FlyerTalk’s Worst Passengers of the Year

As 2015 draws to a close, FlyerTalk looks back on the most charming passengers of the year. While there was a bumper crop of unpleasant individuals to choose from, only one flyer can take home the title of Worst Passenger of the Year.

The Honorable Mentions: Send in the Clown Car

2015 saw more than its fair share of awful passengers, but the airlines and government regulators are starting to fight back. In a perfect world, any one of the 50 passengers banned for life from flying on Jet2 this year would be the worst passengers anyone would ever encounter, but even the passenger who exposed his manhood and a unique Pinocchio tattoo on a crowded flight to earn his lifetime ban failed to earn even a medal in this year’s Worst Flyer of the Year competition.

Perhaps U.K. regulators’ plans to limit the sale of alcoholic beverages at airports will help to thin the crowd of outrageous passengers for next year, allowing airline passengers flying in China to dominate the competition. As it stands, the mother who helped her toddler to poop in the aisle, the man who opened an airplane emergency door for a little fresh air and the family who stubbornly refused to buckle up, all failed to make the cut.

In fact, there were so many awful passengers around the globe that even the U.S. passenger who stripped naked at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) to protest being bumped from an overbooked flight fell short of earning a ribbon this year.

Third Place: The Woman Who Exploited a Tragedy

The unidentified con artist who allegedly convinced airline officials that she was a close relative of one of the victims of the Germanwings Flight 9525 air disaster, but she was not, as she claimed, a grieving cousin of one of the victims. Instead, the opportunist was simply exploiting the tragedy as a means to take advantage of free airfare to the crash site in the picturesque French Alps.

The individual managed to scam the airline out of two free excursions to France, taking a traveling companion with her on one of the all-expenses paid getaways that had almost nothing to do with saying goodbye to a loved one. It was the father of the actual Germanwings victim who alerted authorities that the frugal vacationer was not his daughter’s beloved cousin at all, but simply an opportunist looking for free airfare.

The Runner-up – The Bugs Bunny Impersonator in Seat 12A

Daniela Velez-Reyes was described as being disoriented throughout her flight from Miami International Airport (MIA) to Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), but after the flyer began exhibiting behavior more often seen in cartoon characters than a Worst Passenger of the Week candidate, her flight was forced to quickly divert to Indianapolis International Airport (IND).

When the passenger was warned about her disturbing behavior, Valez-Reyes upped the ante, grabbing the flight attendant’s face and kissing her on the lips, à la Bugs Bunny, before smacking the shocked crew member across the face. Police reportedly removed the flyer from the plane at IND before she was able to drop a safe, an anvil or a piano on any of her fellow passengers.

The Winner – Death Threats from Mom

As far as threats go, “I am a mother of seven children and Vladimir Putin will kill you,” is fairly chilling. When security officials attempted to remove an intoxicated woman from an Aeroflot flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) to Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) in Moscow, chaos soon followed. Fellow passengers managed to capture the whole thing on cell phone video. The apparently intoxicated woman can be seen on the cell phone video posted to YouTube waving her arms wildly to keep security officers at bay while crying uncontrollably. The flyer can clearly be heard issuing her  threat in English.

The passenger’s boast of having birthed seven children did little to garner sympathy from other passengers on board. Another flyer can be heard shouting, “Go on then” as officials tried to remove the mother of seven from the plane. According to reports from other passengers on the flight, the woman had allegedly been drinking “copious amounts of vodka” in the business lounge before the flight and was “rude to the flight crew” after boarding the plane.

Fortunately, in the nearly seven months since the flyer delivered her seemingly credible threat, there have not been any reports of passengers or crew members who were present during the surreal incident disappearing under mysterious circumstances or succumbing to polonium-210 poisoning.