Category Archives for Passengers.
A passenger at the Miami airport brought another man up to the check-in counters for South American airline LATAM. That man was shrink-wrapped. The man assisting carefully lifts him and places him on a baggage scale. Later, the man in green plastic carefully hops away from the check-in area.
The wrapped man’s companion eventually dismantles the green plastic prior to proceeding through security, surrounded by local police.
A United Airlines passenger flying from Los Angeles to Chicago O’Hare found himself with an empty middle seat beside his window seat, pulled down the tray of the middle seat while inflight and whipped out a second laptop – working on both of them. Another passenger wonders if he bought himself a second seat planning to do this for work – it’s actually more width than flying first class, “I think I found myself more impressed than annoyed.”
An American Airlines passenger reported shock that “the guy in 2D” next to him in first class was “blatantly watching porn” as the plane waited for takeoff.
If you’re going to have an argument with someone you’re traveling with, maybe wait until you reach the hotel or make it home? And if this is on the outbound portion of the journey, maybe you don’t want to spoil the vacation itself where you may be stuck with them in an unfamiliar place?
An airline who fails to deliver a urine-free flight ought to refund the ticket price. They sold transportation, not urine-soaked transportation. But the person who actually did the thing ought to be on the hook for damages.
A Spirit Airlines passenger discovered someone else occupying her front-row seat, 1A, which she had paid extra for. It’s a “Big Front Seat” and starting next week the airline will try to turn it into a ‘real’ first class.
Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famer and founding member of Public Enemy Flavor Flav handed out snacks on a Southwest Airlines flight. He says he ran into some flight attendants in Paris during the Olympics and they invited him to do it – along with making the landing announcement – on his next flight. Well, they were crew on a trip he was taking and why not?
Yeah, boyeeeeee!
A New York politician demanded ‘don’t you know who I am?’ when being denied boarding from an American Airlines flight. But the gate agent didn’t know, and didn’t care.
Albany County Executive Dan McCoy was headed to the Democratic National Convention, but missed his flight when he left the gate area to grab a Chick-fil-A sandwich. He returned with the boarding doors to his flight closed.
The FAA reported Wednesday that it had sent 43 cases of passenger incidents to the FBI over the past year. That’s out of 1,240 cases airlines reported to the FAA – that sounds like a lot but there were about 820 million domestic passengers carried in the U.S. last year. And the number of incidents is down 80% compared to 2021, when there were far fewer passengers.
What accounts for better-behaved passengers in the skies?
Hip Hop start Juvenile (Terius Gray) was kicked out of American Airlines first class. His wife was allowed to stay in the overbooked cabin. However, rather than suffer the indignity of American’s Main Cabin, he got off the aircraft – declaring himself a celebrity and than American was making a mistake denying him the seat.
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 »
