While reading an article in the NYT about the development of a nightmarish situation on a grounded plane, the article mentioned this website: Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights.
This website has the following goal:
We are committed to solutions for promoting airline passenger policies that forward first and foremost the safety of all passengers while not imposing unrealistic economic burdens that adversely affect airline profitability or create exorbitant ticket price increases.
Do you have any airline horror stories to share? Now you have a venue to vent your frustrations about the airline industry and their treatment of passengers.
Well, a repeat from a previous post. about the opposite to the pillow guy
Stuck in aisle #35 in seat B, with two huge ladies (friends) occupying A and C.
Red Eye from San Diego to Newyark – over six hours.
Needless to say I kept both armrests down, as they were the only physical things that prevented my suffocation.
(the plane was at 100% capacity – I’m surprised it took off)
At one point the girl in seat A suggested I trade with her seat. Ya right, squeeze me into the window for six hours, while you two raise the armrests, increasing your seat width at my expense.
She also had to go to the bathroom twice. Needless to say, zero sleep on that flight back to Montreal.
I was one cranky geek in Newyark, first time at that airport, and I had to go from Terminal 5 to 1 within 30 minutes. So far! Grr ! Can’t rest, have to run there. So was also a starving geek.
// Funny how some fat women, sitting down, from the chest up
// don’t seem that fat. Whoah the bumpers.
1–Mindless bitching. What right of yours was being abused? Any AIRLINE regulation you would propose? Any proposal that does not introduce excessive cost to the airlines??
What I see is a complaint NOT that too many people are too fat ((which is definately true)) but that the seats are too compacted.
Two solutions—deny single seat purchases to people over a given size ((ie–make them buy two seats)) or require more space per seat. Sorry to steal your thunder, but do you have a third option?
On a chartered flight from St. Thomas to London, we were grounded for four solid hours, waiting on the tarmac in tropical heat (most of us were used to the heat but come on), because a girl was missing from the flight yet her bags were still on the plane. They found her four hours later, she had gotten off to see her boyfriend in St Maarten, the flight continued to St Thomas (that time without her) and she didnt care about her bags. This was a year after 9/11 so they were afraid to take off with unmatched bags to passengers to a London flight. All requests to chuck her luggage out and fly were ignored. They should have charged that dumb girl with something.
They’ve banned smoking in pubic places and airports, why don’t they do the same thing with fat people….
-Ben (who, at measly 260 lbs would obviously avoid the ban because he is not fat, just ‘big boned’)
#1 – That is how you talk about your friends? Remind me never to be your enemy…
Oh, thanks Pedro! I’ve got a flight across the Atlantic in a month or so, and now I will spend the whole time looking at those tiny windows and the size of my butt….. all the while I will be ignoring my 2 year old and 5 year old, who will spend the whole flight screaming and pulling each other’s hair and annoying all the other passengers, who are going to have a miserable time too, and it will all be your fault.
And the passengers will not even know if they should complain to Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights or International Airline Passengers Association.
See what one simple posting can do! I hope you are happy with yourself.
😀 😀 😀
-Ben.
I don’t fly much….
About a year ago the wife and I did a “round trip” to DFW from CLE.
“Canadair Regional Jet” or some such. The legroom is about 3/8″ shorter than my femur…. Didn’t do too badly until the wife decided to lower her tray. On my knee….
I’m 6’1″ and about 300#, so being sandwiched isn’t new – from both sides of the problem. Not a lot of fun. (I could live with the window seat nicely though.
About ten years ago, on a business trip, I asked the travel agent for an aisle seat. I got a middle…. Bigger aircraft, but I’m sure I caused “fit” problems for the other two people in my group. Couldn’t do anything…. On the way down, a HUGE woman was in the window seat and half of mine. Little kid to my right…. On the return, I had two small engineering types beside me. We all got to talking, and were “home” before we noticed….
The airlines want as many full seats as they can get on each flight, and as many seats in the aircraft as they can shoehorn in. I don’t really blame them, but I paid a lot of money for those seats….
Regards,
Stu.
Where is the website for airline employees to complain about there passenger? I sure that one would be a lot busier.
-People complaining about service when they paid $69 to fly coast to coast.
My fav- the child changed on a the tray table with the dirty diaper stuffed in the seatback pocket. Enjoy your next meal on the tray table folks….
#2 Mindless ? Me ? I didn’t complain about any rights. Since those two large women reduced my Paid For seating space (of which I need 100% of since I’m 38″ wide), then I should have asked for a % refund of lost seat space.
Pedro – Good One ! We now have a legal reason not the let people with a rear-end larger than 50 inches into a plane.
(Like at park rides, if you’re not This Tall, a way to check before boarding if you’re over This Wide)
My other nightmare – Kids On A Plane – this one’s for you Ben 🙂
I love kids, but it’s physically impossible for them to endure long flights, with the long delays and the airport, just getting on & taxiing.
I now stash in my laptop bag shrink-wrapped (thus safe) suckers – the tri-color balls – and sneakily “make them appear” where the parent & the KID can see them.
Muahahaha, when the parent caves in, and sugar rush kicks in.
Point being ? While the sugar rush is being spent by the kid(s) running up & down the plane, they are not crying or screaming, then when spent, they fall asleep.
(No, I did not mix into the sucker a somnifère)
#5 – BTW, has anybody wondered how overwieghted passenger get out thru those emegency windows?
I wonder how anybody gets through those windows, fat or thin…
I’m sure there is a perfectly valid engineering reason, but I’d like flying better if the windows were less like submarine portholes and more like the massively oversized windows on a motor home.
Call me crazy, but I still like the view from a plane. In fact, I’d invent any old dumb reason to fly if the airplane was actually transparent.
10–Correct. The thread was (supposed to be) about your RIGHTS that were violated, not some inconvenience.
Take my last flight, I was on the center aisle and our rather busty hostitute obliviously stuck her tits in my face when passing nuts to the distal passengers.
Were my privacy rights VIOLATED? You bet they were, but I toughed it out and stole those nuts!!!!!!
#12 – I admire your courage.
#6 OhForTheLoveOf – LoL – I meant the two women were friends, not myself. And stay on my good side, or else…
#12 You are correct – my rights to a decent seat arrangement and breathing space were violated.
It is inhumane to fit a 5′ 11″ 200lb male in between two 5′ 2″ 300lb women in the last row of an airplane. Total Seat Time was at least seven hours with the taxiing.
Bobbo – busty hostitute Making up new words? Cross between hostess and the oldest profession? Send that to Webster’s dictionary, they did add in Ginormous recently, after all.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/open.htm
Ginormous is what those two women were to me after a few hours…
C’mon guys, horror stories is what Gasparrini is looking to read!
#12 – If I were in that position I’d pay the guy next to me to ask for more stuff every few minutes. 🙂
I’ve got a horror story. On one flight, the guy in front of me leaned his seat way back and proceeded to pick at hundreds of scabs on the back of his partially shaved head. Grossed me out the whole flight.
I’ve got a horror story. I boarded a plain in beautiful California and it took off with me trapped inside. When I landed, I was in Indianapolis and there was a snowstorm outside. My cries for help went unanswered.
How about a horror scenario? Let the airlines charge 3 times what they do for tickets in any class? That will kill airline flight as an easy alternative to say buses or trains, then we can go back to the old days when planes were seldom full, stewardesses wore short skirts and smoking and boozing among the passengers were *expected*.
Those ladies should of had to purchase and extra air seat. I fly at a minimum 5 or 6 times a month and to have to sit next to person who has not idea what a shower is or how to exersize can sometime be a very irritating situation