Programs: AA Gold, *wood Gold, Hilton Honors Silver
Posts: 780
Best/Worst/Funniest/Weirdest AA travel moments in 2008
I love these threads on other boards so thought I'd give it a whirl here.
Here's some of mine.
First flight in 2008 at my home airport. Standing proudly and tall in the F/elite check in line. Miss, this line is for our elite travelers, you'll need to use the kiosks over there. I smile broadly. Why indeed I am elite. She didn't believe me but attitude changed once she saw my proof.
Monday after Thanksgiving weekend. DFW is a madhouse cause weather problems at ORD ( know that's such a strange thing!). Flights are late and overbooked.
I'm standing near the Priority AAccess line. Boarding is unexpectedly delayed. Two women standing beside me are commenting out loud about how they can't justfy the extrAA cost for F and how stupid people are to pay it. I smile broadly and say well I paid $30 for it and some folks in F don't pay a dime because they fly often enough. (and silently thank FT).
When boarding begins, I inch forward (I was near the back). A suit and tie DYKWIA businessman brushes past me saying he's in F. I smile brightly and say so am I. (And I was wearing slacks and a cute JJill jacket too. I dressed up!)
Also that day (which I posted about at the time) was meeting a woman who was going to be making EXP that day and didn't know about AADER.....
One of the stranger moments was during my segment run (again thank you FT) on the AUS-DFW leg. I'm in 4F and counting myself lucky cause UpCheck had said it wouldn't happen. I notice a woman and infant board in 6A&B. Think to myself oh great.....except I didn't hear a peep from the baby. What I did have a hard time tuning out even with Sony noise-canceling headphones was the business person in 5F who hummed the entire flight while reading the WSJ. And did I mention hummed badly and off key?
What about you? What were your memorable or infamous flying moments in 2008?
Here's to happy, safe travel memories in 2009 and AADER2.
Programs: BAEC Gold, BD Gold, Lufthansa FTL plus lots of shiny hotel and rental car plastic
Posts: 17,131
Worst: A tie between being delayed 8hrs at JFK and missing a day of my holiday in Chicago or riding DFW-RIC as it was the last leg of a 3 month RTW trip with my wife.
Funniest: The look on the agents face at RIC when I turned up in the middle of the day and asked about getting 2x AONE4 tickets written up. They didn't have any ticket stock in so had to fly some in from another station.
Best: Having the agent who wrote our tickets up, a couple of months later when we were heading out to SFO to start our AONE4 itinerary, remember us by name at the gate before our first flight and wish us a safe trip!
Weirdest: Being given mints as breakfast after an ANC-DFW overnight in F!
Will try and think of some others...
__________________ 'There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror' - Orson Welles
Programs: AA EXP (OW Emerald), CO Plat (*A Gold), AdmsClub, HH Silver, PC Gold. LH/BA/UA pond scum
Posts: 856
I'm going to stretch the rules here and share what happened to me on 1 JAN 09:
I walked past the long coach check-line for FRA-DFW for a flight I booked the day before. I had the last coach seat, 22C.
I took a deep breath and told the CA "I haven't slept in 2 days and am heading home for a funeral, is there any way you can give me a window seat so I can prop my head against the bulkhead and try to sleep." (That was the truth)
She typed away for a few minutes and then handed me a boarding pass for a window seat, in business class.
Now I am pretty sure they were looking for some folks to op-up, but I was a very happy camper!
Location: St. Louis, MO - AA EXP/2MM (Lifetime PLT), HHonors Gold
Programs: TW Elite (RIP), CO OnePass
Posts: 1,406
On a 10 segment, 15000 mile trip to take advantage of AADER in early May, I flew ORD-DUB in business class (part of my STL-ORD-LAX-ORD-DUB-LHR-LAX-SFO/SJC-SNA-ORD-STL routing).
The very nice older gentleman sitting next to me (who had misconnected the day before due to bad weather) somehow managed to dump two beverages on me in the course of the seven hour flight.
The first (with dinner) -- a glass of red wine -- luckily mostly hit the carpet and bulkhead wall. The second (with breakfast) -- a glass of water -- I guess was meant to wash the red wine away.
Location: St. Louis, MO - AA EXP/2MM (Lifetime PLT), HHonors Gold
Programs: TW Elite (RIP), CO OnePass
Posts: 1,406
Okay.. so that last post qualifies as the 'weirdest' travel moment in 2008. The worst... I guess I had blocked that out of my mind until my SO reminded me.
We took a spring break trip to BRU & CDG. The morning of our CDG-DFW-STL return, he experienced the worst abdominal pain he's ever felt. Although he made a spirited attempt at making the flight, he realized -- at the airport, after check-in -- that an 11 hour flight was not the best thing to do without seeking medical attention.
We went from the AA gates to the CDG medical clinic to a local French emergency room in the course of about an hour. The good news -- he ended up fine that evening. The bad news -- the CDG-DFW-STL routing the next day was sold out in Business. So, I had to endure (he didn't care) 11 hours in coach.
Okay.. I'll admit I'm spoiled with eVIPs... but I was STARVING based on the miniscule meals they served in coach.
That's not even counting the fact that we had our bags searched by French Customs when we hadn't even left the country!
Programs: AA Lifetime Plat (5m+), BA GGL, LH Sen, DL Silver, SPG Plat, Mucci
Posts: 4,320
Best
LAX FL AAngels. Always very proactive about clearing eVIPs and A RTWs to F on earlier or alternate flights LAX-JFK. Generally the check-in agents won't put me on an earlier flight because it is too tight when I check-in, but I head straight to the FL, they call down to the gate a voila.
Worst
The planes seem dirtier than ever. Too many times crumbs on the seats, napkins and tissues stuffed in the seats and seat back pockets.
Funniest
Sitting in the Kirk seat on the 762s as infrequent fliers board and looking up to see somebody taking pictures of me - i have no idea if they thought i was a "looks like" or were just in awe of the F seats.
Weirdest AA travel moments in 2008
Watching an AC agent at LGA try to "sell" the benefits of a day pass - "We have a nice cash bar and you can also buy sandwiches. We also have conference rooms you can rent" to the person in front of me. Needless to say, they turned around and headed back down the stairs.
Weirdest -
In MIA waiting for a connection to GRU. Across from our gate is a flight to LHR. LHR is boarding and GRU flight starts to board. A guy (AA worker) runs to the gate as F is boarding saying to stop the boarding, there is a security issue. Apparantly around the same time those on the plane were questioning the FA's why the flight map was showing LHR! Apparantly the end result was that the LHR plane had a mechanical and to get that flight out close to departure time they decided to use the GRU plane. Somehow this did not get communicated correctly to the GA's nor the caterers. The bags though were on the right planes. I can not recall if the crew were on the right or wrong planes. In the end, they made everyone get off each flight, they moved the food carts inside the terminal to switch them, etc. I believe the LHR flight was delayed like 1 or so hours due to this mess but the GRU flight was delayed 3+ hours! Why did it take so long?
Worst -
And by no means was this too bad. Eagle flight at JFK, my rollerboard I gate checked inches from where you board the plane. It still somehow did not make it onto my flight but instead when to BOS. Not quite sure how that happened. I did eventually in the middle of the night get my bag back 100% in tact.
Best -
I practically lived on planes in 2008. I can't say there was one specific instance that was the best, but I was 99+% happy all year with AA, so that in itself was very good! It would have been better if eVIPs would have cleared, I think in like ~17 tries as EXP only 2 went through.
Hopefully 2009 will be just as good, I'm predicting at least 150,000 miles / 170 segments if nothing changes.
i'm EXP but also fly cathay quite often - they usually have someone greet the oneworld emerald members after everyone's settled in. one time they got my seat wrong and greeted someone else...the guy played along and pretended to be me. which was fine, but then he started to make conversation and sort of hit on the attendant! this went on for a good 5 minutes.
had to try hard to keep from cracking up. i tell myself that i'll pull a stunt like that and hit on an attendant sometime but obviously it'll never happen.
Funniest: Sitting on an AE flight in the first seat chatting with the FA while we were getting ready to taxi and she was going through her galley setup. She asked me if I flew a lot, and I said yeah and she proceeded to tell me about our pilot who she had flown with all week. "He can't taxi worth beans, he's great in the air, but he's the worst "driver" I've ever been with in my 25 years of flying! He speeds up, slows down, and then hits every bump out there. I'm gonna get hurt if he keeps this up, I'm bouncing all over the place. I told him this morning I was going to sit down and strap up at the gate if he doesn't try to taxi a little smoother." Then we laughed every time he hit a bump. He really could use refresher course.
Weirdest: The Dallas Blizzard. I sure wasn't expecting that. Connected in DFW headed to FRA. Sitting in 31A, waited 4 hours on the tarmac watching the snow accumulate but we were one of the few planes that made it out that night. Extra weird that nobody was .....ing or complaining, a very mellow group of passengers, almost a party atmosphere.
Worst: A too-long mileage run. 8 segment turnaround SEA-LAX-SFO-MIA-SJU-MCO-DFW-STL-SEA, all in coach. Never again, ADDER or not. Far to hard on the body, mind and spirit.
Best: First flight as an EXP, using eVIP's for my first TATL in Biz class. Loved it all, every second of it. Can't wait to do it again.
Another Best: My AC membership. Makes a world of difference to my flying experience.
Funniest moment: Being seated next to someone on SFO-JFK and totally hitting it off in conversation. I've never had 5 hours go by so quickly ever. (Not to mention, I got to shared a cab to Manhattan instead of taking the E train at midnight.) And, no sadly, this person is not on FT.
Best moment: Getting a direct SFO-JFK with upgrade after finding out I'm not going to make my SFO-LAX-JFK flight. It was especially good because the first GA I asked about the SFO-LAX delay looked up to me and replied, "Can I just get a break?" and returned to reading his magazine instead of helping me.
Most pathetic moment: Having a FA tell me that a couple seats are "saved" on a SFO-JFK redeye because she and another FA decided to turn them into crew rest seats.
Worst moment: No opportunity to take a single flight during AADER.
Yeah, I know, mostly harmless. 2007 was a much crazier year for me.
Programs: Asiana Airlines(Silver) Visa, Frontier Airlines EarlyReturns, Hiliton HHonors Blue
Posts: 66
Funniest: After landing in Atlanta a couple of ladies unbuckle and start to reach for the overhead bin as the flight attendents nearly trip over each other running down the asile and yelling at them to sit down and buckle up until the plane has stopped at the gate.
Side Story: The girl behind me was talking about a simmular incident where after landing a passenger unbuckled and stood up and the plane suddenly stopped and the guy when flying 4 row. lol.
Best, on Xmas the F FA gave me a bottle of wine to take with me (has happened to me before). Equally, getting an UPG in MIA because I am "hot looking" (at least to that GA).
Worst and weird, on a MIA/JFK flight a women boarded the flight very late carrying a fish. Said pax and fish smelled really, really bad. The flight ended up staying at the gate because of a mechnical delay (typical A300). Said pax then had an "accident" and must be taken off the a/c. However, the remaining smell is so bad that paxs are starting to get sick. So Captain decides that although the a/c has been cleared to fly we can't use the a/c because of the smell.
So 250+ paxs get off and troupe from E all the way to C to get on an equally drab and dirty A300, albeit without the horrible smell.
Thanks OP for the thread. Really enjoyed reading these posts
I only had one bad story, sitting on tarmac at DFW for over 5 hrs earlier in the year. Most other travel has been uneventful that I can think of right now. So props to AA.
Best: As a PLT sticker upgrade did not clear for STL-SNA. After boarding a gentleman from F walks over and says I can have his seat because he wants to sit next to his girlfriend.
Funniest: Sitting on an AE flight in the first seat chatting with the FA while we were getting ready to taxi and she was going through her galley setup. She asked me if I flew a lot, and I said yeah and she proceeded to tell me about our pilot who she had flown with all week. "He can't taxi worth beans, he's great in the air, but he's the worst "driver" I've ever been with in my 25 years of flying! He speeds up, slows down, and then hits every bump out there. I'm gonna get hurt if he keeps this up, I'm bouncing all over the place. I told him this morning I was going to sit down and strap up at the gate if he doesn't try to taxi a little smoother." Then we laughed every time he hit a bump. He really could use refresher course.
Are you sure she was talking about his skills flying the plane?
