Category Archives for Passengers.
ICE was escorting a man who had agreed to leave the U.S. onto a commercial flight from Seattle to New York so he could connect to India. The officers bypassed the boarding gate process, and walked him onto the Alaska Airlines flight at the next gate that was going to Sitka, Alaska, instead.
Flight attendants told them it was the wrong plane. They ordered crew to board him anyway.
The son of a top Iranian regime insider was filmed boarding a private jet to Ibiza with a Louis Vuitton bag, the latest display in a long-running social media parade of luxury cars, parties, and contempt for poorer Iranians – underscoring the Islamic Republic’s core hypocrisy: austerity, repression, and moral policing for everyone else, indulgence and Western excess for the families of insiders.
An off-duty flight attendant flying as a passenger delayed an AirAsia flight for about 90 minutes after refusing to calm down, insisting crew speak Chinese, and forcing police to board the aircraft.
Mexico’s president flew economy to Europe on her first trip to the continent since taking office, then posted a photo of herself working from her coach seat on the way to Barcelona. Surely she’s not serving the public well by turning long-haul travel into a performance of thrift rather than getting rest of having space ot work effectively.
An Australian traveler is accused of attacking a TSA officer at LAX after insisting the agent had taken his missing belongings. His backpack and passport were later found at an airport restaurant he had visited earlier.
A passenger on a Ryanair flight from Malta to Naples crawled into the overhead bin and shouted “Napoli,” apparently joking that it was a way to avoid paying for the return trip. Ryanair has trained passengers to think of overhead bin space as so tightly monetized that even climbing into it should come with fees.
A frustrated Delta Air Lines passenger beats herself up at the gate of flight to Chicago O’Hare. She hits herself, punches herself and even knocks herself to the ground. Then she asks, “why are you doing this to me?” Delta’s employee at the gate is completely unfazed by the whole thing.
A Delta passenger says a man who had spent 11 hours at the airport bar started smacking a sleeping traveler, yanking another passenger’s headphones out, and trying to turn the flight into a party before crew removed him. The contrast with Spirit is almost too perfect: on one airline that gets you kicked off, on the other the rest of the passengers are just down with it?
An American Airlines flight to Miami turned chaotic just before landing when a fight over armrest space escalated into a shouting match and physical confrontation while crew begged everyone to sit down.
A passenger on a Malaysia Airlines flight to Beijing was removed from the aircraft after allegedly patting a flight attendant’s buttocks and then trying to justify it by saying China-Malaysia relations are good. The incident reportedly followed a chaotic boarding process after an aircraft swap, but that only made his excuse stranger, not better.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
