I was on a flight a few months ago when a stomach bug started to get the best of me. I felt fine before I went, other than a slight upset stomach. I had no idea I was going to get to the point of throwing up on my final flight.

As I looked at the possibility of using that little bag they provide, I was remembering the last time I threw up, and could just picture me filling that and blowing it out of my hand.

Fortunately, I was able to hold my cookies and didn't need it, and now I travel with one of the hospital versions that was left over from my wife's chemo days last year. It's compact, will hold 2 liters and has a plastic ring to hold it open and to grip. Hopefully I will never need it.

Has anyone else here had the misfortune of using the provided bags, and were they adequate in size?

I was flying with my daughter last June when she very suddenly became ill. There was no bag in her seat back pocket but luckily I had one. I was large enough, but just. She had window and I was in aisle so I was able to sort of lean over and around her to give her some privacy and spare other passengers an unpleasant sight. A miserable experience all around.

I recall reading that the stomach doesn't hold as much as a bag so it shouldn't overflow. The biggest challenge must be aiming! The noise and smell from another pax would probably set me off.

I know someone that had to use one and it had a hole at the bottom.

Enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLrN6wSSGqk

You've never seen how much I can eat. Those hospital bags with the plastic ring are so much easier to hold/close.

For those curious, this is the bag I'm talking about. It folds up to just the plastic ring itself. It says one liter capacity, but that's the half way mark. It can handle more if needed, but hopefully not.

http://www.amazon.com/Emesis-Bags-Bl...r+sickness+bag

I have, although it was many many years ago and I was a child on a small prop plane with a leaky alcohol compass, on a bumpy ride ...

These are the type of bags that should be used in the aviation industry. Extra wide opening to go over your mouth, plenty of capacity and they will not leak. Unfortunately, at least currently there is no way of storing them conveniently behind every seat of an aircraft. They do have dispensers, used by the medical profession but they take up too much space if you had them installed.

The current air sickness bags are worthless. When used, majority of what is thrown up finds itself outside of the bag than inside of it due to the velocity & volume what a human body can create when sick.

Never understood why more passengers don't have their air sickness bag ready if they start feeling sick. On one recent flight, during final approach, I had one passenger who was sitting in the window seat turn towards me and decides to throw up in the direction of the empty middle seat. I got splattered, hit the call button but the FA refused to get up and hand me a towel. I yelled back and had them toss me a towel. It stunk and was disgusting. I wasn't upset about the passenger getting sick, but I was upset that he failed to utilize the air sickness bag and felt it was important to throw up on me, rather than himself.

Vomit is a bio hazard, I'm surprised the airline didn't have anything better to give me than a towel. I sure felt sorry for the passengers who had to sit in that row on the next flight. The good news, I was home.

I have to say I had the unfortunate need to use one of the bags on one occasion. For some reason I just got motion sickness on a CRJ into a regional airport into the US and it got the better of me. At first I was fine but the stream kept coming and I can assure you that my stomach certainly has a higher capacity than the receptacle. In the heat of the moment I didn't know what to do and it formed a stream right onto the elderly lady seated next to me to my utter horror.

She was not a very happy passenger, but thankfully had spent a career as a nurse so was much less phased than I could have reasonably expected.

Last year I was on an Emirates flight when an elderly Arab gentleman managed to cover the floor, walls and even parts of the ceiling of the toilet with the contents of his stomach. I only know this because I was the unlucky one to open the door after he'd been in. Can't imagine what size of bag would have been necessary in his case.

About 20 years ago, I was on a Grand Canyon scenic flight. I had eaten a big breakfast and had a lot of really good fresh squeezed OJ.

I've never gotten air sick before or since. It was a pretty rough flight, and I think the up and down motion finally got to me about 2/3 of the way through the flight. I filled that bag up almost to the top. No fun.

I always worry about pax getting air sick when they have the tstat set at 90 degrees. Its as if my kids have control of the tstat complaining they are cold in their shorts and bare feet.

I traveled to Mongolia three weeks after completing chemo. A bunch of people got sick from one restaurant, but my impaired immune system got really sick. I threw up on the plane in one of those bags. The passenger sitting beside me said she had no idea I had thrown up. But the bag was about half full.

I had the misfortune to use several of them on one flight many years ago. Summer of 1989 and I was returning from a cultural exchange in the then-Soviet Union. The HEL-JFK flight was where I lost it. Fortunately, the entire back row was empty, so the FA moved me there and I could use all the bags I wanted and lie down under a blanket. I basically had my own personal FA for the rest of the flight, toting away vomit bags and bringing me Sprite.

I stopped being sick before we landed, made my connection to Tampa, and by the time I got home I was starving and had my mom stop for McDonald's. Resiliency of youth and all.

Just hope that the pilot doesn't decide to do a Zero-G pushover at the same time you're filling the bag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Z-QgA_jNA

A hard thread to read. I never even thought about this. Now I can understand why they are a problem. Yikes.