Flight Attendants Reveal The Worst Passengers They've Ever Met
We may not tend to think of it this way, but being on a plane is really just a bunch of strangers spending a period of several hours stuck in a little, confined box with no way out until the time is up.
That can make for a pretty awful experience if one or more of the people inside that box is someone unhinged, angry, or otherwise awful to be around.
Unfortunately, flight attendants, pilots, and frequent flyers have found themselves in this exact predicament many times. Here are 32 stories about some of the most memorable passengers to ever fly the skies.
32. A Dangerous Combo
My girlfriend is cabin crew.
One of her favorite stories is about a passenger who mixed sleeping pills and alcohol, which caused the passenger to freak out and attack another passenger.
31. Weird at Any Altitude
My aunt’s friend saw a woman breastfeeding a cat.
30. Keeping It in the Family
As a private pilot of a small aircraft (therefore meaning I have to also act as the flight attendant), I luckily only take my friends and family as passengers. The worst incident was when I disengaged the aircraft's autopilot.
To the unknowing ear, it sounds like an emergency alert, so that caused a panic attack. Ever since then, I always mention it during the preflight briefing after teaching them to open and close the door and fasten and unfasten the seatbelt.
So I guess that makes myself the worst passenger I’ve had?
29. If You Act Like a Princess, You Get Princess Yogurt
Former flight attendant here. I'm no longer a flight attendant for too many reasons to count.
Worked for a private charter company for two years. Lots of oil riggers, miners, and private tours. It was pretty much just a bunch of man-children and entitled jerks. Used to fly a bunch of 30 days on/7 days off type guys up in northern BC.
These guys were notoriously bad, they just didn't give a hoot and the company we subcontracted out of didn't help by letting them basically do whatever they felt like. They really had that "I don't care about your petty rules"
mentality about everything, which translated oh so well to being told what to do by a measly flight attendant.
Middle of December, I get put on a 4-day pairing to unload these guys, which has me up at 5 am to board the plane, which takes off at 6:30AM, then does an 11 hour loop going south with 3 stops and back up to park, and then repeat, putting me back at the hotel at 6:00 PM each night.
Crew Sched had scheduled in absolute minimum crew rest, meaning any minor delay screws the whole pairing. Literally 20 minutes before first day's takeoff, one of the NAV units blows (Airplanes have two but must fly with both for this very reason).
This delayed us considerably because another plane had to fly in with a whole other crew and a replacement piece.
By the time we take off it's 10 am, and another crew takes half our leg. The guys have been talking to the delayed passengers so we're getting a ton of "Your planes are pieces of junk," "you guys are a total joke,"
and tons of other abuse hurled at us. And of course it's only the first day.
On top of this, fellow F/A gets deathly ill and gets sent home after day 1, right alongside our mechanic who is sleep-deprived and blows the slide trying to rush off the plane. Pretty much the worst day and we still have 3 more to go.
Fast forward to final day and we are WIPED out and just needing to get out of there. I've slept in and gone without a morning cigarette, which has put me a little on the edgy side.
We're in the middle of taxiing to the runway and doing our safety demonstration when the In-Charge calls me via interphone, her voice is shot from doing announcements for the past 4 days straight and she asks me to do them.
I finish my checks in the back and start up the demo, keep in mind this is an extremely short taxi (small BC airport).
As I'm doing the demo and the pilots are waiting for us to give the clear, some idiot jumps out of the seat.
Since they've been told 3 times since boarding to remain seated with seatbelts fastened as we're about to take off, I assume it's an emergency and he bee-lines it to me right in the middle of me speaking the demo, which I promptly stop. I ask him if he's ok and am met with:
"Get me a pillow".
Mustering all my calmness, I explain to him that I can get one for him the second we get in the air as we're about to take off and the pillows are located near the OW exits, and I can't interrupt our safety checks and procedures.
"JUST GET ME A PILLOW"
I swear, there are only a small number of times I can say I've visibly seen red, and this was one of them. I can't remember exactly what I said but I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of "I'm not your freaking slave" and "sit the heck down."
He saunters off to his seat where he starts arguing with another passenger. I immediately regret it, and continue the demo while keeping an eye on him.
Thankfully nothing really came of it, only the hilarious karma of telling a passenger I wasn't their freaking slave and realizing soon thereafter that the commissary they packed for us to give out was mini-cupcakes and Disney princess yogurt that I had to serve him.....
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