The 10 Worst People To Sit Next to on a Plane

[phillygirl]

1. The Crying Baby

The poor child? Poor you. Nothing you can do with this one but grimace and smile and hope that you’re only on a commuter flight. Otherwise it will be a long one. Learn from past times and bring earplugs. Parents can be proactive: Offer an apology and maybe buy a round for those in closest proximity, it’ll make everyone nicer. Cash works too. If you’re feeling extra nice, offer to help the parent with hoisting their bags into the overhead bin, or keeping their drink on your tray–a less-harried parent can mean a much calmer baby.more>>

http://petergreenberg.com/2013/04/03/the-10-worst-people-to-sit-next-to-on-a-plane/

[Billy Jingo]

They left out the Mack Daddy/Mack Babe.

Wait ... that is one through nine of the ten best people to sit next to on a plane.

[Gramps]

I've had combinations of several of those.

My worst though is the women who decide that it is appropriate to bathe in perfume.

On a flight to Ft Lauderdale, first class, only one seat remaining in first class, beside me, we are about to push off and they bring on a young, not unattractive woman who is shorts and cleavage, drunk and doused in perfume.

So, I get her.

I prefer the aisle, so she got the window.
She orders wine.
We take off, she orders more wine.
Third time my gay attendant cuts her off.
Now she's asking me to get her the wine.

About 30 min into the flight, she drops off..
Actually she puts her head on my shoulder, sticks her hand in my shirt, and goes to sleep or passes out.

My attendant whispers in my ear, do you want me to move her?
I said, shit don't wake her up, she will want more wine.

I have to wake her up when we land.
She really can't walk well.
She hangs onto me and I guide her down to baggage claim.
I'm wondering wtf I'm gonna do with her.

Luckily a group of intoxicated friends recognize her... I relinquish control and get the hell away.

[Adam]

March 23, 2000. Delta Air Lines flight 50 from Moscow to JFK. Flying time: ten hours and 48 minutes, gate-to-gate. Add 45 minutes for boarding time, so total time inside the aluminum torture tube is about eleven and a half hours. Then we have a one-hour delay for de-icing, so twelve and a half hours. Then another hour for more de-icing. Thirteen and a half hours in the torturous conveyance.

Then there's the mandatory two-hours-prior-to-boarding requirement that Delta had at Sheremetyevo at that time: Delta operated their own private security at SVO at that time, so the requirement was that passengers had to be at the gate no later than two hours prior to the time boarding starts.





It's the adopt-a-Russian-baby flight.


There are 139 seats in coach on a Delta 767. The flight is completely full, and there are at least forty lap babies on this flight. Most of the babies are crying in the gate area (you're locked in there once you get in; no wandering around the airport or going to the bar). Some of the new parents are trying to hush their babies, others are rather oblivious to the crying, and a few are absolutely delighted at this newly found sound in their lives.

Once we board (unaware yet that we will sit on the plane on the ground for two hours for de-icing), one of the mothers who is absolutely delighted with the absolutely ear-splitting sounds that the newest member of the family is making gets seated in the center bulkhead seat. Every fifteen minutes or so, the baby launches yet again into these screams that I was absolutely sure would actually crack the windows on the plane, and in response, mom holds up her new baby and broadcasts the screams back throughout coach, literally reverberating off of the aluminum in the galley. That, in turn, got all of the other babies who had just been calmed down screaming again, too.

Then we finally took off.


Guess which baby could not get his little ears to equalize for the pressure change.

Yep.



Guess what mom did with that baby screaming bloody fucking murder without a single stop all. the. way. to. New. York.

Yep.



NOTHING would quiet this baby. NOTHING. No bottle, tit, or pacifier would work; he just wouldn't even let them in his mouth. No amount of holding him, warm towels around the ears, coddling him, or anything else would quiet him either. Frankly, I don't know how he even stayed awake that long; most babies will eventually just exhaust themselves and go to sleep. Not this strapping young Cossack. He was wide awake and screaming every single minute of that flight.

Now, I understand that the baby was in pain and that's just something that can't really be helped, but holding him up and broadcasting his piercing scream was particularly unnecessary, and, of course, it meant that all of the other babies on the plane were repeatedly being woken up and then they'd start screaming again, too.



No wonder the CIA uses that sound as a means to get people to give up intel. By the time we were over Greenland, I would have happily given anyone my SSN, bank account number, ANYTHING to make it stop.

[scott]

I've had combinations of several of those.

My worst though is the women who decide that it is appropriate to bathe in perfume.

On a flight to Ft Lauderdale, first class, only one seat remaining in first class, beside me, we are about to push off and they bring on a young, not unattractive woman who is shorts and cleavage, drunk and doused in perfume.

So, I get her.

I prefer the aisle, so she got the window.
She orders wine.
We take off, she orders more wine.
Third time my gay attendant cuts her off.
Now she's asking me to get her the wine.

About 30 min into the flight, she drops off..
Actually she puts her head on my shoulder, sticks her hand in my shirt, and goes to sleep or passes out.

My attendant whispers in my ear, do you want me to move her?
I said, shit don't wake her up, she will want more wine.

I have to wake her up when we land.
She really can't walk well.
She hangs onto me and I guide her down to baggage claim.
I'm wondering wtf I'm gonna do with her.

Luckily a group of intoxicated friends recognize her... I relinquish control and get the hell away.

The porno version of this story is way better. :P

[scott]

March 23, 2000. Delta Air Lines flight 50 from Moscow to JFK. Flying time: ten hours and 48 minutes, gate-to-gate. Add 45 minutes for boarding time, so total time inside the aluminum torture tube is about eleven and a half hours. Then we have a one-hour delay for de-icing, so twelve and a half hours. Then another hour for more de-icing. Thirteen and a half hours in the torturous conveyance.

Then there's the mandatory two-hours-prior-to-boarding requirement that Delta had at Sheremetyevo at that time: Delta operated their own private security at SVO at that time, so the requirement was that passengers had to be at the gate no later than two hours prior to the time boarding starts.





It's the adopt-a-Russian-baby flight.


There are 139 seats in coach on a Delta 767. The flight is completely full, and there are at least forty lap babies on this flight. Most of the babies are crying in the gate area (you're locked in there once you get in; no wandering around the airport or going to the bar). Some of the new parents are trying to hush their babies, others are rather oblivious to the crying, and a few are absolutely delighted at this newly found sound in their lives.

Once we board (unaware yet that we will sit on the plane on the ground for two hours for de-icing), one of the mothers who is absolutely delighted with the absolutely ear-splitting sounds that the newest member of the family is making gets seated in the center bulkhead seat. Every fifteen minutes or so, the baby launches yet again into these screams that I was absolutely sure would actually crack the windows on the plane, and in response, mom holds up her new baby and broadcasts the screams back throughout coach, literally reverberating off of the aluminum in the galley. That, in turn, got all of the other babies who had just been calmed down screaming again, too.

Then we finally took off.


Guess which baby could not get his little ears to equalize for the pressure change.

Yep.



Guess what mom did with that baby screaming bloody fucking murder without a single stop all. the. way. to. New. York.

Yep.



NOTHING would quiet this baby. NOTHING. No bottle, tit, or pacifier would work; he just wouldn't even let them in his mouth. No amount of holding him, warm towels around the ears, coddling him, or anything else would quiet him either. Frankly, I don't know how he even stayed awake that long; most babies will eventually just exhaust themselves and go to sleep. Not this strapping young Cossack. He was wide awake and screaming every single minute of that flight.

Now, I understand that the baby was in pain and that's just something that can't really be helped, but holding him up and broadcasting his piercing scream was particularly unnecessary, and, of course, it meant that all of the other babies on the plane were repeatedly being woken up and then they'd start screaming again, too.



No wonder the CIA uses that sound as a means to get people to give up intel. By the time we were over Greenland, I would have happily given anyone my SSN, bank account number, ANYTHING to make it stop.

Adam wins, but I'm a close second.

My darling Valerie was exactly that child on a flight from Tampa to Minneapolis with an hour delay leaving and two hours on the tarmac arriving. While I didn't broadcast the screams, there was no difference. She's got some pipes.

[Billy Jingo]

I could have sworn that banner said Don't Mess With Texas.

[phillygirl]

I could have sworn that banner said Don't Mess With Texas.

Wrong thread!

[Michele]

I'd put a few of those ahead of a screaming maybe.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

Cold, wet winter day. Transcontinental flight. Full plane. It's almost inevitable. The seat next to me stays empty until almost the last minute and then...woman in huge full-length REAL fur coat boards after obviously spending the last hour before boarding in the smoking lounge. And she doesn't take the fucking coat off and stow it before sitting next to me. So she smells like a wet dog that's been rolling in an ashtray. And proceeds to drink gin. All the way across the country. I would've traded her for a screaming baby and a drunk in a heartbeat.

[Michele]

I'd put a few of those ahead of a screaming maybe.

I don't know what a screaming "maybe" sounds like but it has to be better than Celeste's seat mate.

[daveman]

Late '90s, returning from a deployment to Kuwait on an Evergreen International contract flight. Plane was jam-packed with Airmen who had been away from home 90+ days.

Of course, in the Middle East, alcohol is verboten to troops by General Order #1.

Flight was fine from Kuwait City International to Shannon, Ireland. At Shannon, we had to deplane for refueling. And at Shannon, there was liquor available.

The guy seated in front of me slammed several whatevers in the 30 or so minutes we had off the plane, seemingly forgetting that he hadn't had anything to drink for a quarter of a year. He probably didn't eat anything, either.

So, 15 minutes after wheels up from the Auld Sod, boy loses what he slammed.

Full plane. No empty seats anywhere. I had to smell vomit all the way from Ireland to Baltimore International.

At least he didn't get any on me.

[Dallas]

MIA-PHI . . . Gently intoxicated buisnessman who had forgotten he was married, and he was getting more forgetful and more intoxicated as we went. And I was going to visit my boyfriend at the time, a Marine. No, I don't care that you think I'm gorgeous and that my boyfriend is lucky and you've never been with a black woman. NO, I don't care that you think I'm a bitch for not thinking your mile high jokes are funny. Four hours of being hit on... at least it prepared me for stripping.

~Dallas

[Novaheart]

1. The Crying Baby

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Apparently various sites from Time Magazine to Nobody You Know are using these lists to generate page hits. There is no reason why the fucking list can't be on one page, but they spread it out over ten pages. Say no to this kind of crap.

[Gingersnap]

I'll certainly agree with the perfume rants. I like a nice scent as much as anybody but it's unlikely any scent will smell great if you dump the entire bottle on yourself.

The Talkers I hate are the ones who insist on talking to me. I deploy very large novels on my lap to avoid this kind of thing. I need every ounce of mental energy to keep the plane aloft psychically so I don't have time for chit-chat. Sadly, I must be the most interesting person on the plane because all too often I'm seated next to a Talker who just fascinated with me. One time it was so bad that I pulled out a travel Bible and said, "I need to pray now".

Not on the list but should be: huge people. I'm fine with enormous people buying two seats but not fine with giving up half of my own space because the compression is causing spill-over. Huge people need to understand that the rest of us employ a "no touching" rule in the air. That includes everything: arms, legs, side fat, whatever. None of your body should touch mine without an invitation. Ick.