Great mid-day entertainment reading !

I seriously doubt the pax' objectives were to make you sick. By your writing it appears you had a challenge against that person.

As to face masks - Did it take you this long to learn your lesson???? :rolleyes:

Like others said.... maybe you should fly your own little jet airplane.... or maybe, just stay home in a sterile environment.

--J

And editing the original post to include "No wonder AA is bankrupt!! :mad:"

Seriously, though, I've been on plenty of flights next to visibly ill people and never noticed a causal link between that and getting sick myself. On instances when I catch colds they seem to come out of nowhere, more likely due to touching a doorknob and absentmindedly rubbing my eye rather than inhaling a wayward germ from someone several feet away.

And asking for compensation. How much is "forced seating next to sick pax" worth? :p

In general, I believe AA may deny you flying if an obvious medical condition worries agent that you may cause need for diversion or something. I couldn't stand up straight due to back injury.

Note: I was able to fly the following day.

Unless you suffer from an underlying immunodeficiency, it is not really that dramatic or life threatening. Besides you may have already had the virus the poor chap had, and it would not reinfect you. IMO, life is more fun with a "if it don't kill ya, it only makes ya stronger" attitude.

I don't think it's really that common for strange local strains of influenza virus to develop and spread in Brazil in the middle of the summer.

Now, who suffered most in this story?
1. The OP
2. The sick pax in 8J
3. All fellow travellers on AA950
4. Readers of FT AA forum
5. All of the above

Have your pick!
:p

If you were really that concerned, maybe you should have appealed to the pilot, since the passenger seemed too be to ill to fly, or asked to be let off the plane.

Thank you for

1) making me laugh...

2) justifying my actions whenever I am one of the few unfortunate passengers sharing a double seat with a stranger and there are many others with two seats for themselves but no empty pair. (frequent in J on B767s). Since J and F are mostly full domestically, it seldom happens within the USA.

I usually start sneezing loud and making noises with my stomach (I learned to do this at will) so that my neighbor will willingly move, sometimes with the disgusted look which you acknowledged.

If this is not enough and after take off, I engage into conversation and drop that "I am not contageous any more". It often works, especially as as I talk close with my face towards my neighbor.

Flying must be good for me, as all symptoms subside quickly once I am alone.

Of course, if it does not work quickly, I stop. No point in making anybody and myself unduly uncomfortable... But having two seats to oneself is so much more pleasant on long flights, especially with the new tablets which you do not know where to put.

This being said, I was not your seatmate on AA 950. I am seldom sick and if I am, I try to stay home. And I sympathize with your plight. It never happened to me although I acknowledge that I probably deserve it.

Save you next time? You didn't get "infected" this time.

To stick up for a fellow germophobe, I have quite frankly had enough of the constant sniffing, coughing, snorting, and downright rude behavior from other pax.

It seems like every time I fly there is atleast one passenger in the cabin that can not stop coughing his brains out or sniffing like a crazy man. It's rude and people can HEAR YOU.

Stop flying if you are so sick and cough up the freakin' change fee. Yes, I do think airlines need to be more flexible with illness.

Yes, it is a fact of life that one will encounter folks with colds. On transit, planes, outside, what have you. But there needs to be consideration shown for those of us who do not want to catch your illness.

In addition, OP indicates he/she is CK. Efforts should have been made to keep the pax comfortable. He even offered to downgrade to Y and was denied? FA should have been more flexible also.

It's the sick pax that should be the ones wearing masks.

In a perfect world paxs would not do a lot of dumb things from rush the gate at F class boarding although seated in Group 6, not bring children on a red eye flight or try to walk through the Security screening machine with a pocket full of change. But they do so and that is life.

If the flight is completely full (which is typical of flights going to South America) there is not much a FA can do. Now if the OP wanted to go back and ask someone seated in Y if they would exchange seats for the flight I am sure that he would have gotten plenity of takers.

I don't care much about your story, but massive props for the entertainment factor ^^^

You have no idea how much I enjoyed reading this thread.

At least you didn't label yourself as a "heroic pax" for battling through the obvious dangers.

Your doctor gave you Tamiflu because you thought the person next to you looked sick?

No wonder so much flu is now resistant to Tamiflu.