flyerCO

Hepatitis stays around for a long time. Unlike HIV which dies very quickly. Thus it can be absorbed through the smallest cut or through the skin. The most common in the bathroom method is through sitting on a toilet that is contaminated.

gr8pirate

LH 453/452 (LAX-MUC or the other way around) a few years ago.
This happened in the farthest cabin back, I was fortunately in the one with the stairs down to the bathrooms:
Turbulence. Commotion in the cabin behind us, with FAs scuttling back and forth to help. I asked them about it later and they said someone ended up throwing up in one of the middle seats. This caused a chain reaction of vomiting in the people around them which apparently went on for quite a while longer than the turbulence did.

Eek!

LondonElite

AC flight years ago form LHR-YYZ...older woman takes her shoes off after take-off, runs her forefinger between each of her toes. It starts to smell. Then she gets out nail clippers and starts cutting them. The clippings fall on the floor by her seat. She picks up a few and starts to chew on them, crunching them between her teeth.

Proudelitist

My mother experienced a chain reaction mass vomit on a propliner in the 50's. It was bumpy, and that made her sister throw up..which made her throw up..which made almost everyone else throw up. It started slow and got fast. A perfect example of a primal sympathetic response. Behavioral scientists would have loved it..until they barfed too.

Tizzette

I vote for this as the worst most disgusting.

Points Scrounger

Does seeing a fellow drinking Budweiser on the rocks count?

GuyverII

Mercy.

HMO

I know a woman who drinks beer - any beer - this way...

t325

Just drinking Budweiser counts.

mapleg

Wow. Don't even know what to say after that one.

Mr. Vker

Having gas on a flight is more normal than one things due to the lower pressure in an airplane cabin. I saw a show on Travel Channel once about FA training. They were in a chamber simulating slow decompression. They all got euphoric and gassy! (THat's extreme, but you get the idea.)

On a recent flight, ORF-DFW in first, the man next to me had awful breath. Every cough or deep exhale and I was in misery. They he folded his arms behind his head to relax. The BO hit me like a sledgehammer. Thankfully, the air vents could be redirected to save me. It was just awful. Couldn't wait to get off the plane.

Tizzette

Sunday I sat next to someone who had not bathed in a very, very long time. Maybe months. Every shift of his body wafted fetid odor. I stayed twisted away from him the whole flight. There was no empty seat to move to.

LondonElite

I must correct my post...it was actually LHR-YYZ (i.e. daytime). After each finger-through-the-toe-gap move she would smell her finger. When she started putting the clippings in her mouth I dry-heaved several times and had to think of my happy place to stop from spewing, that's how gross it was.

violist

Check this out - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brevibacterium -

HomerJay

Worst chain-reaction Barfapalooza I can recall was a Scenic Airlines late afternoon sightseeing flight into the Grand Canyon. The thermals were world class and we bumped and jerked all over the place. I was later told that late afternoon flights can be the worst for turbulence. It was a DeHavilland Otter, and every seat was full, and all but three of us barfed. My guess is most barfed from the turbulence, but having someone vomiting next to you activates the gag reflex, so there had to be some sympathy barfing as well.

I was actually one of three on board who did not vomit. And when we got back on the ground at Tusayan, there were TWO large trash cans for air sickness bags. The one trash can was overflowing, and the other was mostly full.

Scenic Airlines had two Otters. Less than a month later, one of them bumped into a chopper beneath the rim of the Canyon, and all those on board the two aircraft were killed.

So while our flight was awful, it could have been worse. Much worse.