Your negative flight experience/s?

B0bbyEwing

To be honest I've not been abroad all that much so I don't have a lot of experience this way & as such my experience will be very tame compared to some of you I'm sure & probably not even what some of you would grumble about.

All my flights have so far been fine. From 14hr flights or whatever the longest one was down to a 25 minute flight.

Recently back from a trip in Europe & had the first experience which was pushing my buttons.

Flight back home & this woman on the opposite side of the plane to us in the next row had the trolley stop at her & she must've spent 20-30 minutes easily going through every single perfume they had for sale. Just been through duty free but nope she had to do all this on the plane. People were wanting past to go to the toilet or whatever & the walkway was obviously congested with 2 airline stewards & a trolley.

We had the announcement at the start that someone had a nut allergy so consideration to them regarding food consumed. No problem.

I suffer migraines & strong smells can spark this and after so long my head was starting to thump a bit. It was quickly starting to smell like a Boots fragrance area - seriously overpowering smells. How she could differentiate between them I don't know because they all just merged in to one. Honestly, imo you should only be allowed to run through 2 or 3 at most or even just not have that stuff on the plane really & save it for duty free.

Get off the plane & going through security & her & her husband just randomly undo one of the barriers because they can't be bothered to snake around like the rest of us have to.

We stop off at the toilets & my wife tells me this woman ended up barging in front of others in the queue.

So nothing spectacular. Just what many would call a minor annoyance I suppose but it was really starting to pee me off.

elsien

When my flight was overbooked and I was all set to offer to stay another 24 hours in Kathmandu for a free hotel and a shed load of money.
Unfortunately, the tour operator I was with decided to point out it was another company’s turn to take the hit. I was extremely miffed.
Not sure that’s quite what you were looking for, but it’s the one that sticks in my mind the most. 😁

NoodleDoodleMan

This thread could take legs and continue into 2027 !!! 🙄

I would reckon that unless you are in a very small minority we've all had "war stories" about flights etc. that we would rather forget.

Ours was EasyJet late cancelling of our return flight to the UK from Schiphol while we were in the departure hall - dumped and abandoned with zero customer care. The worst experience since I first flew abroad in the Middle Ages.

Let the nightmare horror experiences commence !!!

Woodstok2000

A couple of years back, going from the US back to London,

I was enjoying premium economy so much I wrote

a song about it.

I went through into economy and sang my song.

Miserable buggers hated it.

I was singing about the legroom and doing a

crazy dance with my legs, and I was smashing my

stainless-steel cutlery against my milk jug, and they

looked as glum as hell.

I tried to get them to join in with the chorus.

I needed them to sing, " Yes, he's the premium

economy lad," right after I sang, "Cos I'm the

premium economy lad".

But these wretched snakes buried their faces in their

screens and, worst of all, the cabin crew refused to

do the dance I'd taught them and were yelling stuff

about turbulence and decorum and seatbelts.

Spoiler Warning

With apologies to Tim Key.

Worried_fool

I was on an EasyJet flight approaching Krakow, when they announced that all airports in Poland had been closed because of fog. Eventually we landed in Berlin: the captain explained that EJ had a base there; that our journey would continue the following morning; that a team on the ground would meet us and arrange overnight hotels. In short, the crew on the 'plane handled the situation really well.

So we disembarked, and found ourselves in an empty airport. There was no EJ team: there weren't even any immigration officers on duty to let us into the country! They did turn up after about half an hour, and since there was no sign of anyone from EJ we all eventually made our way to the check-in desk that is usually used by EJ (obviously this mean trekking from arrivals over to departures). A crowd assembled, but the people behind the counter said that they were not EJ staff and were waiting to hear from EJ.

I attempted to contact EJ via chat on their app, and also the travel agent from whom I had bought the flight. The agent (Trip.com) did respond but had nothing useful to say, while EJ were mysteriously busy.

After about three hours, I had had enough, and used my 'phone to book myself into the nearby airport hotel. (I later sent the bill to EJ, and after some trouble they paid it.) As I was leaving, the staff at the check-in desk started handing out slips of paper: these turned out to be the address of a hotel that was about an hour's journey from the hotel. The staff were kind enough to tell us that we could get there by public transport.

I pretended that I had not seen the slip of paper, and enjoyed the ten-minute walk to the airport hotel instead.

strawb_shortcake

Only two that stick in mind,

One was flying to Las Vegas, via Newark and Dallas (think it's why Travelsphere holidays were so cheap). From leaving home to arriving in Las Vegas I think it took around 27 hours, I was so tired and dropped off to sleep before taking off from Dallas, only to be awoken by my Grandad who woke me up to tell me we were taking off again, it's the only time I felt the slightest bit annoyed by him, and on the plus side I was awake for flying into LV in the dark which was pretty impressive.

The other was flying to Berlin, two men were being deported to Germany where they had previously been granted asylum. They were understandably unhappy about the situation and with their shouting and not wanting to get on the plane which took around 45 minutes for them to be seated. They continued to shout pretty much all the way to Berlin, what I felt the worse part of the flight, was the majority of the passengers that had to turn around and watch and film the whole event. Regardless of the reason, I thought it was horrible to make a spectacle out of the two men.

MyRealNameToo

Been on more than one flight these days where you see people put their carry on bag in the first available locker space they find then carry on walking down the plane and take their seats 20 rows back from their bag. Fine, they can get their bag as they walk out the plane but the person at the front then has to put their bag over the seat 20 rows back meaning they are walking against the flow of people to get their bags to disembark. More than once was tempted to remove the persons bag, leave it in the aisle and put my bag in the overhead locker above my seat.



Was flying Upper Class with VS, in the old herringbone style seats, on an overnight flight. The guy on the other side of the plane got up and chatted to the person next to him, who he clearly didnt know beforehand and then spent the next 6 hours getting drunk and doing a continuous sales pitch to the guy who was just too polite to tell him to go away.

In a small regional airport in Kenya was due to get the last flight back to the capital but they announced the plane had a defect. Most the tour operators turned up and took their customers away but ours didnt. At 10pm the airport operations manager said we needed to use the toilet/get anything from the vending machine now because they will be turning off the power and water to lock up for the night until 7am the next morning. Not the best nights sleep ever.

Going home for Xmas one year and there had been really bad weather so the airline cancelled the first leg of the journey the night before. On the day the weather had totally cleared up but they didnt reinstate the flight. So queuing for customer service, met a friend in the queue, and we both got to the two customer service positions at the same time, took one each as we weren't travelling together just coincidence. Both said they could book us on the next flight which would by the skin of our teeth get us to our connection. Both agreed. Both agents walked off, his came back a minute later and gave him their tickets. Ours came back another 3 minutes later and advised that the seat had gone and next opportunity was 12th January. Turns out he hadn't left to get the tickets but had left to say bye to a colleague before completing the transaction.

flaneurs_lobster

Newquay Airport hadn't paid the rent to the military airbase that they shared a runway with, so the foggy landing doodads weren't working.

Meant that the (I think) EasyJet plane that was due to take us back to London on a Sunday evening went to Bristol or somesuch.

No options offered other than queue up for a refund, we decided against queuing for our £15 back when remembering that there are only three taxis that work on Sundays in Cornwall and 2 of them were still outside the terminal.

Managed to stay the extra night with pals, 2 extra taxi rides at £30 a pop, very expensive train ride back to London next day, 2 very annoyed bosses.

Couldn't be bothered even looking to see if compo was available.

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82125458#Comment_82125458

Ouch!

Thankfully the worst we've had was just shifting the time of the flight, both ways, so it kind of robbed us of a day. We debated to cancel but instead booked an additional day.

I'd dread encountering what you did. Doubt I'd even know what to do. Stuck in an airport trying to communicate with people who probably don't really care & may even struggle with your language.

eskbanker

To be honest I've not been abroad all that much…

I'd dread encountering what you did. Doubt I'd even know what to do. Stuck in an airport trying to communicate with people who probably don't really care & may even struggle with your language.

I'm not saying it's a uniquely British phenomenon, but despite English being fairly widely spoken in many places, it's best not to expect that those in other countries are both able and willing to use your language rather than theirs!

elsien

Customs at one of the UAE airports stealing my whisky. Same trip coming back from Kathmandu. It was meant to be transit between flights and not leaving the airport so my whisky was in my hand luggage. We then got taken into a hotel for the night with the promise that if we left our alcohol with security would still be there when we returned.

Obviously it wasn’t and everyone also suddenly lost the ability to speak the English they had been very proficient in the day before.