In-Flight Insanity: Insider Stories From Pilots And Flight Attendants

A Flight Attendant’s Nightmare

During boarding I had a guest complain to me that her family of 4 was not seated together. This happens very often, especially when families book tickets separately. No stress, I told them to take the designated (separate) seats and after boarding was complete I would come and find them and rearrange the seating so they were together as I knew we had many spare seats available. Fast forward to boarding complete and I see the family of 4 sitting together. The son is on the aisle seat, and the Mum, Dad, and daughter are across the aisle in the row of 3 seats. I smile and say I’m glad they were able to sort out that they can all sit together at which point the Mum goes off. ‘No, I need 4 seats together- one of us can’t be across the aisle.’ Here’s the kicker though, we were on a 787 aircraft where the configuration is 3 seats/ 3 seats/ 3 seats. After much confusion, I realise Mum wanted us to magically create a row of 4 seats for her family. At this point, they are causing drama and ground staff gets called on board. They wanted us to somehow UNBOLT and MOVE a seat and create a row of 4. Don’t even get me started. Eventually, after about 25 minutes of delay, they offloaded themselves from the flight saying they couldn’t believe we would split up a family. Still the most unbelievable day in my flying career.

hannahkemsley

A Rude Awakening

I guess the thing that actually sticks out most was the French Canadian woman incident. She was asleep during the descent into YUL and had her seat reclined, so I had to wake her up and politely ask her to put her seat up because we were below 10,000 feet. She starts yelling something in French and demands my name, which I give to her. And then tells me how horrible my customer service is. I apologized profusely, but she continued to talk over me and tell me that my JOB was to serve her. I apologized again and reminded her that the safety of my passengers was my number one priority, and as per federal regulation, I needed to make sure her seat was in the upright position so that in the event of an emergency the passenger behind her could get out. She then turned her phone on to put my information in and I asked her to turn it off, which made her even more mad. She started yelling in French and then called me a piece of stupid American trash in English, and then said she was going to write the airline about how horrible I was.

I had to put a smile on my face and wish each passenger to have a great day, but as soon as the last person got off I started bawling my eyes out.

reddituser

The Miracle In The Air

My aunt has been a FA for 35 years. She works on a flight from a country in South America to Miami. An hour in, a 16yo is screaming from abdominal pain. They call for a doctor to help, and a general practitioner comes forward. Ten minutes later, the doctor is asking them to clear out the first class section so he can deal with her having a miscarriage. My aunt makes a more specific call for help, and an ObGyn comes forth and takes over. The girl doesn’t quite miscarry – she delivers a baby, around 22 weeks old. Even the doctors hardly know what to do, so my aunt once again turns to the passengers. Up come two neo-natal ICU nurses. They keep the infant alive for several hours until the plane lands in San Juan, where the full medical team, the mother, and the baby de-plane, and the flight continues to Miami. Sadly, my aunt learned that the baby lived only two days, but she still feels blessed to have been able to give the baby every chance to make it, thanks to the incredible array of passengers on board that day.