Threadbare

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I just had a vision of an airplane touching down between B and C at ORD, and had to post ...

chasbondy

"There will be a two hour delay because of some suspicious baggage problem onboard, We apologize for the inconvenience" The plane leaves the gate and 3 or so hours later, a different plane pulls up all ready and loaded to go." The suspicious baggage problem ends up being a broken baggage door that wasnt going to be fixed today(according to the conversation of the flight attendants) and they needed to fly in a different plane

TimF1975

I was on undisclosed flight this morning. We parked at the gate but the jetway wasn't working so the pilot said:

"We got you to the gate early this morning, but here at United we're not happy unless you're aggravated, so the jetway doesn't work. Hopefully we'll get it fixed shortly."

Got a roar of laughter from the entire plane.

LaserSailor

...and there is good reason for that, like why they don't drop out of the sky..

What was the difference between bolting engine&pylon to plane vs pylon only?

Answer - 273 lives.....

PV_Premier

in every joke there is a little bit of truth...

freshairborne

I've used this one recently: "We know you paid a lot of money to spend time on an airplane and we want to make sure you get as much time onboard as possible".

FAB

Akulashark

Standing in boarding line for a delayed flight the GA shouts "People, the reason we cannot board yet is the cleaners aren't finished" said as 8 cleaners are walking out of the jetbridge and into the angry mob. Then the GA says "They will be finished shortly and then we can board the flight."

CDKing

A little over a week ago FA comes on the intercom and says their seat sensors show that 25 people have not fastened their seat belts

wxguy

[Going back a few years] "We know you have a choice of bankrupt airlines, and we're glad you chose ours."

Orion

I believe some of the whoppers are really just little white lies to get rid of pesky customers.
Often I inquire of a gate agent if the flight is overbooked and if they need volunteers. I am often told: "We are not overbooked. We are going out full and not oversold".
Then a few minutes later I hear the same gate agent ask our volunteers to remain in the gate area and not board. "We don't know yet if we will use your seats."
All they had to say to me was that they already had enough volunteers.
On Sunday a gate agent told me my flight was oversold in first class only. I had a coach ticket. A few minutes later a pax inquirred if his upgrade had cleared. She told him, "not yet". If the flight is oversold in first class I can't believe they would be upgrading people.
The problem with telling lies is that it indicates that you do not value the person you are lying to. They think we will not understand the truth.

freshairborne

Here's one that I see lots of passengers use. Not stated, it's more attitude: I'm putting my phone/iPad/Kindle/computer away now, and it's still running, but since I've gotten away with it so many times now, I've kind of earned the right to violate the law just by sheer continued undetected non-compliance.

Others aren't so subtle.

FAB

rudling

This was a few years ago - pre-IPTE 744 in C, probably SFO-NRT. Footrest would not stay up - came up just fine, but as soon as I rested my feet on it, it would slowly descend to the floor. Clearly not the desired behavior, I guess the result of stretched cables or something. It happened pretty often, as I recall.

Called it out to the FA, who asked me to stand up, spent probably two minutes playing with it and examining it, and then looked me straight in the eye and said this was exactly how it was supposed to operate, and everything was fine. When I pointed out in a friendly tone that it wouldn't stay up, she said (a direct quote) "well, it just depends on how high you want it!" and turned to walk away.

Which I guess was technically true. I wanted it higher than it was!

Propped it up with my bag and consoled myself with a xanax and a drink, as I recall.

LaserSailor

Lets see....

Things under the pilot's control
- Her/his aircraft and the passengers

Things not under the pilot's control
- Mechanical stuff on the plane
- Other aircraft
- ATC
- Weather at the airport
- Weather en route
- Visits by Air Force One
- Ground traffic
- Mechanical stuff on ground carts/tugs/fuelers/deicers
- Gate agents staffing
- Ground crew staffing
- Jeff

Im sure i've missed stuff...

CaptKornDog

Even the passengers aren't always under the pilot's control.

blakeIV

My wife, me and 6 month old arrived at the airport and told our connecting flight in Denver was cancelled. No big whoop, the next flight is 2 hours later, and you are on it now.

We get to Denver and our original flight is there at the gate. So I approach and say we want back on that flight. "We can't do that sir, your luggage has already been checked to a later flight."

I figured I had been 'creatively bumped' but the gate agent told me the flight was half full. After discussion with the agent, a customer service rep and then the gate agents boss, they 'magically' found our luggage and got it and us on the original flight.

I think sometimes the gate agents just tell you things to make you go away. Of course this particular one should have realized I have status, so I probably fly a lot, and was going to get this fixed come hell or high water. (I was nice enough to tell them we'd take the later flight if they provided us 'bump' compensation. I said, "either we get full bump compensation or we get back on our original flight, those are your options". )