Travel Worst Flights Ever

[Hamingja]

I had a domestic flight delayed 10 hours and missed my birthday party. Small mercies I had my ipad and a copy of best bets to keep me entertained.

 

[Dazb86]

I'm 6 foot 5 so most flights are generally terrible. The eorst I've been on was Singapore to Istanbul. After waiting a few hours to change planes at Singapore I boarded. The plane made 2 attempts at taking off before hell broke loose with multiple Turkish men going crazy at the flight attendants. The flight got canned and we had to wait for another plane.

 

[Aussie Joe]

Was on American Airlines flight to Albuquerque on a smaller CRJ jet. The plane hits freak turbulence (not a cloud in the sky). The plane literally flips 90 degs. The flight attendant was serving drinks at the time. She hits the top of the plane the hits the ground like a ****en rag doll. The cart then slams on top of her. Drinks and shit all over the cabin. I thought the flight attendant was dead. The plane gets back to normal and a few of us help the poor attendant back to her seat. Thank god she is alright, but she is feeling some pain. The aisle of the plane looks like The Birdcage after the last race of the Melbourne Cup. We push the cart back to the front and let the flight attendant have a rest. Pilot comes on the speaker and says "Ahhh, looks like we hit a little turbulence there..." Bloke who was sitting next to the cart pipes up with a "hate to see what a lot of turbulence looks like". Ladies were crying, and my jocks were well and truly soiled. Hated Albuquerque ever since!

 

[blueboy25]

I was 18 and spent a week drinking bintangs and jungle juice in bali back in the late 90's. Spent the final night drinking very strong vodka and oranges at paddy's pub.

Woke with the worst hangover of my life and didn't think i would be able to make the flight home. Spent the worst 3 hours of my life battling this hangover going from the sweats to a massive headache and then about 20mins before we landed the nausea kicked in.

As we approaching the tarmac I felt the urge to spew but held on until we had touched down before power chucking into the white 'photo developing' bags they use to put in the seat wallet. I remember my mum picked me up from the aiport and took one look at my ghostly white face and said 'you never travel well do you'.

 

[Bosun]

Nadi to Suva, not sure what was worse, the flight or the 14 days I had to spend in Suva.

Never again.

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

Thankfully my worst flights have been short ones.

One Melbourne-Sydney stuck between two guys at about 150kg each, both armrests digging into my kidneys the whole way. It took about three hours before I could walk properly or stand up straight.

Coming back to Canberra after a trip to Melbourne for the cricket. I imagine what must happen when Bogannats is on is that all the Stig waanabes drive their cars from Melbourne to Canberra, and all their skanks and sprogs fly up. The plane was just full of screaming kids. Normally I can handle kids on planes, far better than drunk pensioners, but that screaming was like a creche in an earthquake.

 

[Leper]

Flying Merpati Air (?) from Jakarta to Medan in the 90s. The passengers clapped when the plane landed.

It was at that point I realised that a safe landing was an achievement for Merpati.

"It's Merpati and I'll fly if I want to".

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

"It's Merpati and I'll fly if I want to".

You would fly too if it happened to you.

 

[rdhopkins2]

Not really a horror story, it was all well managed.

I flew on a QF 747-400 from SYD-LHR. We taxied on to the runway and lined up on the centreline, throttles forward and begun our take off roll.
About 500m down the runway, the brakes were heavily applied as the technical crew performed a rejected take off and we made a quick turn off the active runway.

Captain comes on the PA a minute later apologising, but due to a technical error in the cockpit, they had been forced to abort the take off. Taxied back to the
terminal so that an engineer could take a look and sort the problem out. Half an hour or so later and we were back on our way.

On my first flying lesson at Moorabbin, I took off, learnt the basic controls etc before handing control back to the instructor who would land the plane. I felt we were a bit unstable on final approach but trusted the instructor with his judgement. Not long before we crossed the threshold of the runway, we were advised by ATC to go around. Worked out well for me as I got another 5mins of flying or so before the instructor reattempted his landing.

 

[Joker91]

I hate flying. Travelled Europe last year and thought all the flights would get me over my fear of flying but it definitely didn't.

Flying from Leeds Uk to Malta after being at a music festival for the last two days. Flight was going fine when severe turbulence came out of know where, it literally felt like the plane was dropping for 10 seconds. Women were screaming, I was holding onto the arm rests for dear life and my best mate is fast asleep in the seat next to me, this bloke could sleep through anything. It calms down, he wakes up 10 minutes later and asks why the ham and cheese toasties haven't arrived yet.

I contemplated living in Malta so I didn't have to fly again after that flight.

 

[Plugger35]

Flew Ryanair for about 20 quid to Stockholm from London and the flight nosedived steeply getting into the airport with a really bumpy landing, women were screaming, I was pretty relaxed though thanks to my duty free vodka.

We didn't even land in Stockholm we landed at Skavsta airport surrounded by hills and forest about 2 hours out of Stockholm and had to get a bus there.

You get what you pay for I guess so can't complain.

 

[Illinois Nazi]

Flew Tiger from Melbourne to Perth when they first started up. Was the most uncomfortable plane seat I've ever been in, and I was in row 1 so I even had plenty of legroom. Hadn't slept in two days prior to that so was hoping to get some z's on the flight but it just wasn't possible.

On the plus side, the flight cost me less than the taxi from my brothers place to the airport.

 

[Big Bryza]

Flight from Perth to Brisbane. An hour left until we landed,, needed to shit, decided I'd hang out until we landed. As soon as the seatbelt sign went up the turtle began to poke it's head out, started profusely sweating and praying to any God that would listen. Finally land and I think I'm home free only to discover that we were required to wait on the tarmac for 15 minutes because of lightning strikes in the area.

like dis if u cry evertim

You could have used the toilet on the plane.

 

[radiojake]

Haven't done many long haul flights (Melbourne - Los Angeles and return is it) - Hated the flight to LA, felt like I needed to shit the whole time but I'd spend 20+ mins on the toilet and nothing would come... didn't end up shitting on the entire flight...


Also Cancun to Havana on Cuba Air. I don't know if it was the old soviet plane that was still decked out with Russian signage, the misty fog that decided to seep up into the plane for majority of the flight, or if the 45 minute flight across just happens to be a particular regular turbulent airspace, but I've never quite had the white knuckle clenching onto the armrest like that before or since...

 

[Macca19]

Between Port Vila and Tanna Island in Vanuatu, in this little plane. Honestly thought we may not make it. Most ridiculous height fluctuation i've experienced.

 

[Simple Jack]

On my first flying lesson at Moorabbin, I took off, learnt the basic controls etc before handing control back to the instructor who would land the plane. I felt we were a bit unstable on final approach but trusted the instructor with his judgement. Not long before we crossed the threshold of the runway, we were advised by ATC to go around. Worked out well for me as I got another 5mins of flying or so before the instructor reattempted his landing.

I was coming into Moorabbin one day quite a few years ago from GMH->Parkmore->31/35R (can't remember which) and at 1000' I hit some turbulence that made my head smack into the roof. That was fun.

I'm 6'5" so for me the 'best' passenger flights I have depend on the following factors:
1. Legroom
2. Legroom
3. Legroom
...
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. Legroom
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000001. All that crap that matters to the rest of you (service, schedule, IFE etc.)

Best: Near empty Shenzhen Airlines 737NG flight from PEK to SZX. Equally worst because I have absolutely no confidence in that operator. I had exactly no expectation that if something went wrong it'd be able to be handled.
Worst: Swiss A340 from ZRH - HKG. I'd ****ed my back earlier that day in Rome, didn't have time to get it sorted and then flew from Rome to Zurich before a tight connection to Hong Kong. All the Swiss flights I'd had up until that point were quite good, but the 340 was a shocker. My theory is they must use them frequently for the HKG flights and figure 'oh well, lots of Asians, we can reduce the seat pitch a bit and squeeze more in'. It would have been bad normally but with a ****ed back it was horrendous.

 

[walshy93]

Any narrowbody flight is pretty irritating to me. I fly well, and actually enjoy it, but the 3-3 config on 737s and A320s is just shit if you're alone or with a partner.

Give me a E190 or a widebody anyday for a bit of airy space and the possibility of a 2-4-2 or 2-3-2 config.

 

[stmookeyj]

The 2 flights that come to mind....

- Flew Jetstar from Darwin to Brisbane in 2010, allocated aisle seat. Overnight flight so hope to at least catch a few hours of sleep before Brisbane....woken up by people constantly banging into my shoulder heading towards the toilet.

- Qantas flight from Melbourne to Brisbane after an Easter weekend, squashed in the middle between 2 fat cats (literally) after working hard to avoid the stigma of almost being too fat to fit a seat.

From that day I've vowed to avoid any seat apart from a Window seat if it is at all avoidable.


When I was younger I also dreaded most landings because I had no idea how to unblock my ears. More often than not I was bent over double thinking I could hear properly in that position.

 

[Catfish Alley]

Wait...they were literally cats?

 

[The Dice Man]

Nice to Brisbane, via Frankfurt and Singapore. 14 hour leg surrounded by screaming babies. I can't sleep on planes and am lucky to get an hours sleep in a 24 hour plus flight, but this sent me almost postal.

 

[rdhopkins2]

Oh yes the screaming baby from Singapore to Frankfurt. That was horrible. Hardly stopped for the whole flight, the poor kid went on and on and on.

I know how painful ear equalisation issues can be. Poor baby, poor parents, poor pax & crew!

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Haven't done many long haul flights (Melbourne - Los Angeles and return is it) - Hated the flight to LA, felt like I needed to shit the whole time but I'd spend 20+ mins on the toilet and nothing would come... didn't end up shitting on the entire flight...


Also Cancun to Havana on Cuba Air. I don't know if it was the old soviet plane that was still decked out with Russian signage, the misty fog that decided to seep up into the plane for majority of the flight, or if the 45 minute flight across just happens to be a particular regular turbulent airspace, but I've never quite had the white knuckle clenching onto the armrest like that before or since...

A radical like you must have hated visiting the American Empire.

 

[tangolikelama]

Worst flight was Singapore to Paris.. doctors narrowed it down to Ear barotrauma.. oh my god I thought I was going to die about 45 minutes after to take off my ears popped and that was literally the longest 14 hours of my life. Felt like a knife going through my ear and my head was about to explode. Was pretty embarrassing crying but I couldn't help it. On top of this we experienced some pretty severe turbulence (hate when people scream) either way I thought I was gone

 

[WCErevival]

I haven't been on any too bad but my last flight to Europe had me very jittery. Plane climbed on take off very steep felt like it was almost vertical. Half way through the flight while every one was sleeping there was a loud bang from underneath the plane like the landing gear or similar. No one else seemed to notice it. Lastly had a fair bit of turbulence while descending. Have been fine on planes but was never comfortable after that one for some reason.

 

[The Dice Man]

Oh yes the screaming baby from Singapore to Frankfurt. That was horrible. Hardly stopped for the whole flight, the poor kid went on and on and on.

I know how painful ear equalisation issues can be. Poor baby, poor parents, poor pax & crew!

You're plenty more tolerant and understanding than I. Then again I don't have kids. Next month I'm moving back to France with a 3 week stop over in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos.... I'm not confident on air travel in that region and would rather bus/train it, but will be flying all around. I'm anticipating adding more than screaming babies to my experiences.

If I suddenly disappear during late feb to 20 march, well.... You just know.