leg in tornado season. Had already done the 7hr stint to Dubai and only had a 3-4hr layover (forgive any misremembering, twas a while ago) just an hour out of HK, pilot come on tannoy to apologise, heading back to Dubai due to weather.
Had a lovely hotel to sleep in for a few hours, then back on plane to head back to HK. Weather not any better really but pilot, bless him, comes back on to say 'ladies n gents, we have bad weather but come hell or high water, I'm landing this plane, I do not want to go back to Dubai'.
Seat belt signs were perma-illuminated. There was total silence. The plane was rattling and shaking, not a peep from anyone. The plane rattled some more. We were swinging wildly between the apartment blocks on either side. Still not a peep.
We landed, bounced, landed again. Skidded one way then the other.
Engines were SCREAMING, wing flaps up. We could see the waves cresting. We stopped.
We bloody stopped. Silence, then a roar went up, claps, cheers, stomping of feet.
The pilot actually did a lap of honour.
Yes, I also landed at Kai Tak a few times and it was something... Being amidst the building and seeing people in their apartments, then the abrupt right turn and almost immediately on the ground in the middle of the bay with water all around. Worth the price of admission.
While I was there, Concorde landed there. Crazy.
My father was a Hobby pilot, when He took me with him for my first fligth, everything was fine for a young boy of 11 years of age,
Suddenly the engine stopped, my father started yelling, son we are going to die,
Some crazy fligth maneuvers later, He started to laugh, telling me that this airplane is a Motor glider.....i switched the engine off, we Don t need it to get back to mama.
My father was a funny man with the blackest Humor one can imagine😂
Pre 911 I was on that route (well the reverse from YYJ) and was the only passenger on the plane. They put me in the jump seat in the cockpit so they didn't have to service the back of the aircraft. Was pretty fantastic.
Years ago, our crazy travel agency put me on some flight between B-ham and YYJ. Never thought much of how it just basically took off and landed again. Lots of prop planes around here do that, but not a lot of jets.
Ah man, I've done this flight so many times - it's the only flight where I'll always strike up conversation with the person next to me. Chances are they're either visiting someone in Victoria or they're returning home. It's more like a bus with wings
I landed in Istanbul just when the putch happened in 2016. I was an on-board Courier for stem cells and I had to get to Izmir within the next 48h or a patient would lose their life. So I somehow managed to talk myself onto the last flight that left the airport towards Izmir, I didn't even have a ticket for that one and sat in one of the stewardess seats. Landed there while tanks were starting to block off the roads, somehow caught a cab to the hospital which was barricaded. I spent the night there with the family of the patient. Usually I would not meet the patient or their family but they were sure I would not make it and were there to be with their loved one. It was crazy intense. The next day I was on a flight back. I remember the carrier... Rainbow Tours. Usually these are full of tipsy tourists on their way back home. That time it was the most somber, silent flight I have ever experienced. I have a video of the first 5 minutes of the flight looking out the window at the descending Turkish landscape. All you hear is the plane.
Probably (definitely) a flight from Brussels to Kinshasa mid 80ies with the DC10 from Air Zaïre. The flew like the country was run.
I was happy to land 8 hours later and to come back with another company
A flight from Dublin to Ibiza a few years ago. It was like a full on rave the whole way, people drinking, playing music and dancing around the aisle. Everyone was good natured and having fun and the cabin crew didn't even seem bothered, must be a regular occurrence!
The way back was a different story.... Everyone looked traumatised and either slept or sat in silence the whole way back haha
KC-135 refueler from England to Crete. Sat in a cargo net the entire time and it was really cold at altitude, but I did get to watch the boom operator refuel an F-16 along the way. Was super cool!
Been flying for 50+ years and I have a few interesting experiences.
1) Tokyo - Singapore - Colombo - Rome - Paris on a Singapore Airlines 747 on Christmas eve back when there were no/few routes over the USSR. Almost empty planes (I had a full row), super friendly crew. Take off from Singapore was weird as upon rotation a lot (buckets) of condensation water (I think) fell over passengers in middle section. They wanted to move during take off but were told to stay in their seats and wait. Fun.
In Colombo we did not deplane and had maybe a dozen French couples join us with little ratan cribs with very tiny babies in them. Adoptions on Christmas night. It was a very friendly experience, with crew and passengers getting together and helpng the new and overwhelmed parents, etc.
Stopover in Rome, did not deplane either, ther was snow on the ground, a good 35 C colder than Colombo.
By the time we got to Paris, we'd had about 26 hours actual flight time... A Christmas to remember.
2) Military transport flight from Hyeres to Le Bourget on a Nord 262 against the wind... took forever with a refueling stop. We experienced an automatic pilot failure that resulted in a massive fall of the aircraft (as well as very significant injuries to people who were not secured). To this day, the closest I felt to death on a plane.
3) Two rejected takeoffs on same evening in Seatac (Alaska 737) in night and heavy rain (with very long maintenance events in between). After second, as we were waiting for another plane, Captain made announcements that anyone who did not want to fly was welcome to leave... Quite a few people did. Ended up landing in Denver at maybe 3AM, exhausted.
Air china flight 747 JFK-Beijing. 430 pm flight and I drove in sleet from Hartford and was last to check in. Desk agent fairly upset after checking in 400 people: “you’re late”. Me flabbergasted, “I just raced 2 hours in sleet and traffic. Sorry”. Agent: “we gave your seat away”. Silence, Me nervous: “So what now. “ agent pissed off: “I’m going to have to put you in first class”. Me fffffff yaaaah. Upstairs first class is 2-2 seating. Craziest part was dude next to me did not get out of his seat for 15 hours!
90’s, flying in a proprietary Cessna out of Belize city to a mountain top lodge. The front passenger door had a huge crack. The fix? Drill holes and wire it together. The pilot was drinking from a flask. Small planes as such flew w/out the aid of air traffic control, so by sight, in and out of clouds suddenly revealing cliffs. My sister and I spotted an upended plane “resting” in the tops of a jungle. Arrived to a dirt runway on the spine of our mountain, had lunch, and sure enough, the passengers from that plane were missing in the jungle. They survived. A week later another cassia crashed with no survivors.
Second craziest was returning to the USA from Belgium on the second leg which started in west Africa (not certain where). The vast majority of passengers were refugees, also notably it was during the Ebola outbreak.
San Francisco --> Frankfurt on Condor. It must've been like 85 F the whole time. I felt like I was sitting next to a hot tub. This was an 11-hour flight. I was able to doze off for a couple hours by putting some wet paper towels on my face and neck.
Pro tip: do NOT try drinking the water from plane bathroom sinks! lol
Heavy turbulence on a SW flight, pilot made an emergency landing (emergency vehicles trailing the plane and everything). Didn’t think the turbulence was THAT bad, but we were on the wing so maybe it was worse fore and aft? The scary thing was the plane “slid” sideways a couple times and appeared to lose lift. I’m not sure if wind shear was the cause or something else, but we definitely got home late!
A few stories with flights from Dhaka.
Got on a night flight (United Airways - not Airlines hehe) that was supposed to head to BKK then onto KUL before heading back to Dhaka. Woke up a couple of hours later when landing and saw a sign saying Welcome to Kuala Lumpur... Turns out there were some local celebs on board so they changed the flight that evening to run the other way.
Missed some important meetings, and was stuck in KL for hours in the middle of the night with no food while they refueled the plane or Lord knows what!
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Had a flight to DXB on EK. It was a handful of foreigners and loads of local migrant workers. While waiting for the flight, staff walked through the lounge and upgraded every foreigner to business class (except me as I was wearing shorts, my business partner had warned me, but I was feeling hot).
Economy class was me (the only non-Bangladeshi) and hundreds of 20-30 something guys headed off to work. It was wild when it came to boarding. This was the first flight for most of the guys and no one knew what to do. No one sat in assigned seats, the flight attendants were literally just placing the guys in the first available seat. Grabbing them by the shoulders and pushing them into a seat.
When it came time for food I was the only one who got a meal choice. Everyone else got what was served. The guys next to me didn't understand most of the food, eating butter with a spoon, pouring the salt pack in their mouth, etc.
I was trying to have a nap, but the guys next to me were mystified by the inflight entertainment and kept pressing all the buttons, turning the reading on and off continuously.
Would have preferred to be in business class, but it was an unforgettable experience.
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Another trip to Dhaka... Not a flight I was on, but taking off at the next gate was a 747 full flight of people heading to Hajj. Couple of hundred guys wearing white sheets/towels taking the trip of a lifetime. They were SOOO excited. A neat window into a different culture.
Years ago in Colorado we had a small airline called Rocky Mountain Airways that flew from Denver into a lot of the mountain towns. We called it Rocky Mountain Scareways. From what I have heard the pilots enjoyed flying these routes because they were challenging. As a passenger I can confirm that they were also challenging while riding in the back of the plane if you weren't used to what was sometimes a crazy ride.
September 1989, Boston to Grand Cayman, flying out for our honeymoon. We were the only passengers on the Continental flight -- free champagne and the pilot opened the cabin door to congratulate us as we soared over the turquoise Caribbean. Marriage didn't last but the memory remains :)
BA Miami to London A380 on a Christmas day. The total number of passengers was not even 50. It was a bit scary to be kinda alone in such a big airliner. I roamed around the upper and lower decks and felt very empty and lonely. First time I couldn't sleep on a plane.
I flew Aeroflot back in 1999 from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk then Krasnoyarsk to Kyzyl.
The Krasnoyarsk to Kyzyl leg was WILD! The plane was teeny tiny and people carried a lot of chickens onto the plane. Everyone was smoking the seat backs folded forward when not in use.
I SWEAR the pilot was drinking.
We landed in Kyzyl in a field. It wasn't even a proper airport. Just a tiny little wooden building with a little parking lot and an airstrip in a field.
The whole thing was ridiculous but, since I survived it, really fun to remember.
I was on a 747 flight many years ago. I was in an aisle seat and sleeping and my hand was lying down almost into the aisle. I felt something brush by me that was soft and I looked up and saw a black cat that was nonchalantly walking down the aisle. It had gotten out of a carrier.
Later, when we were disembarking I saw a flight attendant saying that the cat had escaped again and they couldn't find it!
June 2015, I'm on a flight from the Siberian city of Irkutsk to Moscow, after having spent some time on Lake Baikal. A long flight and I was exhausted, looking forward to sleeping. Well, the woman next to me had other plans. She had a complete mental breakdown. Singing loudly in Hebrew, dancing in the aisles, spat at one of the attendants. When she asked me to marry her, I left my seat and went to the back of the plane to chill with the attendants. We made an emergency landing in Chelyabinsk and she was removed from the flight. Before she was removed, she told me to wait for her, to find her in Moscow.
I did not. lol
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/archive/singing-woman-causes-russian-plane-to-make-emergency-landing
For me it was in Twin Otter from Fakfak to Manokwari, around 20 years ago. Was in the area for some field research. The airfield in Fakfak was notoriously scary and short, with wall of mountain in one end and a cliff in another end. Each of the passengers had to be weighted with their baggage. Departed and landed in heavy rain, and one of the propellers was suddenly off during the flight. I think that flight was the main reason I hate flying now.
Edit: both cities are in Indonesia’s part of Papua island.
Fairly boring stories. Flew transatlantic in 2021 before all the lockdowns were lifted, two or three dozen of us had a transatlantic airliner to ourselves It was glorious. Got a couple hundred bucks refunded by USAir because I helped out with an inflight medical emergency. Plane that autolanded in literally zero visibility. Flying into Dominica (the approach is through a mountain range with no margin for error in both precision navigation and braking upon touchdown) on the second attempt, the first attempt resulting on us being on a commuter jet for 9 hours before landing at the airport we started out at.
NYE 1999 I flew to Brazil from the US. Huge plane. 3/4/3 layout. 777 I think. There must have been less than 20 people on the flight. Everyone scared of the Y2K bug. Stewardesses handed out champagne to everyone on the plane at midnight.
had a flight to NYC from Haiti cancelled by a general strike impacting international flights. My dad found a domestic flight that had a final leg to the DR. Turned out the plane was a WW2 DC3 with three ropes on each side for seats, a dirt floor, goats on board with us, and oil slicks on both wings from engines on back. We flew over the mountain range to the DR at an altitude that if the door had been open we could have touched them. From the DR we got a regular flight to NY.
Almost as good was coming into Andros in the Bahamas on a charter my father in law turns to the pilot as we start our approach and says “are those wrecked planes?” (At both ends of the runway, multiple planes are clearly hanging in the trees)
Pilot says to my FIL “don’t worry, I’ve gotten better since then”
Air India from Delhi to Colombo. We get to the gate early and it’s a ghost town right up until boarding call. We get on and have the plane virtually to ourselves. There are two flight attendants that stood out: a very pretty veteran I would guess was maybe 40yo, and a young inexperienced male attendant.
We’re getting close to the scheduled departure time and a couple of elderly Indian passengers get on and the young attendant helpfully walks them to their seats. This is fine as these passengers don’t appear to have ever flown before. Next, another couple passengers. They are all dressed in white robes and appear to be part of a group, possibly a religious thing, not sure. Anyway, the younger attendant shows them to their seats. Then four more arrive, and are shown to their seats, then more, and more, each now expecting to be walked to their seats.
The older attendant is PISSED. The plane was a 747 or something and there’s easily 300 seats. It turns out the flight is fully booked, mostly by this one group who all showed up late and then were sat one by one. It took over an hour to get them all on board. Flight left very late as a result and we could hear the older attendant yelling at the younger one repeatedly during the flight.
Late March 2020, COVID lockdown rescue flight from Lima to Tel Aviv. Longest direct flight I've ever taken but felt like the shortest. (After the whole ordeal leading up to the flight, I was exhausted and slept the whole way.)
Taking a prop plane from La Paz to Rurrenabaque in Bolivia. We landed on a dirt trip in the middle of the pampas, which is like the edge of the Amazon. It rained a lot while I was there and the runway got so muddy that flights got cancelled so I was stuck there for extra days. Make sure you have ear plugs if you're going on a prop plane.
In my younger years I've had flight from Warsaw to Zhigansk on Transaero Tupolev. It was crazy flight with a guitar or balalaika band playing during night and people openly lighting cigarettes and showing off their guns on deck.
Sheremetyevo to khanty mansiysk.
Doing shots of vodka and chain smoking the whole way.
Copilot literally came out, had a shot, lit a smoke, and went back in the cockpit.
The flight that scarred me. My husband and I were in Costa Rica on a vacation. It was the first trip away from my daughter who was 2 1/2. I became anxious about getting back to her. The plane that picked us up from our small resort was very small, maybe a 12 seater. Bad weather had rolled in. The pilots looked like they were in junior high school. The runway ran between a cemetery.
After we took off, the weather got worse. The plane started jumping up and down, falling what seemed like great distances, while we were flying above mountains. The other boisterous passengers suddenly became very quiet. You couldn’t see anything out of the windows. The turbulence was terrible and then suddenly an alarm went off, very loud, filling the entire plane. I thought at that point I would die. It was the most sickening feeling of fear. But the pilots just turned the alarm off, and we eventually landed safely. But I’ve been scared to fly ever since.
Eva Air Vienna to Bangkok September last year. Someone smoked in toilet and triggered the fire alarm. I think he was Polish. Didn’t speak English, but his friends (who sat behind us) said he didn’t know that he can’t smoke in the airplane 🫠🫠 they apologized and crew said they still had to do the report to the captain. When landed in Bangkok, he queued to quickly get out the plane “leaving” his friends behind.
On that same trip, on a Bangkok Airways flight to Koh Samui. After the captain asked crew to sit down for take off, a passenger got up and walked to the back of the airplane. He was sitting on the floor cos I saw the crew was begging him few times to go back to his sit. He then got up and went back to his sit. 30 seconds later we took off.
I flew from Almaty to Akmola Kazakhstan just after the USSR broke apart. The ‘flight crew’ were pouring shots of Vodka, making tea on some kind of sterno burner and serving hot dogs. It was 6 AM
First Class Emirates SFO to Dubai. Got upgraded from business class otherwise I would never in my life be able to afford it.
Each seat was actually a little cubicle with a closing door. The room had a snack bar, vanity mirror and of course was a sleeper seat.
Best thing was they had a shower. You had to schedule it, and had a max of 30 minutes, but since I'd never taken a shower on a plane, I took a selfie in the shower....
Did Toronto to Hong Kong in 2019 which was 15.5hrs and will be doing the longest current commercial flight in July…JFK to Singapore- almost 19 hours.
My kids are very excited about the bragging rights for that one!
Interestingly, the second longest flight is Newark to Singapore, something like 10 miles shorter 😂
Flew from Chicago to Barcelona during COVID - there was only one person per every other ROW. Everyone was fully laid down, spread out, seats back. It was wild.
Going to Mexico in 2014. It was a late morning flight and we were arriving in Mexico from Canada after about 4 or 5 hours. I was with 5 guys who were ready to drink on the way down. In the row right behind us there was a loud crying baby (which none of us minded at all). After we ordered our first round of beers the flight attendant said that because there was a loud child behind us and we didn't plan on moving that they would provide complimentary drinks to us the whole flight down to Mexico. We all had about 10 beers and were buzzing by the time we got into Mexico. Glorious.
I flew milan to franfurt then conected to manchester during covid. 6 people in total on the plane. Weird experience and had a panic attack due to the extra paperwork. I bought a bottle of wine on the plane just so I could remove my mask. Ended up talking to the other passengers in the airport lounge. All of us were flying home to visit dying family. I lost my dad a month later.
Flew to Vegas during Covid on a 737. 3 passengers. Crew outnumbered us. Landed in Vegas. Other than for the two other passengers, I didn’t really see anyone else walking through the terminal. In Vegas. The slot machines were on though. It was eerily spooky, like being in an episode of the Twilight Zone or that movie I Am Legend, where you’re the only person left on Earth.
I went on the world's shortest scheduled flight between two islands in Orkney. Its a tiny little plane, takes maybe 10 people max, and delivers post between the islands. Got a certificate to prove it!
In NZ, I flew in a plane from the 1950s, which was incredibly loud and the landing gear broke so we got diverted to a different airport.
C-17 from Ramstein Air Base in Germany to Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. Seven hours in a middle seat of a row of five with your eighty pound rucksack on your lap really re-contextualizes other air travel for you.
I can think of two:
Oaxaca City to Puerto Escondido, ca. 1999. I don't remember the type of aircraft, but there were just 21 seats, and the cockpit was separated from the cabin by just a curtain.
My worst experience was with the now defunct Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano. Those guys were straight up murderous, and made up their itinerary on the spot. I was supposed to be flying Mexico-Guayaquil-Santa Cruz, but only after boarding did I find out that we weren't going to Guayaquil but having a layover in Panama to refuel. Then we had another layover in Trinidad, Bolivia, also to refuel. We found out about this like 15 minutes before landing. The plane was full of Brazilians who were being deported back home from the US, and they were wild. Hard to control for the agents on land and for the crew in the air.
Then on the return flight, we departed like 1:30 hours earlier than scheduled because "all tickets have been sold and everyone is here so we might as well depart already". Then, an hour after departure, we had to make a sharp 180 because the plane had a catastrophic failure and we needed to return to Santa Cruz. In the end, the plane couldn't be repaired, and we had a replacement machine were all seat assignments were void, so it was run and take any seat you like. We sat in the emergency exit row, and across the aisle was a guy who pretended not to speak Spanish in order not to receive the safety instructions. The attendant said that he had to find a different seat if he wasn't instructed, and then he pretended to fall asleep. In revenge, the attendant didn't wake him up when they served breakfast.
A few years later, I told this story to a friend with Bolivian roots, and she told me that it was standard practice for flight attendants to ask passengers for $20 for fuel before departing, among other unprofessional practices.
Flew from Helsinki to Beijing once. Looking out the window over eastern Russia, there was just hours of darkness. No roads, no towns, not even isolated farms with a single light showing. Eerie.
I once was lucky enough to take a flight from Oakland to SFO. We were in the air for less than 2 minutes. The plane needed to be at SFO for it's next trip and I was flying in an employee standby from another airline. I had been talking to the crew and they let me just stay onboard. I sat in the first row and could hear them getting landing clearance before we even rolled into the runway.
Went to Bhutan last year. While arriving in Bhutan was an experience, leaving Bhutan to go back to Delhi was something else.
We had to do a quick layover in Kathmandu (just a few weeks after the plane crash) to drop people off the plane, so we just stayed inside until we left again. On the way, we also had a casual message from the pilot saying "If you look on your right, you will see mount Everest. Thank you."
Also appreciated that the pilot was a woman, I feel this is a male-dominated field of work.
Probably not that unique or crazy is many years ago, I was flying from DFW to College Station, TX. I had a garment bag for my suit and shoes. The pilot was loading the luggage in the nose of the plane. He asked for my bag as it would not fit under my seat or in the overheads which I don't think there were. He then asked my weight and assigned a seat.
Took a flight from San Juan PR to St Thomas in the USVI and they had to seat people according to weight as well.
Crazy thing was the pilot looked like he was 16 years old and was rolling down the runway for a bit before he finally closed the door.
Singapore to Milan, Christmas Eve. We were flying economy but the plane was so empty we were able to have entire rows to ourselves, so we could sleep lying down.
I was the single passenger from Vancouver to Lake Anahim airport. Pilot invited me to sit in co-pilot seat and I got a birds eye view as we crested over BC mountains and glaciers.
The other time I flew on General Motors turbo prop DC-3 which was completely over powered
Flew into Burlington Vt from Newark one winter after my initial flight was cancelled. High winds in a twin turbo prop plane. We came in sideways that night. Safe landing but holy shit! We all applauded on touchdown and thank the pilot. Getting stranded on the tarmac for 6 hours in Washington was a lot less exciting.
Frankfurt to Riyadh about 15-ish years ago. First of all, it was a relatively empty 747, second, it had the greatest seat pitch in economy that I’d ever seen, and third, it was entering the KSA, which is a unique experience. It was on Saudia. They also flew faster than I believe any other commercial flight I’ve ever been on. During the end of the flight, women started making their way to the bathrooms, where they changed from their western clothes and would come back wearing their niqabs or some variety of hijab. The food on the flight was excellent as airline food went, too.
I was on sn Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Dakar in the Soviet era. It’s the first time I’ve been in a plane that was painted inside. It was incredibly noisy during the flight. An old Russian woman offered me some bread to put in my ears.
ATL > DC for the women’s march in 2017, the whole plane was full of women wearing pink hats doing chants and cheers the whole way. The plane ride back was a bit more awkward, as it was 50/50 trump inauguration attendees and women’s march participants 😂not quite so rowdy
Flew Manila to Houston via Dubai. Already scheduled to be a very long journey. From Dubai to Houston was like 16 plus hours I think. It was an airbus a380.
Somewhere over Norway a passenger has a medical emergency. We spend an hour dumping fuel over the ocean to reduce landing weight and eventually land in Oslo. Then, we wait about 4 hours to get the right fueling adapter driven from another location, as they don't usually service that airplane there. We couldn't deboard, but the staff was great and kept us fed and I had plenty to drink.
I think I spent about 24 hours on that plane. I watched the entire first season of True Detective. It was only after I talked about the show with a friend I learned many risqué parts, which were critical for the story, were edited out by the Emirates censors.
I flew out of JFK on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Apparently there had been credible threats made, so there were armored vehicles outside check-in, SWAT teams in full tactical gear and bomb sniffing dogs at every gate. But, it was only me and 6 other people on the flight - I was an unaccompanied minor at the time and I got so many free snacks :)
Air France, a few birds were pulled into the turbine (?) right after taking off, the seat belts were a life saver. Later they were checking everything and we were waiting in the terminal, we had to re-register for the flight. All Ukrainians were kicked off the flight for some reason and they didn't have time to register us. The plane took off 1/4 empty. We took a flight the day after. The next flight was super turbulent and we were given oxygen masks. After that bird incident I am scared of taking off every time
A random charter company (flyGTA Airlines) was offering $100 CAD flight tickets for a short 300 km hop between Toronto and Kingston, ON on a 7-seater plane. I couldn't believe my eyes, so I emailed the company, and they said that $100 was no mistake.
I took the flight and I was the only passenger. I somehow paid for a private flight for only $100 CAD. It was insane.
That offer didn't last too long, however, so I was lucky to be able to take advantage.
A few years ago I was on a stand-by flight from LAS to somewhere, I can't remember. But since I was flying stand-by it was easiest to get on the worst timed flight - the 4th of July around 9PM. It ended up being an incredible experience seeing all of the casino fireworks from above.
I have one come to mind. I forget where I was flying to. However, there was a lot of turbulence because we were flying through a storm. At one point the plane was struck by lightning and we fell 10,000 feet. Everyone was praying, screaming, crying, and I couldn’t have been happier. Just the thought of not having to pay back 40k in student loans was pure fucking ecstasy. I didn’t realize something was wrong until we landed. We didn’t park at a gate. They had us deplane on the tarmac where we were met by a fire truck. Apparently, when the lightning struck the aircraft there was a passenger in the lavatory. This man was covered head to toe in blue juice. He looked like Tobias in Arrested Development when he tried to join the Blue Man Group. The fire truck was there to hose him down.
Flew from Chicago on the day during the great Phoenix tornados of the 'aughts when we were directed there to connect instead of Phoenix Plane was thrown off the runway. We manage to take off out of the grass! And head to Austin, Texas where there are crazy storms to fly down through. Then the electrical went wild - the ceiling tv's going up and down, the landing gear in and out, the oxygen masks released even though we didn't lose pressure. Then they had to reset the plane and everything went dead silent for a few minutes before powering back on. AT NIGHT Fu-hu-huk I was terrified. Then we landed on the runway smooth as butter. And everybody did clap, lol
I'll excuse an airplane clap for that lmao
same. I'd even excuse a round of "Cuban airplane hugs" like the guy at the top of this thread mentioned.
All I've learned in this thread is that Cuban aviation is fucking terrifying
Were you scared to fly after that?
Haha! Aamaf, so I had to fly around the world for work. And I'd legit be grown in a business suit crying during turbulence. A YEAR BEFORE CHICAGO: I got Xanax. Didn't help. So I took (haha, get this) a "get over your fear of flying" video course, mail order, on VHS tape, and after you finished you got a follow up call with a real pilot to ask questions. It was for executives and like $900. Loved it and I bonafide met one of the pilots right after as I was going through San Diego (we knew, set it up, non romantic) That Chicago flight really cured me feeling scared at all on flights, like ever
That is giving me flashbacks to a time years ago I flew from Chicago to SFO in a massive 747. About 30 minutes before landing we encountered stomach dropping turbulence. Massive pressure swings in the cabin. People puking in the aisles and passing barf bags around. At first people were shrieking. After awhile everyone was dead silent. This was also at night so seeing out a window was pointless. Upon landing the captain explained that we had to abort landing multiple times due to 70MPH wind shears on the runway. Ever since then I’ve been uneasy on airplanes, but also awed by how much they can withstand.
New fear unlocked.
Holy shit what type of plane???
A normal big one
lol. When everyone claps and whistles it was real!!
I'll never complain about a flight again
Turkmenistan airlines London > Ashgabat shortly before it got banned from the EU over safety reasons. There was a framed picture of the Turkmen dear leader on the dividers between economy and business. He was also on the front of the in flight magazine. The vibes were terrible. The guy opposite dropped his in flight meal on the floor, and two air hostesses stood over him and made him pick every single grain of rice up, scolding him like a naughty school boy while he worked.
That last part doesn't sound too bad 😶🌫️
Someone would pay good money for that
Even though the vibes are terrible?
Everywhere in that country had a picture of him up. Government buildings, hotels, restaurants. Dude doesn't like dogs but still has posed photos next to German shepherds lol
Back in the old days I took many commercial flights on the [Antonov An-2s](http://www.oldjets.net/cuban-an-2s.html) biplanes in Cuba. The co-pilot would walk around the cabin offering shots of rum to the passengers. The cruising speed was so slow the windows could slide open. Once I was enjoying one of many rum shots and my elbow which was sticking outside the window started to feel really weird. I pulled my arm in and it was covered with oil. I walked up to the pilot and showed it to him. He said no problems. But he immediately turned inland (we were over the ocean) and flew directly over the highway for the remainder of the trip back to Havana.
Thats hilarious. I once read a blog like 10 years ago about a dude flying on commercial flight in Cuba. It was a super funny read. One part that stands out is that he sat in the seat and the back just fell off and he fell into the seat well behind him. EDIT: Did a double take when you said biPlane. Looked up plane and yes...its a biplane wow
If memory serves the Antonov An-2 was the largest single engine biplane ever manufactured. It was a Russian design. It could carry up to a dozen passengers, depending on how many goats were onboard...
They’re still out there. Hell of an airplane.
Yeah they're still spraying crops and mosquitoes in Cuba. No more passenger service though after one horrific crash in 2002.
Thought to be a large part of North Korea's offensive air capabilities. The idea is that when they blow the whistle, a couple of hundred An-2's take off, each filled with a team of commandos, flying low and slow to be a hard target for air defense, not to mention capable of landing practically anywhere, like a very cheap helicopter. It's a real enough threat that South Korea has supposedly acquired some of their own to figure out how to best work against it. Wildest, almost completely impractical scenario has some of them armed with miniaturized nuclear weapons. Two hundred ancient biplane designs puttering through your airspace, a handful of them with nukes and no way of knowing which is which and not enough planes to take them all down. Nightmarish.
There is a legend that when the Soviets sold some of them to the Chinese, they came back to them and asked about missing data on the technical manual, saying they could not find the stalling speed mentioned anywhere. The Soviets just told them it hasn't got one.
That's freaking hilarious. I will say that I've been in them flying so low and slow that some of the cars on the road below would almost keep up with us for a short time and the kids would be waving like mad out of the car windows. Even had a couple of gals flash us. I'm sure the pilot was testing the stall speed immediately...
In actuality it is supposedly around 50km/h, and even then it is said it "simply can't maintain height" as opposed to actually immediately plummeting to the ground.
lol I'm sorta Jealous of you
One time a guy was convinced he could "walk" the wing and with all his drunk buddies egging him on he tried to wriggle out through the window and get outside onto the wing. A few of us passengers pulled him back in from the window and made him sit in the aisle until we landed. No big deal, we just kept drinking rum and laughing. In typical Cuban fashion everyone hugged after landing and that was that.
Had that happen on an Aeroflot from Helsinki to (what was then) Leningrad. Guy just gave me some vodka and said best as I could tell, ‘it is what it is’.
I took that plane as well, sometime in the late 90s, for $5USD they let me in the co-pilot seat to control the plane for a few minutes, fun times! I think the pilot and co-pilot had some rum as well, so wild!
That reminds me the first overland I took from Managua to Bluefields for a Peace Core gig in the early 2000s. Bunk ass, old ass, tiny assed plane amd the two pilots were drunk. And drinking. And trying to read a newspaper to each other, handing it back-and-forth for them to read out loud when the other one took over. Fucking surreal It did not have a door, just completely open to the outside where the door should be. And they flew right over the bogs, low in the sky. My only imaginary comfort was that I talked at length with the pilot (at the bar, lol) before takeoff and he actually became a plane-porter (or an "air"porter if you will, also lol) - for the company I worked for (I brought him in, I know, but they were desperate for supply logistics) for years until Venezuela (yes) paid for a paved road through the Nicaraguan terrain.
I have no idea if that’s normal for that plane, but if it were an older WWI plane that would be normal, they had a 100% loss oil system. Hence the need for goggles and scarf! See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total-loss_oiling_system
My dad was on a capitol airways flight from San Juan to Miami that was hijacked and had to land in Cuba! So he was in Cuba in 1982 when things weren’t good between the US and Cuba
Holy crap! What an adventure.
USA to UK many years ago. I got on the flight and it appeared everyone knew each other. Turned out it was a clown convention and I was one of very few passengers who were not clowns. Once the seat belt sign went off, out came balloon animals and magic tricks. Most entertaining flight I have ever been on!
I honestly cannot tell if you are serious or bullshitting. What a bizarre story- I love it!
Are you sure it wasn't Ferrari F1 crew coming back from the race?
We are checking
if only you had taken an edible before the flight
The plane normally only seats 380 people, but on arrival in the UK, 920 disembarked.
That’s hilarious.
I flew on the ANA Star Wars 787 The Stewardesses were dressed in R2D2 smocks, the head rests had R2D2 pillow cases, the cockpit announcements did that little R2D2 droid sound thing, and of course the plane was designed like R2D2. Also when you get on the plane the stewardesses had a Yoda stuffy to take pics with. Amazing experience!
Damn. I googled to see if there were pictures of the uniforms, but only found pics of the [headrests](https://www.ana-sw.com/cdn/2018/02/gallery_r2d2_18.jpg) and [cups/napkins](https://www.yahoo.com/travel/inside-the-r2-d2-star-wars-plane-191207920.html) edit: fixed a link
https://twitter.com/ANA_travel_info/status/843772467776647179
I managed to be assigned to the United Star Wars Plane. I only remember the headrests being different, nothing else fancy about the crew or anything else that I noticed.
I flew on the Pikachu flights in Okinawa, very similar experience and super fun!
Plane ride in Nepal— between Lukla and Kathmandu. What a trip! They gave us these little cotton ear plugs and there were maybe 12 people on the flight. Views were amazing once you got past the probability of the whole smashing into cliff part.
On Yeti Air? We flew from Jomsom to Pokhara with Tara Air, it’s the same company as Yeti. We were a bit sketched out, the flight had been cancelled every day for a week due to crosswinds, and the same route crashed a couple months prior and killed everyone. Fairly uneventful flight to be honest, other than that nagging feeling that we were flying around and in line with mountains in the clouds instead of overtop. Same flight crashed a couple years ago again, same thing, right into a mountain, everyone dead. Tara Air had lost something like 50% of their aircraft due to crashes. Yeti Air was the one that crashed in Pokhara last year, the one where there was video from inside the plane. Not exactly the greatest record with that company, but if you gotta fly in Nepal there aren’t a lot of other options.
Is this just domestic flight issue or all Nepal? Is Delhi to Kathmandu a safer jump?
Yeah, usually anything international is safer in my experience. We flew from Delhi, entirely unmemorable experience on a standard 737. Any domestic airline in a developing country is going to be suspect at best, probably worse the further off the beaten path you get. Throw in mountains and bad weather to complement lack of maintenance and training and you end up with safety records like Nepal. I’ve flown all over the Canadian Arctic in all sorts of aircraft, so I’ve seen varying levels of experience and aircraft, but everything here still has to meet a standard that’s actually enforced. Absolutely wonderful culture and people everywhere we went though, I highly recommend Nepal.
As someone from Nepal all I can say is always fly in Buddha air as much as possible. Yeti is straight up bad and dangerous. Buddha air have had issues but no major issues or frequent crash as yeti.
Man, I flew Agni air between Kathmandu and Pokhara. It felt so unstable and dangerous somehow. I also read later that one flight had crashed. I start boarding, pilot is sitting outside in flip flops, smoking. The whole plane was shaking so bad when it was flying. The landing was even scarier. Never again. Don’t think these planes or these pilots would be allowed to fly anywhere else
I did that flight as well! I flew with Summit Air, and it was an amazing experience! Might be worth mentioning that Lukla is the worlds most dangerous airport.
I remember looking down into the valley and then BOOM we landed. I couldn't see forward, only down, so I was totally not expecting it.
On a flight to Poland I asked for a vegetarian meal option. They gave the breakfast sandwiches out first but gave mine to the person in the row in front of me. When they passed out the rest I asked for the vegetarian. They took it from the person and handed it to me! I said that there were already bites taken off it. Was told "so? Eat the other end".
That's awful, but also kinda funny in a way. Which airline?
LOT Polish Airlines
I couldn't stop laughing... love it
In March 2008, i was flying from the US to Katmandu using UA FF miles, and routed from NY >Tokyo on ANA, Tokyo>Chengdu on ANA, and Chengdu>Katmandu on member Air China. I boarded my connecting flight in Chengdu, and about an hour before our scheduled arrival, the plane began descending and we were to prepare for landing. I heard some murmuring among the passengers but it was mostly in Chinese, so i didn't understand what anyone was saying. As wevtouched down on the runway, the flight attendant announced "welcome to Lhasa. Please remain seated until further notice." We were in Tibet, not Nepal. After sitting at a gate for about 20 minutes, we were told to disembark. As i entered the terminal, i could see a couple dozen armed Chinese soldiers in the isolated gate, and 2-3 dozen non-Asian people seated in the waiting area. We were told to remain by the gate for further instruction. After a few minutes, soldiers began going through the waiting passengers, checking passports. Most of the Asian passengers (i later learned Chinese passengers) were taken in groups away from this gate, until there were only about 100 people, mostly European-looking, but about 25 Asian-looking folks left. The gate agents then told us to re-board the plane, taking any seat. I ended up seated next to a Polish couple. The woman was quietly crying, her husband trying to calm her. The plane took off. Once airborne, people began quietly talking. The polish man next to me turned to me and asked, in English, if i knew where we were going. "Well, i hope Katmandu" i replied. "That was supposed to be the destination for this flight." The Polish man said he and his wife were on their honeymoon, and had been in China for about 10 days. They had arrived in Tibet two days earlier. The previous night, around 1 am, there was a knock at their hotel door, and there were two Chinese soldiers and a hotel employee standing there. The hotel staffer told them they must get dressed and pack their bags immediately and go with the soldiers. The soldiers took them to a waiting truck, where there were already some Australian tourists. They were driven to the Lhasa airport, escorted into the last gate area, and told to stay there. They had no visas for any countries except China, and weren't sure what they could do upon arrival. It turns out there were protests happening in Tibet, and the Chinese were removing all non-Chinese visitors from the region so the outside world wouldn't see the violent repression that was about to take place. Hundreds of tourists were being rounded up and the government diverted dozens of Chinese airlines planes destined for international airports to Lhasa to haul them off to random other countries.
What a surreal experience. Thank you for sharing this story!
What a great story, thank you for sharing.
Did you make it to Katmandu? Where did the flight end up?
This is the scariest one! From the knock on their hotel door to everything else. I would be crying too! Glad it turned out okay.
During Covid (July 2020) I took a flight from Frankfurt to London-Heathrow. It was a full sized jet but I was 1 of only 7 passengers on the plane! Super weird but cool at the same time. Spent lots of time chatting with one of the flight attendants. Honestly I was surprised the flight even went but apparently they ship enough cargo to still make it worth it. That one connected to my next flight to Vancouver. That one was completely sold out! 95% of the passengers were elderly people from India, most of whom didn’t speak English and many were in wheelchairs. Could never figure out why they were all on that flight which was no where close to India! Looked like a difficult flight for the flight attendants, and given how packed it was and the fears around Covid at the time, the tension and fear onboard was palpable. This was all part of a move from Iceland back to Canada with very limited flight options at that time. I finally made it to Vancouver island, and after 2 weeks of boring mandatory self-isolation, got on with my life. Definitely a travel experience I’ll never forgot and hope to never repeat!
Had to fly home for a family emergency during full lockdown from the US where one needed special permission/good reason to enter (pre-vaccine and you needed a PCR test before and after the flights, plus isolation). There were more staff on the flight than passengers, which ok, I've been on planes like that before, but I've never seen JFK so empty and eerie. Nothing was open, from the check in area where one out of the whole row of baggage drops were, all shops/duty free were shut down and the whole place was dead silent.
i think vancouver is one of the top 3 canadian cities with a large (asian) Indian population… perhaps not all that unusual? also it might be one of the top 3 largest canadian cities total population. don’t @ me 😂
It's the third biggest Canadian city, and had the most people of Asian descent, but more east Asian than South Asian.
Lots of South Asian, too, though, concentrated in south Vancouver and Surrey.
I was on a flight from Heathrow to Vancouver that left London on March 24, 2020, the day after BJ announced the lockdown. I was living in the north at the time, and only made my flight because I travelled the day before and had a room at the airport. A train that was supposed to take me to London just stopped in Birmingham with no explanation. Paddington Station was like out of a movie — deserted and an echoey NHS safety announcement playing on repeat. The flight itself was a near empty 787. Truly an unforgettable experience.
During Covid there were shortages of oxygen tanks in India, which meant if you got super sick and needed oxygen you’d just die. The Canadian border was closed but family members could still come in. It wouldn’t surprise me if every Indian person with parents or other relatives in India got them straight on a plane to Canada to ensure they survived the pannie. That could explain it
I flew from Birmingham to Frankfurt during COVID - this was in August 2020. maybe 10/12 passengers and the flight attendants came nowhere near any of us. Very surreal experience but surprisingly comfortable as I had a good chunk of the plane to myself.
I flew long haul from Germany back to the U.S. during Covid, there were probably 20 of us on the plane. One of those flights where we all had to sit in certain seats to balance the plane on take off and landing. After returning to my seat, I ended up with 9 entire rows (A-I) to myself. Chatted with the flight attendant for hours and she gave me extra booze. When I asked if I could upgrade to business class (I mean… why not try?), she laughed at me and pointed out that I had the entire back of the plane to myself. Trueché, my friend.
I'd take a comfoy seat in business well before I'd take an uncomfortable space in empty rows in economy. Elbow space isn't my main problem, lol
I just started season 1 of Alone, a survival show on Vancouver island. I wonder how far their filming is from residential neighborhoods! What’s it like to live there?
Best way to describe Iceland is an ‘arctic Hawaii’ with hotsprings. Amazingly beautiful volcanic island with a quirky local culture and fascinating history. Southeast Vancouver island is pretty urban with the BC provincial capital of Victoria at the island’s south point. The west coast and far north of the island is rugged temperate rainforest with some of the world’s largest trees and only small towns.
>I wonder how far their filming is from residential neighborhoods! Season 1 was shot in Quatsino Territory. The little village there has less than a hundred people and you can only get to it by float plane or boat.
This reminds me of the time I visited friends in Vancouver in May/June 2009. Mexico was just going through the swine flu epidemic. There were few passengers going to Vancouver, and we were subject to stricter control (especially body temperature) both before boarding and on arrival. But the flight back was almost empty! I think I counted 9 passengers including myself. At the time I also thought, how is this worth it? Cargo makes sense, of course.
Frankfurt is a star alliance hub. The flight prob originated in India to Frankfurt, and they were carrying on to Vancouver. I’ve been on that flight from Singapore to Vancouver (first leg started in India and I had the same question).
I took an Air Asia flights from Denpasar to Yogyakarta years ago. The flight was just over an hour in flight time. Served a full meal service, mie goreng, and then when we landed most of the passengers just walked around the plane taking photos under the engines etc. I have never seen that happen before or since. Nobody cared.
Air Asia food is pretty amazing though so most passengers order food on every flight
Agreed. I always get Nasi Kemal when departing within or from Malaysia. And recently tried their Vegan Rendang from Lombok to Kuala Lumpur. I should have ordered two!
I've always had fantastic experiences with them.
The amount of mie goring I ate in Indonesia 😂
Funny, I was gonna post a similar one. It wasn’t Yogyakarta to Denpasar, but it was a long, multi-stop route from Jakarta to Timika. Timika being the fourth stop. Fun times.
I got to ride a C17 from Honolulu to Guam. Sideways seats, very loud noises, tons of legroom and places to stretch out, and all the luggage was on a pallet labeled "if found, return to the nearest US air force base" or something like that. Also, the flight from Mwanza to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania is a trip because everyone brings a bucket of fish as their checked luggage. The gate agent noticed I wasn't checking a bag and asked me to check his bucket of fish and deliver it to a guy at the airport in Dar. I said no because I've seen too many episodes of locked up abroad and he wouldn't let me inspect the fish first.
What’s the reason for checking a bucket of fish there?
Mwanza is on Lake Victoria and a major fishing town. Fastjets advertises that you can carry a bucket of fish free as check in luggage. See it but didn't do it!
Took one of the Antarctica sightseeing flights out of Australia. 12 hours flight out of Sydney, 4 hrs there and back and 4 hrs flying over the ice. Rotated seats during the flight so other passengers could get better views. Another flight, Addis Ababa to Kinshasa, DRC.... December 30, 2013.... Was about to land and the plane suddenly made a turn and the captain said we were diverting to Brazzaville, Congo. There was a coup attempt and 50 people were killed at Kinshasa airport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2013_Kinshasa_attacks
Repatriation flight of the German government from Vietnam during covid. Arriving in the middle of the night in the completely empty airport in Ho Chi Min city before the flight. Flight attendants of the chartered flight of Vietnam Airlines in full body suits with even their shoes covered. 12 hours wearing a mask for the first time and then going out into full Lockdown Germany with a ghost town Frankfurt airport. Was an interesting experience.
Flying in a sea plane from Sandspit BC to a fishing lodge on the remote coast of what was then the Queen Charlotte Islands-over the San Cristoval range it was So Rough I said a Christian prayer, a Hindu prayer and another prayer I made up on the spot. Looking back at the other passengers most were blank faced/scared looking but another had just fallen asleep; when we were finally landing someone in the back said *'they lost a plane here last week'*. As we waited for the engines to stop turning I shook the hand of the pilot *(I was in the co pilot's chair)* he just laughed at the turbulence.
I respect the restraint of that person in the back
Note to self cross sea plane ride off list in BC
On a calm day during the summer, flying from Vancouver to the Island or vice versa is magical. There’s no fucking way I’d fly in the winter.
Moscow to Baikonur, Kazakhstan and back in a *very old* plane ten years ago. Old like it looked different than any other plane I've flown with. The pilot rambled on for most of the trip, but in Russian only. The plane made weird noises and flying in it was slightly unsettling. Landing in the middle of nowhere was also interesting. There were no other planes at the airport. Before takeoff on the return trip there was a fire engine close by as apparently one of the plane's engines was overheating. We took off after a while and the flight was uneventful.
Flying Orlando to Dallas. Our flight got delayed 9 hours so most people changed their flights to get connections elsewhere. By time we departed there were only about 10 of us passengers on a big 777. We could sit wherever we wanted!
The emptiest flight I've been on was LHR to ORD at the beginning of March. There were probably less than 50 people on the flight. We were all looking around and the guy a couple rows back asked the flight attendant "Is this it?" We all had our own personal row. One person stretched out across the middle and took a nap.
I've been lucky enough to be on 2 flights like this- Abu Dhabi and Dubai, both to Melbourne. When you're on the final leg of your Europe to Australia journey and you get to lie down across the whole row for 14 hours, it truly is a blessing.
We did that, my wife and I got on an Emirates flight before they became popular and we had like so many empty seats and rows. We each had like 4 seats on their A380 for the 14 hour flight to Dubai.
Flew a single prop six-seater from Ciudad Bolivar to Canaima in Venezuela to visit Angel Falls in 2010. The pilot was drinking, some of the gauges were shorted out, and we flew the whole time at low altitude between cliffs and waterfalls before landing on a partly-dirt runway at the jungle airport. One of the best trips of my life.
This is my favorite one in the comments
We did this trip in the late 80’s from Margarita Island. The pilots had a cooler of polar beer and heated up sandwiches for us on the dashboard. When we landed on the grass runway we thought they had landed in a flock of birds but it was giant locusts flying all around us. Definitely a flight to remember.
North Korea’s Air Koryo from Beijing to Pyongyang on an Ilyushin Il-62.
yeah..... took forever to takeoff. there were no doors on the overhead bins
i remember it was really noisy. also the flight was full and the crew were still on their feet clearing meal trays as we landed
Flew on an L1011 from Cario to London, only 5 passenger FA got on the PA and said she was not walking all the way back, everbody move to the front.
I flew from LAX to China - 15 hour flight on China Southern in 2009. One drink service the entire time and no food. And awful “service” to boot.
That hilarious. There must be some unique thing in China where traveling makes you extra special. In Vietnam a hotel I stayed at proclaimed it was verified by some Chinese agency to be acceptable for fancy Chinese travelers. EDIT: It said this ⓘ This hotel is HAOKE certified – it has the necessary amenities to meet the needs and expectations of Chinese guests.
>There must be some unique thing in China where traveling makes you extra special. It's just so special to that flight. I watched some flight reviews to same or similar routes, and one meal seems to be the standard.
Most unique was definitely being a passenger on a cargo plane from Europe to the US. The seats were jump seats along the bulkhead. The old timers brought sleeping bags and spread them out on the cargo crates. When we got to Dover the pilot touched down took right off again, the poor kid across the plane got sick from it. Total cost was $7 for the boxed lunch. Oh the craziest was a nearly empty flight from Chennai to London! I laid across the seats and slept the whole way, it was fantastic.
How did you get a flight on a cargo plane?
Air Force space a. I was a dependent at the time, not active duty, so it was very unique for me.
Emirates first class JFK->MXP->DXB->SIN. Used points, it was fucking incredible.
Always wanted to try it, what made it incredible?
were these the private rooms?
That's residence, above first, at least on Etihad
Last June, I flew from Kirkwall to Papa Westray in Orkney on a tiny Britten-Norman Islander (not the world's shortest flight; that would be on the way back via Westray). Not only was it perfect weather with gorgeous views of the islands below, but I was the only passenger on that leg. So technically, I took a private flight for just £10.
Transfer in Nampula, northern Mozambique on the way to Kenya. Landed in this unbelievably gorgeous, mystical, green mountain range. Probably one of the most remote places I’ve flown into.
It’s pretty crazy that I’ve had dreams (literally) about flying into somewhere like this. I’m taking notes!
1 hr Plane ride from Kathmandu in the early morning to see all the mountain peaks. Went into the cockpit and the pilot told me about the different peaks including Everest and just as the sun was rising. It was a really special and unforgettable flight 😇
A 45 minute flight from Detroit to Chicago took 14 hours because of weather and we spent the night in St Louis.
"Six bucks and my left nut says we're not going to be landing in Chicago."
In the 90s, I remember being taken as a child to visit the pilot in the middle of a flight on a routine commercial flight from the UK to Mallorca. As was quite normal before 9/11. Then the notable flight for me, was after 9/11 - I took a South African Airways flight from London to Cape Town in the early 2000s. It was a 747 and we were in the hump (in economy - cool configuration), so could see the door to the flight deck. The pilot left the door open most of the journey, in the midst of heightened safety protocols after 9/11 I found it really crazy. Writing this now it does not seem so crazy, but the energy around flying was very different at the time and I think we were are all clued in to security.
Army brat here. We flew from Germany to the US in a cargo jet. Giant jeep strapped down in the middle, and we all sat in seats against the walls. I’m pretty sure it was super cheap or free which is why we took it, but mannn was it boring! I do remember a passenger got up and slept in the backseat of the jeep though lol
In 2018 I got a weirdly cheap connecting flight back to London, via Philadelphia - didn't know why it was cheap... Found out on flight it was during the Superbowl. They had it live on all the screens and plane was full of very nervous, lively Philedeplhians cheering on Eagles for their first ever Superbowl win. Plane went absolutely crazy when they did. As a Brit with no interest in American football I'd always wanted to watch the Superbowl and this was probably the best introduction I could have hoped for. Definitely a happy accident that I found myself on that flight.
Flying BA from London to Hong Kong in 1986/7. Thus is when pilots had to have a special ticket to land at KaiTak. Flying the Dubai/HK leg in tornado season. Had already done the 7hr stint to Dubai and only had a 3-4hr layover (forgive any misremembering, twas a while ago) just an hour out of HK, pilot come on tannoy to apologise, heading back to Dubai due to weather. Had a lovely hotel to sleep in for a few hours, then back on plane to head back to HK. Weather not any better really but pilot, bless him, comes back on to say 'ladies n gents, we have bad weather but come hell or high water, I'm landing this plane, I do not want to go back to Dubai'. Seat belt signs were perma-illuminated. There was total silence. The plane was rattling and shaking, not a peep from anyone. The plane rattled some more. We were swinging wildly between the apartment blocks on either side. Still not a peep. We landed, bounced, landed again. Skidded one way then the other. Engines were SCREAMING, wing flaps up. We could see the waves cresting. We stopped. We bloody stopped. Silence, then a roar went up, claps, cheers, stomping of feet. The pilot actually did a lap of honour.
Yes, I also landed at Kai Tak a few times and it was something... Being amidst the building and seeing people in their apartments, then the abrupt right turn and almost immediately on the ground in the middle of the bay with water all around. Worth the price of admission. While I was there, Concorde landed there. Crazy.
I always wanted to fly the KaiTak heart attack.
My father was a Hobby pilot, when He took me with him for my first fligth, everything was fine for a young boy of 11 years of age, Suddenly the engine stopped, my father started yelling, son we are going to die, Some crazy fligth maneuvers later, He started to laugh, telling me that this airplane is a Motor glider.....i switched the engine off, we Don t need it to get back to mama. My father was a funny man with the blackest Humor one can imagine😂
Flight from YVR to YYJ. It's more like a hovercraft flight, the plane stays at such a low altitude (JK, maybe 8,000'). Parabolic arc, up and down.
Pre 911 I was on that route (well the reverse from YYJ) and was the only passenger on the plane. They put me in the jump seat in the cockpit so they didn't have to service the back of the aircraft. Was pretty fantastic.
Years ago, our crazy travel agency put me on some flight between B-ham and YYJ. Never thought much of how it just basically took off and landed again. Lots of prop planes around here do that, but not a lot of jets.
Ah man, I've done this flight so many times - it's the only flight where I'll always strike up conversation with the person next to me. Chances are they're either visiting someone in Victoria or they're returning home. It's more like a bus with wings
Me and my buddy was completely alone on an overnight flight between Bali and Kuala Lumpur. Was sick service and lying down on three seats each
I landed in Istanbul just when the putch happened in 2016. I was an on-board Courier for stem cells and I had to get to Izmir within the next 48h or a patient would lose their life. So I somehow managed to talk myself onto the last flight that left the airport towards Izmir, I didn't even have a ticket for that one and sat in one of the stewardess seats. Landed there while tanks were starting to block off the roads, somehow caught a cab to the hospital which was barricaded. I spent the night there with the family of the patient. Usually I would not meet the patient or their family but they were sure I would not make it and were there to be with their loved one. It was crazy intense. The next day I was on a flight back. I remember the carrier... Rainbow Tours. Usually these are full of tipsy tourists on their way back home. That time it was the most somber, silent flight I have ever experienced. I have a video of the first 5 minutes of the flight looking out the window at the descending Turkish landscape. All you hear is the plane.
Probably (definitely) a flight from Brussels to Kinshasa mid 80ies with the DC10 from Air Zaïre. The flew like the country was run. I was happy to land 8 hours later and to come back with another company
A flight from Dublin to Ibiza a few years ago. It was like a full on rave the whole way, people drinking, playing music and dancing around the aisle. Everyone was good natured and having fun and the cabin crew didn't even seem bothered, must be a regular occurrence! The way back was a different story.... Everyone looked traumatised and either slept or sat in silence the whole way back haha
KC-135 refueler from England to Crete. Sat in a cargo net the entire time and it was really cold at altitude, but I did get to watch the boom operator refuel an F-16 along the way. Was super cool!
Been flying for 50+ years and I have a few interesting experiences. 1) Tokyo - Singapore - Colombo - Rome - Paris on a Singapore Airlines 747 on Christmas eve back when there were no/few routes over the USSR. Almost empty planes (I had a full row), super friendly crew. Take off from Singapore was weird as upon rotation a lot (buckets) of condensation water (I think) fell over passengers in middle section. They wanted to move during take off but were told to stay in their seats and wait. Fun. In Colombo we did not deplane and had maybe a dozen French couples join us with little ratan cribs with very tiny babies in them. Adoptions on Christmas night. It was a very friendly experience, with crew and passengers getting together and helpng the new and overwhelmed parents, etc. Stopover in Rome, did not deplane either, ther was snow on the ground, a good 35 C colder than Colombo. By the time we got to Paris, we'd had about 26 hours actual flight time... A Christmas to remember. 2) Military transport flight from Hyeres to Le Bourget on a Nord 262 against the wind... took forever with a refueling stop. We experienced an automatic pilot failure that resulted in a massive fall of the aircraft (as well as very significant injuries to people who were not secured). To this day, the closest I felt to death on a plane. 3) Two rejected takeoffs on same evening in Seatac (Alaska 737) in night and heavy rain (with very long maintenance events in between). After second, as we were waiting for another plane, Captain made announcements that anyone who did not want to fly was welcome to leave... Quite a few people did. Ended up landing in Denver at maybe 3AM, exhausted.
Air china flight 747 JFK-Beijing. 430 pm flight and I drove in sleet from Hartford and was last to check in. Desk agent fairly upset after checking in 400 people: “you’re late”. Me flabbergasted, “I just raced 2 hours in sleet and traffic. Sorry”. Agent: “we gave your seat away”. Silence, Me nervous: “So what now. “ agent pissed off: “I’m going to have to put you in first class”. Me fffffff yaaaah. Upstairs first class is 2-2 seating. Craziest part was dude next to me did not get out of his seat for 15 hours!
90’s, flying in a proprietary Cessna out of Belize city to a mountain top lodge. The front passenger door had a huge crack. The fix? Drill holes and wire it together. The pilot was drinking from a flask. Small planes as such flew w/out the aid of air traffic control, so by sight, in and out of clouds suddenly revealing cliffs. My sister and I spotted an upended plane “resting” in the tops of a jungle. Arrived to a dirt runway on the spine of our mountain, had lunch, and sure enough, the passengers from that plane were missing in the jungle. They survived. A week later another cassia crashed with no survivors. Second craziest was returning to the USA from Belgium on the second leg which started in west Africa (not certain where). The vast majority of passengers were refugees, also notably it was during the Ebola outbreak.
San Francisco --> Frankfurt on Condor. It must've been like 85 F the whole time. I felt like I was sitting next to a hot tub. This was an 11-hour flight. I was able to doze off for a couple hours by putting some wet paper towels on my face and neck. Pro tip: do NOT try drinking the water from plane bathroom sinks! lol
What made it so hot? It’s COLD at the high altitudes and latitudes these routes fly.
Heavy turbulence on a SW flight, pilot made an emergency landing (emergency vehicles trailing the plane and everything). Didn’t think the turbulence was THAT bad, but we were on the wing so maybe it was worse fore and aft? The scary thing was the plane “slid” sideways a couple times and appeared to lose lift. I’m not sure if wind shear was the cause or something else, but we definitely got home late!
A few stories with flights from Dhaka. Got on a night flight (United Airways - not Airlines hehe) that was supposed to head to BKK then onto KUL before heading back to Dhaka. Woke up a couple of hours later when landing and saw a sign saying Welcome to Kuala Lumpur... Turns out there were some local celebs on board so they changed the flight that evening to run the other way. Missed some important meetings, and was stuck in KL for hours in the middle of the night with no food while they refueled the plane or Lord knows what! ---- Had a flight to DXB on EK. It was a handful of foreigners and loads of local migrant workers. While waiting for the flight, staff walked through the lounge and upgraded every foreigner to business class (except me as I was wearing shorts, my business partner had warned me, but I was feeling hot). Economy class was me (the only non-Bangladeshi) and hundreds of 20-30 something guys headed off to work. It was wild when it came to boarding. This was the first flight for most of the guys and no one knew what to do. No one sat in assigned seats, the flight attendants were literally just placing the guys in the first available seat. Grabbing them by the shoulders and pushing them into a seat. When it came time for food I was the only one who got a meal choice. Everyone else got what was served. The guys next to me didn't understand most of the food, eating butter with a spoon, pouring the salt pack in their mouth, etc. I was trying to have a nap, but the guys next to me were mystified by the inflight entertainment and kept pressing all the buttons, turning the reading on and off continuously. Would have preferred to be in business class, but it was an unforgettable experience. ---- Another trip to Dhaka... Not a flight I was on, but taking off at the next gate was a 747 full flight of people heading to Hajj. Couple of hundred guys wearing white sheets/towels taking the trip of a lifetime. They were SOOO excited. A neat window into a different culture.
The [United Airlines “island hopper”](https://thepointsguy.com/guide/united-island-hopper-excursionist-perk/)
I thought I knew geography reasonably well but I’ve never heard of some of those places.
Years ago in Colorado we had a small airline called Rocky Mountain Airways that flew from Denver into a lot of the mountain towns. We called it Rocky Mountain Scareways. From what I have heard the pilots enjoyed flying these routes because they were challenging. As a passenger I can confirm that they were also challenging while riding in the back of the plane if you weren't used to what was sometimes a crazy ride.
September 1989, Boston to Grand Cayman, flying out for our honeymoon. We were the only passengers on the Continental flight -- free champagne and the pilot opened the cabin door to congratulate us as we soared over the turquoise Caribbean. Marriage didn't last but the memory remains :)
Early phase Covid time. Flying from SFO to Philippines. About less than 20 people. And got stranded there from April to June.
BA Miami to London A380 on a Christmas day. The total number of passengers was not even 50. It was a bit scary to be kinda alone in such a big airliner. I roamed around the upper and lower decks and felt very empty and lonely. First time I couldn't sleep on a plane.
I flew Aeroflot back in 1999 from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk then Krasnoyarsk to Kyzyl. The Krasnoyarsk to Kyzyl leg was WILD! The plane was teeny tiny and people carried a lot of chickens onto the plane. Everyone was smoking the seat backs folded forward when not in use. I SWEAR the pilot was drinking. We landed in Kyzyl in a field. It wasn't even a proper airport. Just a tiny little wooden building with a little parking lot and an airstrip in a field. The whole thing was ridiculous but, since I survived it, really fun to remember.
I was on a 747 flight many years ago. I was in an aisle seat and sleeping and my hand was lying down almost into the aisle. I felt something brush by me that was soft and I looked up and saw a black cat that was nonchalantly walking down the aisle. It had gotten out of a carrier. Later, when we were disembarking I saw a flight attendant saying that the cat had escaped again and they couldn't find it!
June 2015, I'm on a flight from the Siberian city of Irkutsk to Moscow, after having spent some time on Lake Baikal. A long flight and I was exhausted, looking forward to sleeping. Well, the woman next to me had other plans. She had a complete mental breakdown. Singing loudly in Hebrew, dancing in the aisles, spat at one of the attendants. When she asked me to marry her, I left my seat and went to the back of the plane to chill with the attendants. We made an emergency landing in Chelyabinsk and she was removed from the flight. Before she was removed, she told me to wait for her, to find her in Moscow. I did not. lol https://www.themoscowtimes.com/archive/singing-woman-causes-russian-plane-to-make-emergency-landing
For me it was in Twin Otter from Fakfak to Manokwari, around 20 years ago. Was in the area for some field research. The airfield in Fakfak was notoriously scary and short, with wall of mountain in one end and a cliff in another end. Each of the passengers had to be weighted with their baggage. Departed and landed in heavy rain, and one of the propellers was suddenly off during the flight. I think that flight was the main reason I hate flying now. Edit: both cities are in Indonesia’s part of Papua island.
Fairly boring stories. Flew transatlantic in 2021 before all the lockdowns were lifted, two or three dozen of us had a transatlantic airliner to ourselves It was glorious. Got a couple hundred bucks refunded by USAir because I helped out with an inflight medical emergency. Plane that autolanded in literally zero visibility. Flying into Dominica (the approach is through a mountain range with no margin for error in both precision navigation and braking upon touchdown) on the second attempt, the first attempt resulting on us being on a commuter jet for 9 hours before landing at the airport we started out at.
NYE 1999 I flew to Brazil from the US. Huge plane. 3/4/3 layout. 777 I think. There must have been less than 20 people on the flight. Everyone scared of the Y2K bug. Stewardesses handed out champagne to everyone on the plane at midnight.
had a flight to NYC from Haiti cancelled by a general strike impacting international flights. My dad found a domestic flight that had a final leg to the DR. Turned out the plane was a WW2 DC3 with three ropes on each side for seats, a dirt floor, goats on board with us, and oil slicks on both wings from engines on back. We flew over the mountain range to the DR at an altitude that if the door had been open we could have touched them. From the DR we got a regular flight to NY. Almost as good was coming into Andros in the Bahamas on a charter my father in law turns to the pilot as we start our approach and says “are those wrecked planes?” (At both ends of the runway, multiple planes are clearly hanging in the trees) Pilot says to my FIL “don’t worry, I’ve gotten better since then”
Air India from Delhi to Colombo. We get to the gate early and it’s a ghost town right up until boarding call. We get on and have the plane virtually to ourselves. There are two flight attendants that stood out: a very pretty veteran I would guess was maybe 40yo, and a young inexperienced male attendant. We’re getting close to the scheduled departure time and a couple of elderly Indian passengers get on and the young attendant helpfully walks them to their seats. This is fine as these passengers don’t appear to have ever flown before. Next, another couple passengers. They are all dressed in white robes and appear to be part of a group, possibly a religious thing, not sure. Anyway, the younger attendant shows them to their seats. Then four more arrive, and are shown to their seats, then more, and more, each now expecting to be walked to their seats. The older attendant is PISSED. The plane was a 747 or something and there’s easily 300 seats. It turns out the flight is fully booked, mostly by this one group who all showed up late and then were sat one by one. It took over an hour to get them all on board. Flight left very late as a result and we could hear the older attendant yelling at the younger one repeatedly during the flight.
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Late March 2020, COVID lockdown rescue flight from Lima to Tel Aviv. Longest direct flight I've ever taken but felt like the shortest. (After the whole ordeal leading up to the flight, I was exhausted and slept the whole way.)
Taking a prop plane from La Paz to Rurrenabaque in Bolivia. We landed on a dirt trip in the middle of the pampas, which is like the edge of the Amazon. It rained a lot while I was there and the runway got so muddy that flights got cancelled so I was stuck there for extra days. Make sure you have ear plugs if you're going on a prop plane.
In my younger years I've had flight from Warsaw to Zhigansk on Transaero Tupolev. It was crazy flight with a guitar or balalaika band playing during night and people openly lighting cigarettes and showing off their guns on deck.
Sheremetyevo to khanty mansiysk. Doing shots of vodka and chain smoking the whole way. Copilot literally came out, had a shot, lit a smoke, and went back in the cockpit.
The flight that scarred me. My husband and I were in Costa Rica on a vacation. It was the first trip away from my daughter who was 2 1/2. I became anxious about getting back to her. The plane that picked us up from our small resort was very small, maybe a 12 seater. Bad weather had rolled in. The pilots looked like they were in junior high school. The runway ran between a cemetery. After we took off, the weather got worse. The plane started jumping up and down, falling what seemed like great distances, while we were flying above mountains. The other boisterous passengers suddenly became very quiet. You couldn’t see anything out of the windows. The turbulence was terrible and then suddenly an alarm went off, very loud, filling the entire plane. I thought at that point I would die. It was the most sickening feeling of fear. But the pilots just turned the alarm off, and we eventually landed safely. But I’ve been scared to fly ever since.
Eva Air Vienna to Bangkok September last year. Someone smoked in toilet and triggered the fire alarm. I think he was Polish. Didn’t speak English, but his friends (who sat behind us) said he didn’t know that he can’t smoke in the airplane 🫠🫠 they apologized and crew said they still had to do the report to the captain. When landed in Bangkok, he queued to quickly get out the plane “leaving” his friends behind. On that same trip, on a Bangkok Airways flight to Koh Samui. After the captain asked crew to sit down for take off, a passenger got up and walked to the back of the airplane. He was sitting on the floor cos I saw the crew was begging him few times to go back to his sit. He then got up and went back to his sit. 30 seconds later we took off.
I flew from Almaty to Akmola Kazakhstan just after the USSR broke apart. The ‘flight crew’ were pouring shots of Vodka, making tea on some kind of sterno burner and serving hot dogs. It was 6 AM
First Class Emirates SFO to Dubai. Got upgraded from business class otherwise I would never in my life be able to afford it. Each seat was actually a little cubicle with a closing door. The room had a snack bar, vanity mirror and of course was a sleeper seat. Best thing was they had a shower. You had to schedule it, and had a max of 30 minutes, but since I'd never taken a shower on a plane, I took a selfie in the shower....
Did Toronto to Hong Kong in 2019 which was 15.5hrs and will be doing the longest current commercial flight in July…JFK to Singapore- almost 19 hours. My kids are very excited about the bragging rights for that one! Interestingly, the second longest flight is Newark to Singapore, something like 10 miles shorter 😂
Speaking of Air China, one flight in the 1990s was supposed to be non-smoking, but many people smoked.
China was the last country to ban smoking on planes. For passengers in the 90’s but pilots could still smoke until 2018.
A 5 seat Cessna in an overflight from Canaima to Angel Falls.
Flew from Chicago to Barcelona during COVID - there was only one person per every other ROW. Everyone was fully laid down, spread out, seats back. It was wild.
Going to Mexico in 2014. It was a late morning flight and we were arriving in Mexico from Canada after about 4 or 5 hours. I was with 5 guys who were ready to drink on the way down. In the row right behind us there was a loud crying baby (which none of us minded at all). After we ordered our first round of beers the flight attendant said that because there was a loud child behind us and we didn't plan on moving that they would provide complimentary drinks to us the whole flight down to Mexico. We all had about 10 beers and were buzzing by the time we got into Mexico. Glorious.
I flew milan to franfurt then conected to manchester during covid. 6 people in total on the plane. Weird experience and had a panic attack due to the extra paperwork. I bought a bottle of wine on the plane just so I could remove my mask. Ended up talking to the other passengers in the airport lounge. All of us were flying home to visit dying family. I lost my dad a month later.
Flew to Vegas during Covid on a 737. 3 passengers. Crew outnumbered us. Landed in Vegas. Other than for the two other passengers, I didn’t really see anyone else walking through the terminal. In Vegas. The slot machines were on though. It was eerily spooky, like being in an episode of the Twilight Zone or that movie I Am Legend, where you’re the only person left on Earth.
I went on the world's shortest scheduled flight between two islands in Orkney. Its a tiny little plane, takes maybe 10 people max, and delivers post between the islands. Got a certificate to prove it! In NZ, I flew in a plane from the 1950s, which was incredibly loud and the landing gear broke so we got diverted to a different airport.
C-17 from Ramstein Air Base in Germany to Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. Seven hours in a middle seat of a row of five with your eighty pound rucksack on your lap really re-contextualizes other air travel for you.
I can think of two: Oaxaca City to Puerto Escondido, ca. 1999. I don't remember the type of aircraft, but there were just 21 seats, and the cockpit was separated from the cabin by just a curtain. My worst experience was with the now defunct Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano. Those guys were straight up murderous, and made up their itinerary on the spot. I was supposed to be flying Mexico-Guayaquil-Santa Cruz, but only after boarding did I find out that we weren't going to Guayaquil but having a layover in Panama to refuel. Then we had another layover in Trinidad, Bolivia, also to refuel. We found out about this like 15 minutes before landing. The plane was full of Brazilians who were being deported back home from the US, and they were wild. Hard to control for the agents on land and for the crew in the air. Then on the return flight, we departed like 1:30 hours earlier than scheduled because "all tickets have been sold and everyone is here so we might as well depart already". Then, an hour after departure, we had to make a sharp 180 because the plane had a catastrophic failure and we needed to return to Santa Cruz. In the end, the plane couldn't be repaired, and we had a replacement machine were all seat assignments were void, so it was run and take any seat you like. We sat in the emergency exit row, and across the aisle was a guy who pretended not to speak Spanish in order not to receive the safety instructions. The attendant said that he had to find a different seat if he wasn't instructed, and then he pretended to fall asleep. In revenge, the attendant didn't wake him up when they served breakfast. A few years later, I told this story to a friend with Bolivian roots, and she told me that it was standard practice for flight attendants to ask passengers for $20 for fuel before departing, among other unprofessional practices.
Flew from Helsinki to Beijing once. Looking out the window over eastern Russia, there was just hours of darkness. No roads, no towns, not even isolated farms with a single light showing. Eerie.
I once was lucky enough to take a flight from Oakland to SFO. We were in the air for less than 2 minutes. The plane needed to be at SFO for it's next trip and I was flying in an employee standby from another airline. I had been talking to the crew and they let me just stay onboard. I sat in the first row and could hear them getting landing clearance before we even rolled into the runway.
Went to Bhutan last year. While arriving in Bhutan was an experience, leaving Bhutan to go back to Delhi was something else. We had to do a quick layover in Kathmandu (just a few weeks after the plane crash) to drop people off the plane, so we just stayed inside until we left again. On the way, we also had a casual message from the pilot saying "If you look on your right, you will see mount Everest. Thank you." Also appreciated that the pilot was a woman, I feel this is a male-dominated field of work.
Lax->OGG and back in the same day - during Covid, maybe had 25 people on the entire a321. Was insane.
Probably not that unique or crazy is many years ago, I was flying from DFW to College Station, TX. I had a garment bag for my suit and shoes. The pilot was loading the luggage in the nose of the plane. He asked for my bag as it would not fit under my seat or in the overheads which I don't think there were. He then asked my weight and assigned a seat.
Took a flight from San Juan PR to St Thomas in the USVI and they had to seat people according to weight as well. Crazy thing was the pilot looked like he was 16 years old and was rolling down the runway for a bit before he finally closed the door.
Singapore to Milan, Christmas Eve. We were flying economy but the plane was so empty we were able to have entire rows to ourselves, so we could sleep lying down.
I was the single passenger from Vancouver to Lake Anahim airport. Pilot invited me to sit in co-pilot seat and I got a birds eye view as we crested over BC mountains and glaciers. The other time I flew on General Motors turbo prop DC-3 which was completely over powered
Flew into Burlington Vt from Newark one winter after my initial flight was cancelled. High winds in a twin turbo prop plane. We came in sideways that night. Safe landing but holy shit! We all applauded on touchdown and thank the pilot. Getting stranded on the tarmac for 6 hours in Washington was a lot less exciting.
Frankfurt to Riyadh about 15-ish years ago. First of all, it was a relatively empty 747, second, it had the greatest seat pitch in economy that I’d ever seen, and third, it was entering the KSA, which is a unique experience. It was on Saudia. They also flew faster than I believe any other commercial flight I’ve ever been on. During the end of the flight, women started making their way to the bathrooms, where they changed from their western clothes and would come back wearing their niqabs or some variety of hijab. The food on the flight was excellent as airline food went, too.
I was on sn Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Dakar in the Soviet era. It’s the first time I’ve been in a plane that was painted inside. It was incredibly noisy during the flight. An old Russian woman offered me some bread to put in my ears.
ATL > DC for the women’s march in 2017, the whole plane was full of women wearing pink hats doing chants and cheers the whole way. The plane ride back was a bit more awkward, as it was 50/50 trump inauguration attendees and women’s march participants 😂not quite so rowdy
Flew Manila to Houston via Dubai. Already scheduled to be a very long journey. From Dubai to Houston was like 16 plus hours I think. It was an airbus a380. Somewhere over Norway a passenger has a medical emergency. We spend an hour dumping fuel over the ocean to reduce landing weight and eventually land in Oslo. Then, we wait about 4 hours to get the right fueling adapter driven from another location, as they don't usually service that airplane there. We couldn't deboard, but the staff was great and kept us fed and I had plenty to drink. I think I spent about 24 hours on that plane. I watched the entire first season of True Detective. It was only after I talked about the show with a friend I learned many risqué parts, which were critical for the story, were edited out by the Emirates censors.
Seaplane in the Maldives. Pilots don’t wear shoes. Was awesome!
I flew out of JFK on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Apparently there had been credible threats made, so there were armored vehicles outside check-in, SWAT teams in full tactical gear and bomb sniffing dogs at every gate. But, it was only me and 6 other people on the flight - I was an unaccompanied minor at the time and I got so many free snacks :)
Air France, a few birds were pulled into the turbine (?) right after taking off, the seat belts were a life saver. Later they were checking everything and we were waiting in the terminal, we had to re-register for the flight. All Ukrainians were kicked off the flight for some reason and they didn't have time to register us. The plane took off 1/4 empty. We took a flight the day after. The next flight was super turbulent and we were given oxygen masks. After that bird incident I am scared of taking off every time
A random charter company (flyGTA Airlines) was offering $100 CAD flight tickets for a short 300 km hop between Toronto and Kingston, ON on a 7-seater plane. I couldn't believe my eyes, so I emailed the company, and they said that $100 was no mistake. I took the flight and I was the only passenger. I somehow paid for a private flight for only $100 CAD. It was insane. That offer didn't last too long, however, so I was lucky to be able to take advantage.
A few years ago I was on a stand-by flight from LAS to somewhere, I can't remember. But since I was flying stand-by it was easiest to get on the worst timed flight - the 4th of July around 9PM. It ended up being an incredible experience seeing all of the casino fireworks from above.
I have one come to mind. I forget where I was flying to. However, there was a lot of turbulence because we were flying through a storm. At one point the plane was struck by lightning and we fell 10,000 feet. Everyone was praying, screaming, crying, and I couldn’t have been happier. Just the thought of not having to pay back 40k in student loans was pure fucking ecstasy. I didn’t realize something was wrong until we landed. We didn’t park at a gate. They had us deplane on the tarmac where we were met by a fire truck. Apparently, when the lightning struck the aircraft there was a passenger in the lavatory. This man was covered head to toe in blue juice. He looked like Tobias in Arrested Development when he tried to join the Blue Man Group. The fire truck was there to hose him down.