GeorgeMont

The best I ever heard was on a SouthWest flight when the person on the windo in the row behind me asked the flight attendant how to roll the window down.

Granted, we were still at the gate and the plane was a bit warm, but puh-lease!

civicmon

I don't think this is an entirely fair question - not all americans have the means or the desire to fly and travel like we do.

up until a few years ago, it's been said that there's always a rookie on a flight. With the uptick in travel, I don't think that's always the case but nonetheless, not everyone knows what to do with oxygen masks, where to find emergency info etc.

Because we're frequent flyers questions that may seem dumb to us are serious to the person asking as they're inexperienced.

bursa

But it's still fun...most of us aren't being mean , but in all fields (including non-aviation) rookies get made fun of behind their backs a lot of times
My favorite is when people get American, America West, ATA, and AirTran Airways confused with each other (in some combination, most common ATA/Airtran and American/America West).

Toesupwa

Heard at LHR about to board a Virgin flight to the US...

"how do they get two aircraft on the same stand"?...

This was in reference to the two flight numbers the aircraft had, VS and CO numbers

nwaflygirl

Not stupid, just cute, and actually quite refreshing at times. Oh to be so green again! My favorite (of which there are many) , is the sweet old couple in the DTW airport (where the whole facility is nothing but NWA) that grabbed my jacket, squinted at me and said "Missy, where is Northwestern Oriental?" I still laugh out loud at that one!

dhammer53

In the 70's, they were called Northwest Orient Airlines.

nwaflygirl

ummm.. thanks, that's why it's funny!

magexpect

There is no stupid question, just stupid people who do not ask questions

I heard once a funny story, but never found out if it was true... anybody knows?

A first flyer, leaving from some Midwestern airport alledgedly opened or tried to open the emergency door in order to wave at family seeing him off just before take off. Is it a true story or just a legend?

civicmon

that's funny... like askin where the PanAm desk is.

dchristiva

We were all rookie flyers once, so I give newbies the benefit of the doubt.

platzman

About 3 hours into a transatlantic flight, my four year old started asking repeatedly, "Why can't I go outside and play??!! Why??!!"

JGR01

Suggest that civicmon look at Pan Am Clipper Connection web site for the cities that will have a Pan Am desk.

They include:

Bedford, MA
Boston/Portsmouth (PSM), NH
Columbus, OH
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Newburgh/Poughkeepsie, NY
Orlando/Sanford (SFB), FL
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
San Juan (SJU), Puerto Rico
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
St. Kitts, St. Kitts/Nevis
St.Petersburg/Tampa Bay, FL
Trenton, NJ

While I will be the first to agree that it would be funny to ask about PanAm in LAX, for example, someone in FLL looking for PanAm has no right to be laughed at.

This airline exists and is called Pan Am Clipper Connection.

Now as I recall the NWA radio commercials with (cannot think of the famous Minneapolis WCCO radio comentators name) it was called NORTHWEST Orient (gong/BONG sound) AIR.....Lines. Can remember riding in my Dad's 53 DeSoto (in the mid-60's) at 6am when he went to work listening to the commerical and thinking how wonder flying to the (gong) Orient sounded!

civicmon

yes, I heard of it but lets be realistic here, it would be funny if someone showed up at JFK or something looking for PanAm.

That's not the real PanAm... just another asset sold off in bankruptcy court.

JGR01

Had you chosen Eastern, National, NorthCentral, Piedmont, Braniff, ValueJet, Ozark (was going to say Frontier but they have come back too!) or even T'Dub... I could not have caught ya!

Wonder if someone will buy the bankrupt name of US Airways??

I do agree .. people say stupid things!

choster

Sometimes the stupid question isn't stupid at all-- we've just conditioned ourselves to the stupidity. There's a story, which may be apocryphal, that Steve Ballmer used his mother to demo a new version of Windows. She figured out how to do everything except shut down-- "You go to the start button to stop?"

So in that light, "'tampering with, disabling, or destroying a smoke detector'-- aren't disabling and destroying just different kinds of tampering?"