Category Archives for Passengers.
A video went viral after an Air Canada passenger claimed her inflight meal was six months expired, pointing to packaging labeled “05/11/2025” and “06/11/2025.” The issue: she read the dates using the U.S. month/day format instead of the day/month format used by Canada and most of the world.
A Southwest Airlines passenger says the carrier refused to let her service dog fly for free after staff claimed the dog had an “accident” in the terminal. She disputes that anything happened and says Southwest told her she’d need to pay a $150 pet fee and place the dog in a carrier instead.
A passenger on KLM’s Atlanta–Amsterdam flight called 911 from his seat to report a gun on board. There wasn’t one. But before police could respond he opened the 777’s exit door while the aircraft was taxiing, blowing the slide and forcing the entire flight to be canceled.
It’s hard to say what’s worse—the bare feet or the confidence. One Basic Economy passenger turned his neighbor’s armrest into a personal spa, opening what can only be described as The Athlete’s Foot Lounge mid-flight. If you thought you’d seen the limits of bad passenger behavior, there’s always another level.
A woman flying from New York to Zurich says her business-class seatmate erupted when her nine-month-old cried for two minutes, even trying to persuade the crew to move her to economy. The incident sparked a debate about who “belongs” in premium cabins — and what parents can realistically do to minimize disruptions when they travel with young children.
A Delta Air Lines passenger in seat 21C had an infant traveling with him. Mid-flight they needed a diaper change. Instead of getting up to go to the lavatory, the man dropped the tray table, tossed a thin blanket over it, and changed the baby’s right there in the aisle seat.
A traveler at Kuala Lumpur’s airport McDonald’s erupted at staff after realizing the burger she ordered contained beef. She insisted, “I am from India, how can you?” and argued that McDonald’s should have known she wanted a vegetarian option.
A passenger stunned fellow travelers by calmly cracking eggs, rolling dough, and making fresh pasta right on her airline tray table mid-flight—raising questions about etiquette, hygiene, and just how far inflight dining should go.
A woman in the window seat on an American Airlines A319 spent nearly half an hour grinding dead skin off her bare feet, sending “foot dust” into the air and onto the floor. Her seatmate says he alerted the crew, but the flight attendant wouldn’t intervene, leaving him to stand for the rest of the flight rather than sit beside her.
A venture founder went online to brag that he coded for 30 hours straight on multiple flights because “rest is a deprecated feature.” The internet treated it as parody, but it’s a good moment to look at what frequent flyers actually know about working in airports and onboard — and why real productivity at 35,000 feet looks very different from hustle-culture mythology.
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 »
