Moronic Passenger Stories

[Corbon]

In Tampa we do the regular "walk across the ramp to the RJ" boarding. As usual, there are various unused jetways in the area. Well, one day we were boarding and one pax, instead of walking all the way to the aircraft all the other passengers were going, took a 180 degree turn, walked to the outside stairs on a jetway that was only attached to the terminal, and proceeded to climb them thinking it was going to magically transport him to an airplane, even though there was no other plane on the ramp besides ours. He got all the way to the top and was trying to open the door before a ramper caught up to him.

While deadheading in uniform, one woman requested to sit next to me because she was a fearful flyer. She was telling me how she wrote the FBI a letter suggesting they do something to prevent terrorists from just opening the emergency exits in flight. I think she felt a little dumb, but maybe relieved when I explained the many benefits of pressurization.

 

[Typhoon1244]

I heard one about a passenger... [who wrote] the company a letter about how the pilots...on a J-32...did not do a mag check before takeoff.

When my father was chief pilot at SunJet, he handled a few letters like this...someone made the same "mag-check" complaint about one of their MD-80 crews. They also got a letter complaining that SunJet's pilots were flying airplanes with "broken tail ailerons." (Apparently he saw the elevators flopping around in the breeze...)

Not long after Alaska lost that MD-80 off the west coast, when the media was full of talk about stabilizers and jackscrews, dad had a passenger approach him at the gate and ask if they had that "stabilizer problem" fixed yet. He smiled and told her that the stabilizers were causing so many problems that the company had finally just removed all of them. The passenger was greatly relieved.

I almost became a stupid passenger once. I had never even stood near a Fokker 100 before, and now I was riding one to Long Beach for a checkride...and I was beginning to wonder when the crew was going to configure the airplane for takeoff. The flaps were still up when they went to takeoff power, so I gritted my teeth and hoped everything would be fine.

It was...and I learned something about F-100's I didn't know! (Glad I didn't speak up... )

 

[flatspin7]

In my previous job - we had the pax take a photo with the captain before we left. I was standing around back of the plane to keep the people contained until the capt was done with the photos and boarded the plane.


One of the first pax comes back to me and askes me if I am the pilot-- I respond yes.
He next question was "Well if you the pilot who is he?" motioning to the Capt.

I explain the virtures of a 2 pilot cockpit, when she looks at me with a confused look and says " OH I thought he was just here for the pictures!!!'

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On a seperate note, I just got off a trip where the flight attendant decided to tell everybody on the plane that it was my first ever landing in the plane. (It wasnt) The weather was about 500 overcast and 1 mi vis. I make a decent landing... once at the gate all of the pax congradulated me on the landing.

 

[rk772]

We were descending our SAAB into Tyler on a hot Texas day. Before passing through 10, I turned on the seatbelt sigh and could hear the FA give the “stay in your seat for the remainder of the flight” announcement.
The lav in the Eagle Saab is installed directly behind the FO’s seat. A few minutes later the toilet seat hit me in the back and I knew that someone had not listened to the announcements. 5 seconds after this we hit a downdraft that threw me up into my seatbelt. I knew this guy must have been in full stream and probably hit the ceiling. A few minutes later the FA called and asked us to request for someone to clean the lav before our leg back to DFW. She said the guy, who’s pants were pretty wet, actually had the nerve to complain about our flying skills.




I was commuting home in the back of an 80 one day when this lady sat down beside me and gave me the “aren’t you supposed to be in the cockpit” comment. I just happened to have my computer in my lap. I quickly clicked on my flight sim program and brought up a screenshot of an instrument panel and told the lady that we were in the final testing phase of a pilot-less cockpit and I would be monitoring the progress of the flight from my computer. I told her that I had a set of controls in my bag and could plug them in and quickly take control of the aircraft at anytime if the auto system stopped working. This was of course before 9/11. I wouldn’t dare mention taking control of the aircraft now.

 

[Ailerongirl]

One day, going from ATL-FAY, the gate boarded a pax that in hindsight was questionable to fly since he had been in the bar prior to boarding. He was walking and talking just fine, so we all assumed that it would be okay. He sat down and promptly went to sleep. With only 5 people on board, the beverage service was quick, and I was sitting in my jumpseat when I saw this guy get up and head to the back of the plane. Since it was a smooth flight and he was stumbling pretty bad I jumped up to go see what he was doing. By the time I made it to the emergency exit in row 8, he'd stopped at row 9. I asked him if everything was okay, and I recieved no answer....I ducked into row 8 to peek around him, just in time to see a stream coming from mid-body right into the floor in front of the seat at row 10! I yelled, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!??!?!?" He turned around, and STILL PEEING, stuffed himself back in his pants, stuttering 'uhh..uhhh..errr..uhhh'. I pointed to 7A and said 'SIT DOWN', which he did, and then said "BUCKLE UP AND DON'T MOVE FOR THE REST OF THE FLIGHT...DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME??" He buckled up, mumbled a yes, and promptly passed out.
My poor crew had a very irate me busting into the cockpit (pre 9/11) to say 'He F$$$ing peed!!!!!!!!' They of course thought it was hilarious, and when we landed in FAY we had the local police cart him off. We ended up having to ferry the flight back to ATL becasue it stunk so bad in the back!

 

[rk772]

I had a female friend who was an FO on a 1900. She was telling me about her first complaint from a passenger and showed me a copy of a letter written to her chief pilot from this angry person. He was mad because the “flight attendant” gave a couple of safety announcements before taxi and then went and sat in the cockpit and talked to the pilot for the rest of the flight. He said she never even offered him a drink and at one time he actually saw her flying the airplane and turning knobs on the instrument panel.

 

[belchfire]

1) Christmastime, 2000...as a new FO and
debating the virtues of hauling self-propelled
biohazards instead of ones that I had to load
into the aztec by myself I was stopped by a
couple that asked me "how much does it cost
to call flori(duh!) on that payphone?" I took
a bite of my pizza (fresh, not frozen,one of the
few virtues of passenger terminals over freight)
and told them "I don't know, I'd use my
cellphone." and walked off...(wondering when
Ma Bell employees started wearing stripes)...

2) STL, in the days before AA disembowled the
TWA system...J-32...about #27 for departure
on a filthy weather day...a tap on my shoulder
from the person in 1A and the usual "Are you
going to start the other engine?" "Yeah" says
I, "in about 40 minutes or so...gotta save fuel."

3) I did my usual "Everyone on this plane is going
to Laffaytte Indiana, right? Not Louisianna! We
are going to watch the Purdue Boilermakers, not
eat Crawfish Etuffe! There will be no Frog Gigging
where we are going, the ponds are frozen solid!"
(er, yeah, I'd been down this path before)...
I finish my briefing, strap in, the FO finishes the
paperwork and closes the door and someone says
to me "I think that those ladies think that we are
going to Louisianna." Sure as sh!t they were, and
they missed the last flight of the day to LA.

Lord, please let my fly planes full of pallets and
big containers! I fear what I will do if someone
ever belittles one of my female FO's...

Of course I forgot the one about New Year's eve,
when the Pax ran off the airplane in OWB and
started pounding on the terminal door to be let
in. Ramper walks over to the door and can't get
it unlocked till after the guy, standing right next
to the door and in front of the other pax, starts
wizzing on the juniper bushes! The beautiful thing
was that this ramper is an off duty cop! No New
Year's party for that guy, he was in the clink!

Hehehe!

 

[atrdriver]

I probably had one of these stories written about me. Before I started my flying career I was on a 1900 sitting over the right wing. About 30 minutes into the flight a panel on the inboard of the right engine started flapping pretty bad, so I thought I'd tell the pilots. I went up and knocked on the bulkhead, and the curtain opens and the FO askes me what I want. I told him about the panel, and he says that's normal. As I walked back to my seat I heard both pilots laughing about the dip$hit passenger. About 20 minutes later the panel flew off and I was looking into the side of the engine. I went back up and knocked again, and when the FO looked out at me I asked him if it was normal when the panels flew off. They didn't do a whole lot of laughing after that.

 

[crazee8]

Years ago when I was a J-32 captain, a female passenger came up to the cockpit and with a fairly desperate tone said, "Is there an airplane in this bathroom?" Without missing a beat I said, "No there's not." I figured it was an accurate enough description of the plane - even though she got the words turned around.

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Again as a J-32 captain: After a looong flight to White Plains, NY, I noticed a nasty smell emanating from the first two rows. I figured it was leftover smelly passengers. OH CONTRARE!!

A guy in jogging shorts managed to squeeze a couple perfectly formed, 6 inch logs out onto the seat and left them there just as pretty as you please in full view of everyone.

He also gifted the NY Vinnie rampers standing at the entry door with, as they descriptively yelled up to me in classic New Yorker accent: "Whew!!! That guy just blew a mean fart right in my face!"

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Years ago I was waiting for my commute flight out of Rochester. The gate beside me was used by Skyway (I think was the name of the airline) and they flew a 1900 if memory serves.

Well, the plane arrived at the gate and one 30ish year old couple waiting for departure time on that plane peered out those large glass windows at the plane.

The man portion of the couple had a complete apoplexy when he saw the plane and began YELLING at the top of his lungs. "What the he!! is that? Are they serious? I'm not getting on that thing - - I have rights. I have the right to not get on that plane - - I refuse to get on that plane. Are they f--king nuts? -- I have rights..."

5 minutes later after constant yelling, his wife managed him to get him to shut up by promising him he didn't have to get on the plane. It was pure entertainment for the rest of us passengers in the terminal.

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Oh! I have so much more!!

 

[Chicken Taco]

Had one a few months back that I gotta add..

We were boarding in BOS, and a pax comes out of the terminal with one of those big fold-in-half zip together garment bags with wheels and a handle that becomes kind of a rollaboard. Since it's an E145 with minimal overhead space and we're full, the FA tells him that he'll have to gate check it. At this point I'm in the galley getting coffee and hear some raised voices, so I peek out to see what's up. He's doing the "do you know who I am" speech, that he's Dr. so-and-so and he's a million-mile traveler who does this trip twice a week, and he's never had this sort of rude treatment before. Of course the pax always claims that this is the first FA to give him grief over his giant carryon, but it's usually BS..

I grab the pax list from the wall clip, and sure enough, he IS a Gold Medallion, SkyMiles Elite, paid-full-fare type. I really am not in the mood to throw somebody off, and I have a feeling that he knows better, and is maybe just having a bad day. I decide to see if I can help smooth things over, and step up to the door to join the conversation and try to calm him down.

He repeats the story of never having a bag problem before on however-many hundred segments before, and I immediately noticed two things:

1. There is no way this bag will fit, it's bigger than my PNT bag and pretty rigid looking.

2. It looks way too nice to be the bag used on his million-mile journey. It has no scuffs or dirt on it, is a very clean bright red, and the wheels still have the nice little mold lines around them.

me: Sir, i understand that you've never had a luggage problem before, and I just want to make sure that we don't have a problem today either, is that by chance a new bag?

him: Yeah, i just got it yeaterday, why?

me: Is it the same as your old bag?

him: No, the old one was a soft garment bag that rolled up in thirds like a tote bag and had a shoulder strap. I got tired of carrying it, and it didn't have enough room for what I carry.

me: So this is the first time that you've used this bag, and also the first time you've had a problem.

him (wheels starting to turn in his head): Umm...ahhhh.... yeah, but like I said, I've done this trip before with my old bag. oh, wait, yeah, I see the problem. I guess I should have thought of that. Sorry.

At this point he makes one of the most gracious apologies that i have ever heard to my FA, and proceeds to gete check the big red bag. I can't say that I ever remembered a pax actually backing down and doing the right thing, and I quietly complimented him on it and thanked him for not being a jerk. About three weeks later I get a copy of a letter to customer service complimenting my crew, and thanking us for not having him removed for being an @sshole.

I would have never believed it, but pax CAN be taught..

..CT