My Worst, Most Memorable Flights Ever, From The Scary To The Awkward

Over the years, I’ve flown well over five million miles, across a countless number of airlines. Obviously there’s some variance between flights, but for the most part, things go pretty smoothly, and not much catches me off guard.

Of course some flights are more memorable than others. I typically make lists with what I consider to be my best flight experiences, though in this post, I figure it’s fun to maybe share some of the worst flight experiences I’ve had over the years.

The focus with this list is on flights that were memorable in a negative way, rather than just being bad in line with expectations. In other words, the list won’t have flights where I flew economy on an ultra low cost carrier, and the legroom was limited.

Heck, I’m not even including most of the things I’ve experienced over time that are strange and uncomfortable but that happen, which may rattle the average traveler, from engine failures, to lightning strikes, to deaths onboard, to people being removed from flights in handcuffs. I’m also not including things like Air India first class or Pakistan International Airlines business class, which are known to be subpar, so I came in with low expectations.

Longtime OMAAT readers may remember some or all of these. So here we go, in no particular order…

In this post:

Hmmm, I found that odd, and wondered what was going on. Then the purser approached me, and accused me of videotaping the crew. That was simply false and baseless — like, I don’t take pictures of people. She argued with me a bit, and then I insisted on showing her my camera roll, so she could see I hadn’t done that.

Rather than apologizing for the misunderstanding, she simply walked off. I felt embarrassed and super uncomfortable. When she later came around to serve me, I politely told her that I didn’t appreciate the way she handled that situation, and that I felt embarrassed by the way she treated me. She then became defense, claiming she hadn’t “accused” me of anything, but instead, simply “asked.”

Disappointment in China Southern first class

In February 2014, I flew China Southern’s A380 first class from Los Angeles to Guangzhou, which I was looking forward to, as an A380 enthusiast. It was just a really bad experience, not at all in line with what you’d expect in first class.

A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.