I decided to spare you all the details of my day today; suffice it to say there were three delayed or cancelled flights on my itinerary, and I was only travelling from Spokane to Sacramento. And my luggage is still in Portland.

Tell me your horror stories. What's your least favorite airline? After today, I'm thinking kind thoughts about the dreaded Southwest.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 1999

Answers

The first time I ever flew anywhere by myself, I flew to Rhode Island. I bought the ticket 8 months in advance. When I got up to the ticket counter, they informed me that the flight I purchased no longer existed.

Have you ever heard of that before?

They ended up getting me on a flight, 9 hours later than my friends expected me, but not like there are a whole lot of phones on airplanes (well, there weren't in 1990. I understand this has changed now.)

I get to Rhode Island ok, but my luggage doesn't. Luckily, my friend and I were the same size and such, because I didn't get my bags until 4 days later.

I ended up coming home 8 days early, too, because I hated the bizatch in Rhode Island that I went to meet.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 1999

I was flying home from college for spring break (from Chicago to Hartford, CT--usually about a 3-hour flight).

It had started snowing a bit that morning, but I wasn't too worried. After all, this was CHICAGO, they should be well-equipped to deal with winter weather, right?

We boarded the plane on time and pulled away from the gate. And then we waited to take off. It seems that O'Hare airport only has two de- icers, and every plane had to be de-iced before it could take off. Then, one of the de-icers ran out of gas. The backlog of planes waiting to take off got bigger and bigger.

After a few hours, I was starting to get really hungry. I hadn't eaten anything that day (the flight left at around noon) and there was no food served on the flight. The flight attendants were giving out free drinks to people to try to keep them calm, but their supply was soon depleted.

Eventually, the pilot came on the P.A. system, and told us that if we weren't cleared for takeoff soon, the flight would have to be cancelled, because we wouldn't have enough fuel to get to Hartford.

An hour or so later, he came back on to tell us that our flight WAS cancelled. But that wasn't the end to our ordeal. Because the airport had been letting planes land, but not letting any take off, all of the gates were full. There was simply no available place for us to get off the plane. They told us that we might end up having to spend the night on the plane.

Another hour went by, and the pilot announced that our flight had been UN-cancelled, and that we were going to take off. We wound up getting in to Hartford at around 11pm, 8 hours later than expected. You know how flight attendants usually stand at the front of the plane as you get off and say good-bye to you? Not this time--as soon as we pulled into the gate, the flight attendants dashed into the gate waiting area, sat down, and started smoking. They did say good-bye as we passed by them, though.

I was exhausted and ravenous, and to top it off there was nobody at the airport to meet me. My parents had called the airline (United, btw) when my flight had been cancelled, so they thought I wasn't coming in that night.

My parents live about an hour's drive from the airport, so I had to wait another hour. Everything at the airport was closed at that hour, so I couldn't even get anything to eat.

Now, every time I fly, I always bring food. You never know...

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999

Worst travel experience - taking a Greyhound bus from Long Beach to Monterey when I was about two months pregnant, and then hitchhiking the rest of the way to San Francisco, summer of 1970. It was motion sickness / morning sickness all the way. Yuck.

Judy

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999

Ok, here goes. Last Christmas I flew to Spokane to visit a friend in Sandpoint, Idaho. The flight up, on Horizon with a stopover in Seattle, was fine, no problems. Spent a lovely, if extremely cold, week in Sandpoint. Christmas Eve was beautiful-it started snowing in the morning and we walked all over town with the dogs in the snow. Even walked in the evening, with the Christmas lights reflecting off the snow. Awesome. But it was still snowing Christmas Day, when we had to drive back to Spokane-a little unnerving. But we were brave. We gave ourselves 3 hours to get to the airport. But it started snowing heavier and heavier. And it got darker and later. We plowed into Spokane Airport, not even sure if it was open, with 5 minutes to spare. My friend went to park the truck, while I ran to my terminal- where I sat for an hour while they de-iced my little Fokker jet. Way too small of a plane. They finally loaded us on board-where we sat for a long time more while they de-iced the plane. This is Horizon Air, by the way. The plane finally took off. I have never been so afraid in my life. We were immediately in clouds and the turbulence was not only up and down but SIDEWAYS. I knew we were all going to die. I didn't want to die on Christmas day. I think I watch too many plane crash shows on TV. The stewardess announced the flight was to Portland, which was the first I'd heard about it. I thought we were flying straight to Sacramento. Hah! They knew nothing about that. And all I had left of my ticket was a tiny stub. Would they let me on the plane in Portland? My connecting flight there was apparently the last flight out of Portland that night. Great. My plane was already an hour and a half late. Stuck in crappy Portland overnight? The flight got so bad I actually started hearing myself make this high-pitched shriek every time the plane dove or rocked. I was really scared. Then we started our descent, which since it was basically straight down, I took to mean we were crashing. All of a sudden we were out of the clouds over Portland-but still diving! Well, we finally landed, didn't die and Portland was actually kind of warm and rainy. The plane to Sac was delayed by my plane so I made it home finally. the flight from Portland was smooth as glass.My friend called the next day to say she had waited at the airport in Spokane until my plane took off (actually left the runway) since she was afraid it would get called back due to the blizzard. She drove home in white-out conditions, screaming alot of the time. What a holiday. The next time I go up there, I'm flying on Southwest. Joy

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999

Oh, I forgot to add a few of my own.

Greyhound -- I traveled regularly on Greyhound for a couple of years without problems. I always found it entertaining until the time I went to LA in the middle of summer on a bus with a broken air conditioner. The bus broke down over the Grapevine, which sucked pretty heavily. The worst part of that trip was the dumbfuck heavy metal boy from Arkansas sitting in the back of the bus making racist jokes, primarily Mexican jokes. (About 90% of the passengers were Latino/a.) The [African-American] bus driver finally kicked him off in the middle of nowhere for smoking in the bathroom after three or four warnings, and a very large, muscular Latino guy handed his things to an elderly woman, walked to the door, and told the driver, "I'll be getting out here, too." Uh oh.

Worst plane trip -- my little brother and I (8 and 12 years old) were supposed to fly alone from Denver to Syracuse, but an accident on the freeway prevented us from getting from Cheyenne to the airport in Denver. We got a flight on Rocky Mountain Airways, on a little 10-seater that was supposed to fly us to Denver to make our flight. We flew through a thunder storm and I was sure we were going to die. (Did I mention that this was my second plane trip ever, the first being the one that had taken us from California to Denver two weeks earlier?) We got to Denver and found we had missed our flight, and the airline people just shrugged at us. "Sorry, economy flight, out of luck!" We were all alone, and they were apparently just going to leave us in the Denver airport forever. They did let me call my mom in California, and she told me to put someone on the phone. I don't know what she said to them, but we did get to Syracuse that night -- and part of the way, we flew first class. (And sat next to Mel Torme, but that's another story.)

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999

I'll try to keep this as short as possible, while still conveying the horror of this experience. Last summer I was to fly to Poland, from Pittsburgh to Newark and then on to Warsaw. I'll set the scene the day I was to depart: warm, sunny, Thursday afternoon, 4:30pm. I board the USAir flight to Newark. We sit and wait. The pilot comes on and tells us, that due to rush hour traffic in Newark, we will be delayed. Rush hour traffic? C'mon! So we sit some more. My family is still waiting in the terminal--I can see them from the window. 1/2 later, the pilot comes back on, same story, we are going to wait some more. We end up sitting on the plane for about 1 hr. and 15 minutes when they finally inform us that the flight has been cancelled! Now, let me tell you that the connecting flight to Poland, leaving from Newark, only departs once a day. I had like 3 hours to get to Newark before my flight left. We all file off of the plane, where to my chagrin, I discover that there were no more flights to Newark that evening. I was screwed. I had family meeting me in Poland at the airport. All of my plans were ruined. Fast forward, the next day. I return to the airport, where they set me up on a direct flight to Frankfurt, Germany. From there, I am to pick up a connecting flight to Warsaw. Luckily, someone was able to get in touch with my family in Poland, and let them know I was coming in a day later. All of this mess, in turn, completely fucked up my tickets for my return flight back to the U.S., 3 weeks later. On the day I was to depart, I go to the airport in Warsaw. They inform me that USAir has cancelled my return flight (somehow in the mixup on my way over). They (British Airways) tells me that they can get me as far as Heathrow airport in London, but can't promise me anything from there. Desperate, I take the flight to Heathrow. Once there, I plead with the ticket agent, and tell her my sob story, and she arranges for me to fly 1st class back to the U.S.

It was a nightmare. I never wanted to see the inside of a plane, or airport again. The only good part was flying first class for 8-9 hours. I couldn't complain there. Oh, yeah, and of course, they lost my luggage somewhere between Warsaw, London, Newark and Pittsburgh, for about a week. I had no underwear. Pitiful, isn't it?

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999

oh god, i HATE us airways (though i adore brit air). when i flew back to school in january, we flew into pittsburgh in the middle of a blizzard. my us air flight from baltimore left EARLY and i bearly made it. then, in pittsburgh, we left three hours late, but i spent most of those three hours ON the plane while we sat in de-icing. i was sick (the flu) and when i arrived in minneapolis, the people picking me up were three i hadn't expected to see (including one i didn't even know!) and one i didn't WANT to see. i got squashed in the backseat of a stranger's car with my friend lucie, this guy i didn't want to be this close to, and a pair of cross country skis. i got dragged to a swing dance in a suburb of st paul and got home incredibly late. my luggage, on the other hand, had gone back to school with two OTHER strangers, and i had a hell of a time tracking it down when i got back. it was miserable.

oh, and i got food poisoning in the czech republic.

and northwest is highly overrated, too, though not as overrated as some others.

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999

Good airlines? Air New Zealand is very good (nearly every flight I've ever taken has been to/from NZ/England - 24 hours long - anybody complaining about a flight shorter than twelve hours gets scant sympathy from me!) but too expensive for me most of the time. Malaysian Airlines are nice as well.

Bad airlines? Don't ever fly Air Namibia. The food will kill you. Korean Air isn't a bundle of laughs either.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 1999

I grew up in Maine and used to travel from home upstate to school downstate and back again. I never had a good flight. At the time, Bar Harbor Airlines was the only airline flying into my hometown, and all they had were these tiny little planes -- Beachcraft 99s. You feel every little bump and bounce in those things. The worst flight that I remember happened in the winter. It was snowing hard, but we managed to take off from Portland okay and land in Bangor. I still had another leg of the flight. That was a nightmare. Of the 17 or seo people on the flight, probably 15 of them were getting sick because of the turbulence (or because the people around them were getting sick). I didn't get sick, but that's because I was too busy being afraid I was going to die. We'd bounce, bounce, bounce and then drop. To cap this off, they lost my luggage.

When I came back from Europe, I flew Iceland Air. Cheap, but the seats were really close together, and there's no inflight movie. I was sick with the flu, and I couldn't sleep, and there was a screaming kid on the flight who didn't let up. When we got to the scheduled stop in Iceland, I just wanted to stay there. We were late getting to NYC, too, so I wound up running the length of the terminal, coughing and wheezing and sneezing all the way, to make my connecting flight.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 1999

As a travel agent, I get to hear curses and praise regarding all airlines, and the only airlines I never hear bad things about are Qantas, Air New Zealand, Virgin Atlantic, and Thai Airways.

The complaints roll in for each and every US domestic carrier more or less equally distributed, with special invective reserved for whoever has the local monopoly in your area.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 1999

Qantas (I'm taking your word for how to spell it, Lucy) had the friendliest employees I've ever encountered, plus they were all really good looking. For what it's worth.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 1999

Qantas = Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service.

-- Anonymous, August 12, 1999

You're so smart, travel agent lady. Question: how much do you get to hear about how people's trips turn out? Do they bombard you with airline complaints? And if so, do you have any really good horror stories? (Like people missing their own weddings, being flooded out in Cancun during hurricane season with no way to get home, etc.)

-- Anonymous, August 12, 1999

I rarely hear about how the trips went, actually. It's pretty frustrating, especially if I placed the clients in a new hotel or a new (to me) destination. I want to know the good and the bad since I can't get to every single place myself. For this reason I usually send a "welcome back" note to leisure clients (either paper or e- mail) mentioning how much I'd like to hear about how it all went.

Horror stories? Sure, we hear 'em, but nothing worse than I've read right in this topic. Stupendously boneheaded client stories, though, I've got a million of them. Like the guy who called me from Anguilla to complain about his room. He demanded we tell the management to send him an "American" tv. He was really angry because all the programming was in French. I laughed until the tears rolled down my face over that one. Thank god for headsets and mute buttons.

My other favorite was the couple who called me from their hotel room somewhere in the Caribbean and asked me to call the manager at their resort to get their room changed. I explained it would be much, much faster if they simply went downstairs and asked him themselves. They refused, so I actually called the manager (on my dime, mind you) for them to change it. I told him to put them next to the elevator.

If only I could charge an "Annoying Me Once Too Often" fee.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 1999

my worst experience flying (southworst airlines) was on a thanksgiving weekend. it was a flight from burbank airport to s.f. airport to visit my brother dave...yes u know him... it took 13 hours to "fly" there one way. i could have rented a car and driven there faster, but then where's the adventure in that i ask you???? so, that would be my worst experience, unless of course you count the time i flew to nebraska with a friend (for thanksgiving weekend of course). 15 degrees outside without the windchill factor, and my luggage (ie, all my warm clothes,hell, all my clothes) flew to denver to visit the broncos i guess...i got my luggage finally the day before i was to depart lovely lincoln, neb. needless to say i voted for watching the "big game", neb. vs. oklahoma football (heehaa..) from a local sports bar, to avoid the in-person 10 degrees above freeze-ur-ass-off lovely weather!!, so, take ur pick!!! -m

-- Anonymous, August 14, 1999