Worst Airline Travel experiance?

[DannyBanany]

Sitting next to a drunk Dutch guy on his way to "climb Mount Everest" on a 9 hour flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam.

[diegosmom]

I have plenty, but will only bore you with 2.

First was flying from Mexico City to Honduras. My husband and I are on our honeymoon and we end up in the last row of an one class (econ) plane. They hold the plane for us as we ran the entire length of the airport as we were connecting FROM Ixtapa/Zihua. Hubby sits down and no seatbelt. The flight attendent said don't worry, it is ok....hubby says "ah, no it is not". The plane is taxiing at this point...hubby stands up and says he will not sit down until he has a seatbelt....plane stops, maintenance comes and brings a seat belt "extender".....of course doesn't work. FINALLY after much wait....we have a seatbelt installed.....If he wouldn't have been killed by lack of seatbelt, I think he almost was by the eyes from the fellow passengers.

Flew to small island off of Honduras - Guanaja. Puddle jumper type plane, you can see the pilots, whole deal. We are flying in a tropical depression from the mainland to the island. Pilots fly by sight....co-pilot gets HIS tool box out to put his wrench out the window to fix his windshield wiper......priest is sitting in front of us writing the entire 30 minute or so voyage...gets up and goes to the pilots "haven't we missed the island? we should be landing by now". yes, they did...couldn't see it.....did a few nose dives, circles, etc and eventually landed. I was clutching on to my husband the whole time and wouldn't look out the window. Nothing to see anyway.....

I have similar stories as the others, but toss in an infant for good measure!

[WLUTZ]

TAM airlines & the Sao Paulo airport!

Avoid at all costs.

[DgoNative]

I have got to agree with the others that US Airways is possibly the worst airline out there. I remember last June we flew from Seattle to Phoenix and as we boarded our connection to Durango, all the ground crew decided to quit. It was the first really hot day of the season, so we all sat in the plane, amongst other tiny, filled planes, while one guy loaded all the luggage, did all the taxiing of the planes, the hand motions, all that stuff that a whole crew usually takes care of. We sat there for over 2 hours waiting for our turn in that little, baking, death-trap of a plane. We eventually took off, but that whole episode more than solidified my hatred of US Airways. I've had other crappy experiences with them, but that was one of the worst.

[BuffaloTransplant]

Continental into Newark and the plane was full of loud older adults who talked and talked and refused to get off quick enough for any of the rest of us to make connecting flights. Then they mobbed the reservation desk and ranted and raved to get to onto their flight to FL -- and the airlines held it. I got to my gate with 2 small kids and the airline refused to toss 3 standbys and let us on. They shut the door. It was 20 years ago and haven't used the airline or airport since.

[suncat]

Mine was a nine-hour flight from Milan to Washington DC. I was in the last row of a packed plane, and the BO was stifling from the very beginning. We had terrible turbulence throughout most of the flight, and a fight kept breaking out across the aisle between an Italian man and a French woman.

[kensgirl]

OK, this is a number of years ago, but has stayed with me. I've had plenty of fun on US airlines, but nothing compares to my overseas experiences.

I was on CAAC, the domestic Chinese airline. I was flying from Shanghai to Guangzhou, in southern China. I should have known I was in trouble at the airport. We were in the gate area, which had about 24 gates, or doors, heading outside to the runway. The only problem was every single flight was leaving out of Gate 24. When I say it was a sea of humanity, that doesn't even come close to describing the crush of people all trying to get through these double doors for their flight.

When we got on the plane, things didn't improve. First off, the rows are much closer together than in US airplanes. For every 2 rows on a US plane, there are 3 on these planes. Secondly, not only do the seats recline back, they also go forward, which we discovered as the people behind us got in and out of their seats, repeatedly, during the flight. Also, even though most US flights at that time were already non-smoking, this was not the case. The whole plane was smoking. We did get a beverage service on the flight. When you open you snack box and see tentacles, it's a good time to pass on the snack.

The flight was noisy, hot (it was August) and after a while, pungent, due to the heat and lack of fresh air. As we were approaching our destination, we kept veering towards the left and then the right. As we started to land, we actually touched down left wheels first then right wheels down and started heading off the runway, before the pilot corrected and went straight.

We got off the plane, and kissed the ground. When we went to get our baggage, we walked thru several buildings in the terminal, each getting progressively older. We finally ended at a building, with a dirt floor and a corrugated plastic roof. The "baggage carousel" was a straight conveyor belt that went from one end of the room to another. The conveyor belt literally ended and dumped all the luggage into a pile.

I returned to Hong Kong a few days later (by boat!) and saw a T-shirt for sale. It showed a plane drawn in a knot, with CAAC on the tail, and people screaming at the windows. At the bottom, the shirt read "Welcome to China! Now go Home!"

Yup...after that experience, everthing else has been easy!

[Mvn2nc]

Last month when a really, realy HUGE woman infringed on my space by appx. 6 inches. To top it off, my seat could not recline b/c of the emergency door behind me. I was getting a real panicky feeling since i was on a 5 hour flight and i was totally pushed up against the window. Luckily, when we got to cruising altitude i requested that my seat be changed,I was one happy flier. From now on, i am going to be an aisle person!!

[Paddington]

My worst experiences have all been on American Airlines.

Recently I flew into San Antonio for an interview. They squandered my luggage, and I didn't have my suit. They assured me that it would arrive on the next flight later on that evening. When I woke up the next morning and called the front desk of the hotel, they told me no luggage had arrived. I called American Airlines again, and they told me that my luggage had arrived, but that they don't deliver bags at night. Nice how they didn't mention that before. When I told them that this has spoiled my chances for getting a job (and not to mention hundreds of dollars down the drain), they told me I could go and buy a suit and they would compensate me. Nice. They didn't mention that the previous evening when I complained, but they tell me about it today when my interview is in 1 hour.

Another time on American Airlines, their plane landed at DFW, and we waited on the runway for 2 hours because they didn't have a gate. This was at their own hub airport by the way.

I don't think there's any limits to the incompetence of AA. If they weren't so big and didn't have a lock on so many routes, I would never fly on them. I don't think anyone would.

[Machinist]

Ours was on a house hunting trip from NJ to Austin in Jan 07. The flight was delayed by a half hour to start with because the catering (peanut delivery) truck was late. Then when the peanut truck arrived it hit the plane, damaging the head light on the front edge of the wing. That started another 1 hour delay which actually turned into 4 hours. When some passengers asked why so long to change a lens, the pilot replied they didnt have a machinist in the shop to modify the part from another plane. So silly me steps and says Im a machinist and would gladly do the work if it would get the plane off the ground. But Im not an employee or union. So no go. We were allowed to leave the plane and walk around the airport during the repair. We went outside to smoke. On our way back in we were asked to see our boarding pass and ID to return to the terminal. No problem, thats proper procedure. Then we were asked for passport and more ID with an attitude by someone who just wanted to bust my chops and couldnt speak English. Needless to say after a little bit of my attitude they realized now was not a good time to bust my chops and let us back in the terminal. Just in time to reboard. In Austin rent a car office was closed, and we had to get a room for the night, before we could meet our friends and go about our business. The flight home was great too, I sat next to some &*&%#@ who didnt like the idea of sitting next to someone and thought it was customary to try and take up half the room in my seat too. Naturally that didnt go over well with me and another flight from hell was on.