Princess1

After all the noise she made during the red-eye flight she could have looked like Harrison Ford and I still would have been p**sed. I mean, really, she didn't even buy me a drink first!

topflyer78

1) Once on AF long-haul in Y a woman complained that my hand baggage was taking too much space and she could not fit hers, and demanded that I help her find a place for her baggage, or move mine. I smiled, called the flight attendant, and the flight attendant said it was not my job to help her and my baggage should stay where it was.

2) Once on NZ long-haul also in Y, the guy behind me complained that I recliend my seat, as I was tryign to sleep. I ignored him, simply pressed the attendant call button, when the FA came I pointed at him, he complained that I was reclining, and she said "he has a right to recline his seat, and you too..."

3) Once on SU long-haul, a woman behind me also complained and shouted that I was reclining my seat. The hostess was less polite than on other airplanes and said to her "there are some seats at the back if you want".

4) Once on AF, the FA actually asked me "can you put your seat up while the person behind you is working ?". I asked "is this an instruction, or a suggestion ?". The answer was of course that it is not an instruction, they cannot instruct me not to recline (whcih I would comply with). So I repled "sorry but he wants to work and I want to sleep, I will recline".

5) Again in AF, the woman behind me complained that because I was reclining, she could not hold her large newspaper open and read it. I said "well, maybe the FA can help you fix that". She did not call the FA, and kept putting her newspaper on my seat on purpose. So I just put my head firmly against my seat with the tip of her newspaper in between, until she tried to turn the page and of coruse it ripped... and she remained quiet for the rest of the flight.

GadgetFreak

Sorry, I disagree. Standing in the aisle while the plane is boarding is unreasonably inconveniencing a large number of people and is very rude. He should not be asked to stop being inconsiderate.

GadgetFreak

Five or six years ago I was on a US Air Shuttle flight from LGA-DCA. The plane was full and Im in an aisle seat in the back. There is an empty seat next to me, probably the last or the near last empty seat on the plane. There is a college aged young woman in the window seat. As we approach departure a woman comes on the plane and is walking down the aisle towards me. She is in a very animated conversation except she is walking alone. I think to myself, please let her be an early adapter of Bluetooth headsets. As she gets closer it becomes clear that no, she does not have a headset, the animated conversation is with herself. Sure enough she stops next to me looks a few times at the seat diagram on the overhead and screams, "thats a middle seat, I cant sit in a middle seat". I totally ignore her. The poor young woman in the window seat has a look of complete horror. An FA comes running down the aisle to see what is going on. The woman again screams that she cant sit in a middle seat. By now the FA is there. The FA asks for her ticket and she gives it to her and says very excitedly that she explained that she cant sit in a middle seat. The FA explains that that is her seat and it is the only empty seat on the plane and she has to take it. The passenger then starts ranting that she cant sit in a middle seat. The FA says, "come with me and we will see what we can work out". They go down the aisle and someone says to me, "looks like you are going to have an interesting flight" and laughs. I said that there is no way Im dealing with that and explain that Im on a full fare shuttle ticket which is completely changeable, Im a Chairmans Preferred which means Im guaranteed a seat on any flight with a full fare ticket and I dont need to be in DC until a few hours after this flight and the shuttles leave every hour, so if she sits down, Im out of here. This adds to the look of horror on the poor students face. Finally, they got a person on an aisle seat up front to give their seat to this woman (I think the seat donor was probably an employee) and we take off with no further disturbance.

AusEuroFlyer

Oh that escalator frightened me. I do not like those steep things at all. (In fact I am somewhat embarrassed to admit to having quite a bad fear of height.)


Back to topic, I don't recall receiving any strange complaint from a fellow pax but I have seen some strange behaviours, including economy class pax insisting to cabin crew that business class seats were exactly the same and so they could sit there. Strange! At least, witnessing weird behaviours tend to ease my boredom of travelling.

Mr. Vker

We started long haul travel about 4 years ago. Our first flight was EWR-STO-KUL. EWR-STO was overnight. My wife relcined to sleep and the person behind her told her that due to his height she could not recline. We looked at each other and didn't know how to react. She tried reclining half way and he still complained. Now I am 6' 5" and 300 lbs and never complained about anyone reclining. Ultimately, my wife did not recline and was miserable. I regret, to this day, not escalating this to the FA. I handled it poorly and let my wife down.

GadgetFreak

Oh, I thought of another one. This one was from October of 2001, and the historical perspective is relevant. I was leaving LHR on UA and when I got to the gate, where they again check your ticket and ID routinely, there was a guy refusing to give his ID to the person at the gate checkin. The UA (or maybe BAA) person was being completely polite, but insisting that she needed to see his documents. He said that he has shown them at the security line and wouldnt show them again. She politely insisted that she needed to see them. He asked for a supervisor from United and she summoned one who appeared pretty quickly and inquired as to what the problem was.

The guy then said he was being discriminated against because he was "a person of color" and being required to show his ID twice, and that the gate agent was rude (she had not been from what I saw). The supervisor explained that it was a requirement that the airline obtain confirmed identification from all passengers inbound to the United States and relay that information to US Customs and Immigration so that they would have a confirmed passenger list in advance of the arrival of the flight. He said in that case he would show his documents to the supervisor but not to the gate person because she had been rude to him. The supervisor said that it needed to be shown to the gate personnel doing the security checks so that they could process the information, not to her. The guy again says he wont show the gate check person. The supervisor asks to see his ticket and he gives it to her. She then asks if he has checked bags and he replies yes. She asks for the baggage check tags, which are stapled to his ticket envelope, and he hands them to her. She looks at them briefly, hands the ticket and the envelope with the tags to the gate check agent and says "pull his bags, he's off the flight" and turns around and walks away without saying another word.

topflyer78

Yes, as I wrote in my post, I usually just call the FA. They know the rules, i.e. passengers are entitled to recline, full stop. It is ok to do an exception to reclining when the person behind is eating and I am eating too. But if he wants to work and I want to sleep, hell... he did not pay more than me.

In addition to the episodes above, once I remember on AZ I was in the last row of C class, and the guy behind me in Y class (short-haul flights, just a curtain between the classes) says "I have very long legs, can you please not recline". I did not say anything. The FA just came and took him to a back row.

youreadyfreddie

My guess is that it's diminishing eye sight--depth perception problems. My mom has avoided escalators for years because of this.

Gnopps

In 2003 I was flying FRA-AGP with LH. The gate agent mixed up the boarding passes and so I received the boarding class for a gentleman in 2C and he got my 20A. He was already in my seat when I got there and so I told him what had happened. He got up and moved to his seat (which was in business class, he hadn't noticed he had taken my seat in economy!). I took my window seat and had two people next to me. An american who had had a beer before the flight then got up from his seat a few rows back. He asked me what was going on, why did we switch seats and most of all: Why did the man leave his bag in the overhead compartment? My explanation was no good and so he summoned a FA. From my window seat it was hard to get my message through especially since the man interrupted me the whole time. Finally I switched to speaking German which meant I could give the full story without interruption. The man was soon asked to take his seat and the rest of the flight was uneventful.

daeira

Not so much a complaint from a fellow passenger, but more of a personal complaint.

1. Fellow passengers who chew with their mouths open and smack their lips such that the chewing becomes so loud that the rows around the offending passenger can hear each individual morsel being masticated as the saliva works its way around the mouth. It's disgusting since I really don't want to hear your excessively loud chewing.

2. I don't mind people going sockless or shoeless but please don't put your bare feet on my elbow rest and then touch my elbow with the soles of your feet and toes and refuse to move your foot from my space.

And I once had a complaint from a fellow passenger about my height for "being short". The passenger ranted to me about how unfair it was that short people got more legroom and more space to negotiate in the seat therefore all short people should sit in all the middle seats and have all the tall people in windows and aisles

stefg1007

Try Kiev, Ukraine or Baku, Azerbaijan...its like a freakin bullet train. You get off with windblown hair...

SAP_Pete

1. TSA screening in LAS, screener pulls an elderly (65ish) lady's handbag from the xray belt. "Madam, you can't bring any liquids through security", he said as he pulled a half empty 750ml bottle of Jack Daniels from her purse.

2. Flight from Moscow to Zuerich on SwissAir, drunken russian guy across the aisle tells me the story of his life (in russian), stopping occasionally staring at me until I nod my head in agreement, then continues.
FA tries him to quiet down, but he ignores here completely. FA asks me to translate for my "friend", since he didn't seem to speak english, and she didn't speak any russian.
I replied truthfully "I don't know the guy, and I don't speak any russian, either". Hilarity all around.

sfskier

I once saw a gentleman fall down an escalator and it has since caused me to always wait a second before getting on. A fall on an escalator is incredibly difficult to watch or have it happen to you because the escalator does not stop until someone presses the emergency button. I happen to be approaching that certain age - whatever that is - and plan to approach many more ages to come!

kabroui

Right after the Richard Reed incident and the start of everyone having to take their shoes off for security screening, the buddies and me are flying out of PHX, and this being a golf outing, we had already tipped a few.

The security line was moving slow as the shoe thing was new to everyone, so I remarked to my friend (kinda under my breath) that I was glad we hadn't had an 'underwear bomber'. A sweet little old lady of 70 something directly in front of me happened to hear my comment and proceeded to get a major case of the giggles and couldn't stop laughing. Everytime she started to get it under control, she'd turn around and look at me and start cracking up again. Then she sets off the metal detector which gets her laughing even harder.

When we finally got through security, she was pulled off to the side getting wanded by the TSA guy, laughing uncontrollably with tears running down her face.