Yahoo Lifestyle People Who Work For Airlines Are Recounting Their Most Bizarre Or Most Frustrating Days On The Job, And Ew, Ew, Ew, Yikes, And OMG
We recently stumbled upon two Reddit threads that asked flight attendants to share wild stories from work. We decided to also ask flight attendants of the BuzzFeed Community (and other airline employees) to tell us their strangest or most frustrating days on the job. Here are the stories we gathered:
1."So my girlfriend is a passenger-service agent — think boarding and check-in. There once was a flight from Egypt back to Vienna. The flight was a charter filled with a group of an elder tour group. They apparently had a last lunch back in Cairo. Everyone ate the same lunch. The call from the pilot to ground-ops was, 'We REALLY need more blankets! Right to the gate, please!' More than half of that tourist group shat themselves. There were four toilets for about 150 passengers. That plane went straight to deep-clean after that."
2."I worked a flight from New York to Toronto once, and we had a guy set off the smoke detector in the forward lavatory. My theory was he was mid-piss, and he blew vape smoke into the smoke alarm. The sound must've startled him because he pissed on himself, the toilet, the mirror, and literally every spot in that bathroom. He tried to tell us he ate some spicy Indian food, and the heat from the spice set off the alarm."
3."My sister, who worked for an airline, said that in 2021, after COVID lockdowns, a passenger wore a 'Trump 2020' thong as a mask and refused to take it off. He screamed at passengers about the election, and she bounced him off."
4."I work air traffic control. During the peak of COVID-19, I worked a southbound flight from Toronto to Jamaica. I work over Maryland, so almost at the halfway point. About 40 minutes later, I saw the exact same flight number, and it was headed back to Toronto. Obviously, I called the guy working the plane and asked what was up with it. He said that while it was over North Carolina, a passenger in his late teens/early 20s stood up in his seat and yelled, 'I have Covid!' to the entire plane. Since it was peak COVID, the US was like, 'Well, you're not landing here!' So all these people who were probably just trying to go on a nice vacation in the sun had to sit on a plane for five hours just to end up back where they started. I was told the guy was arrested when they landed back in Toronto, and I imagine he can't fly anymore. He claimed it was just a joke from the beginning, but either way, I felt so bad for those passengers."
5."I work in an operations control center, and one of the departments deals with crew scheduling. It's basically the call center for pilots and flight attendants. One flight attendant called, and we all put it on speaker and gathered around. This guy got on the aircraft, and immediately after the aircraft was done gaining altitude, he got up, went to the restroom, grabbed two fistfuls of his feces, and chucked them straight down the aisle. No emotion. No confrontation. He wasn't yapping his head off and mouthing off. He just did it unprovoked."
6."Ex-cabin crew here. Years ago, I made a trip to Bangkok with four flight crew members, and coincidentally, two of the first officers were husband and wife. After a boozy night out with the crew, the husband and wife had a threesome with one of the cabin crew. I didn't find out on the trip; I found out a few weeks later as I flew with the same girl to Atlanta, who told me the story. She actually found out she was pregnant on the Atlanta trip."
7."I've long since retired, so this incident happened *many* years ago. In my experience, most passengers were perfectly fine. Typically, those wearing suits were the BEST. Business flyers know the rules and routine well. They're usually the last people to cause any issues. But NOT this guy. I was working first class, headed from Houston to LAX. A man in a business suit came onboard. He only stood out due to being a bit loud and overly gregarious. No big deal. Sometimes, nervous flyers behave that way. We understand. During the flight, Mr. Suit had three *strong* drinks while loudly talking to his increasingly annoyed seatmate. That poor guy was apparently a stranger to Mr. Suit. He eventually moved a couple of rows up to the only open seat. He enjoyed the remainder of the flight next to another passenger who was deep into a good read."
"Upon landing, Mr. Suit rang his call button, then demanded a bottle of wine to take off the plane. I informed him that providing such a 'gift' would break federal laws, and so we had to politely decline his request. He then busted out the clichéd, 'DO you know WHO I AM?!' I replied that he appeared to be 'someone who *may* be met by security at the gate' if he continued his current behavior. He demanded my last name and badge number and said all he'd need was my first name and the flight number to file his formal complaint.
I retook my jumpseat as we finished our journey to the gate. Mr. Suit scowled at me as he exited, placing his face two inches from mine in a final bullying gesture. Then, he stumbled onto the jetway, strongly smelling of alcohol. His former seatmate had just handed me his business card and a note he'd quickly written to describe the incident in case I needed backup.
We crew members looked up Mr. Suit's name on the flight manifest, but none of us recognized him as anyone famous (not that it would have mattered). This was before the internet, so I never learned why he thought he was so very important that any flight attendant would risk their career for him. I made sure to inform my supervisor just in case he filed a complaint once he sobered up. The supervisor just chuckled and rolled his eyes."
—Anonymous
8."On one of my first flights, I had a dad go empty his kid's potty training toilet. We told him he could NOT have his child use the bathroom at their seats. An hour later, the mom came back again with the training toilet. We asked her what she was doing and reminded her we told them they couldn't do that. And her response was, 'Oh, we thought you just meant for pooping.' I was shocked. Then they proceeded to carabineer the potty to their backpack and were just walking with it out in the open in public."
9."I had a cousin who used to be a flight attendant. On a flight to (or from) India, she found that someone had shat in the sink of one of the lavatories. Disgusted, she quickly locked it and put an out-of-service sign. The best part of the story was that she described the shit as having MULTIPLE COLORS, implying that more than one person shat in the sink. She also heard the clean-up crew swearing when they went to clean that cubicle after deplaning everyone."
10."I used to be a flight attendant for a regional airline, and sometimes we'd get a plane full of rowdy fishermen fresh off the boat but with a few drinks in them. One time, while doing my safety demo, they started singing that Nelly song to me: 'It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes.' It was funny."
11."If you want the real stories, ask the gate agents! One time, I was working a flight and was missing two guests. I paged them by name multiple times, held the doors until the last possible moment, and closed the flight exactly when I had to. One minute later, those exact two guests came running, claiming we never paged them and they had been at the gate the whole time (except, as per above, I saw them running to the gate after it was closed). As I calmly explained I could not reopen the flight for them, the wife started swearing at me and said, 'Are you f*cking kidding me? This is outrageous!' Then her husband proceeded to THROW HIS BACKPACK AT MY HEAD!! I have good reflexes and dodged out of the way, but I know plenty of people who would've been hit in the head."
"I was far too nice to them and gave them the option between being put on another flight or calling the police. I'm much harsher with violent guests now and wouldn't hesitate to call the police on them."
12."One time, a passenger asked for a hot towel and then used it to clean their feet."
13."A flight attendant tried to film content for her OnlyFans onboard while on duty. She no longer works as a flight attendant."
14."We had a few passengers stand and try to walk the aisle while the plane was approaching the runway for landing. I was seated facing forward and saw this happening, so I told them to sit down. They tried arguing in a language I didn't understand, but I insisted that they remain seated for their safety, and they eventually did, just in time for the plane to land. All was well until I went down the cabin after the last passenger left to sweep the cabin. In all its disgusting glory, an entire spray of liquid, wet, dripping poop was plastered on the window and all over the sides of the cabin where the passengers who were trying to stand during landing had been seated. The smell. My goodness."
15."I had a guy vomiting blood like there was no tomorrow. We were in the middle of the Atlantic, so there was no way to go back, just forward. We tried to help him as much as possible and asked for doctors, but none were on board. Oxygen was provided, which was not exactly necessary, but it helped calm him down. Eventually, after a while, he stopped. His row looked like a freakin' horror movie. He refused ambulance or any kind of medical assistance upon arrival."
16."My mate's wife is an attendant for a large carrier and tells us the time almost all the staff got PTSD because half the plane shat all over the place. The in-flight meal they served on a 19-hour flight gave everyone gastro/food poisoning so severe that it took less than 25 minutes for the first person to run to the toilet in abject horror. It was like that scene from Bridesmaids on a plane. About half of this massive airliner had eaten the bad food, so over 60 people were battling for under six toilets. It ended so badly that the carrier had to ground the plan and do a deep clean. They were halfway across the ocean and couldn't even turn back. It was everywhere — the seats, the floors, inside carry-on bags, just everywhere."
17."I was on a flight where someone died. About eight rows up and across the aisle, the woman sitting in the window seat was looking across the empty middle seat at the guy sitting in the aisle seat. She low-key freaked out and started yelling a bit. Flight attendants came, grabbed a blanket, and put it over the guy's head (which was at a peculiar angle). I forget what they said in the announcement, but for once, NOBODY got up when we landed. Police and EMTs walked in the plane, picked up the body, put it on one of those super narrow aisle wheelchairs, and took him off of the plane."
18."I used to be a passenger flight dispatcher; before that, I was a gate agent. My favorite frustrating person I dealt with as a dispatcher was a gentleman whose partner was pregnant over 32 weeks, and they had a poorly printed document that wasn't dated by the doctor who signed it. Upon denying them boarding due to such, they had a go at me. My favorite quote from the gentleman was, 'You're just a horrible, negative person who sees all these good things in the world and makes them negative.' Kinda wild."
—Anonymous
19."I'm a pilot, but this wasn't me/my flight. It was a regional airplane, a 50-seater, with a bathroom in the back of the jet. A 6-year-old kid got stuck in the lavatory during the descent. The flight attendant informed the pilot and tried to open the door but couldn't. Passengers even tried to assist, but no one could open the door. The pilot decides to land with the 6-year-old kid still in the lavatory and the flight attendant seated in the last row of the airplane next to the lavatory. They got to the gate, and a crew got on to remove the door. The pilot and flight attendant definitely got a big talking-to from the CPO."
20."I worked as a ticket/gate agent for 32 years, and even the flight attendants admit that the passengers are worse towards us! Here's my story: One early morning, we opened our check-in counter to a line of approximately 15 people. A passenger about ninth from the front was already freaking out, so the others let us take him first. He was checking in an 11-year-old boy to fly alone as an unaccompanied minor. All was spiffy until we told him he had to wait with the boy until the plane was airborne. This 60-year-old man had a complete meltdown, humiliating his grandson and screaming that it was impossible. He was rushing to another flight, so why couldn't the staff look after him?"
"I told him that it was against our policy. It had to be a family member, and he refused to check the child in until he could stay or find someone else. So, the grandfather of the year leaves the 11-year-old boy by himself in the coffee shop, calls the kid's aunt, and runs to catch his plane. We didn't know this until the kid returned an hour later to ask if his aunt checked in with us. After that, one of our ground staff hung out with the kid until she arrived. But I will never not be furious at that man for embarrassing a child then stranding him. The kid's probably close to 30 now, and I wonder if he still even speaks to that man."
21.And: "I had a cranky guy on a packed flight once who REFUSED to stow his bag under the seat in front of him (it fit, with space left for his feet). He insisted that it was fine sitting on his lap for take-off. It was not. We'd already started to taxi towards the runway (with three planes ahead of us in line for take-off). As the bin above him was full, I offered to stow his bag. I promised to return it to him as soon as the seatbelt sign was turned off when we were airborne. But he still refused. I then pointed out ALL the people around him who were in danger of MISSING their connecting flights if he refused to comply with FAA requirements, and we had to return to the gate. That was all it took. Soon, the other passengers shouted at him to comply with federal safety requirements. When we went to land a few hours later, he was too sheepish to put up a fuss about stowing his bag properly. Thank you, good people. You make our jobs a bit easier."
—Anonymous
Yikes. Have you ever worked for an airline and dealt with some particularly frustrating passengers? Tell us in the comments or share anonymously using this form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
