Airport stories..

[afflaf]

Now and then we hear stuff about airports and airlines etc watching Diggnation and TRS, so now I ask you guys, you got a good airport/flight story?

I can start with one of many stories I got (due to my name I end up in lots of weird situations at airports..)

This happened at the airport in Vienna, Austria, I went through security to board the flight to Melbourne Australia. The guy at the security check in says that there's something wrong with my boarding pass and prints me a new one.

We walk into this the terminal where 150+ people are waiting to board the plane. After 30min it's time to board and I get up and stand second in the queue. The guy at the boarding gate checks my boarding pass and looks at me.. "what's this? there's something wrong with your boarding pass...".

By then people behind me get curious about what's wrong and started paying attention..

"the guy at the security check in just gave me this, he said there was something wrong with the other one I had.."

he looks at it and decides to check his logs, but instead of walking the 20 feet to the computer he yells to some girl that's standing there..

"HEY SARAH! CAN YOU PLEASE CHECK MR. ALI JEHAD!? SOMETHING WRONG WRONG WITH HIS BOARDING PASS!"

Suddenly the whole place gets quite.. I turned around and every single person was just staring at me..and they looked TERRIFIED! got bad looks throughout the whole flight ..

[brettville]

Dude...I know that probably sucked but I laughed out loud, so at least you got some entertainment value out of it. I have a crap ton of stupid airport stories but here are a couple from the trip I'm on now.

This is from when the police were called on me because I was walking NEAR an airport while carrying a camera. I know...felony in the making. What was I thinking?

http://www.amtrekker.com/pictures/54


And here's the airport story from the day I finally gave up.

http://www.amtrekker.com/pictures/65

[siraim]

Oh man.. I'm very sorry.. that couldn't have made for a comfortable flight. :) You'd think I'd have better stories, given that I'm in airports an even number of times most weeks. I tend to blend while going through security and I've learned all the tricks of getting through and avoiding the hassle. (having airline frequent flyer status helps.)

The only "story" I've got is from back in November. A family was traveling that clearly didn't do much flying. The mom was pushing a stroller in which their baby was sleeping. She took off her shoes and jacket to place them on the x-ray machine and then turned to walk through the metal detector. The TSA guy told her that the stroller had to go through the machine. She turned back to the conveyor belt, paused and then asked the TSA guy, "Does my baby have to go through the machine too?" There was NO hint of sarcasm in her voice.. and thankfully the TSA guy just giggled before telling her to take the baby out first.

So.. it just cracked me up..

[lstone]

Flying from Toronto to Calgary on New Years Eve 1999, minutes before the apocalypse.

The flight was empty of course, so I had a whole 3 seat row to myself. about halfway through the flight the pilot gets on the PA. "Well the plane thinks its in the year 2000 and we haven't fallen out of the sky yet.....so uhhh......happy new year" the flight attendents then handed out champaign to everyone.

It was easily the best flight ever

PS. just a side note. Brett, I just finished spending a few hours on your site. Amazing stuff man

[blooper]

I was on a Phoenix once and the old guy next to me started doing rosaries about midway through the flight. He might have been nervous, but I started to think he knew something I didn't, making me want to start to do some myself... and I don't even know what to do.

[afflaf]

Haha yeah sucks being there sometimes but can't do much more than laugh at the whole thing afterwards I guess.. and to be honest I couldnt care less if people gave me looks :)

LStone

man if only one of my flights would have been like that :P

This is what happened when I got to melbourne after about 20hours+

I just got my bag and I was walking with a dude I met on the flight, we decided to get to melbourne together from the airport so we get moving to the last security check..

there must have been atleast 200 people + standing in 4 different queues, waiting to get through. after about 10minutes I was in the middle of it all and all of a sudden this guard walks up to me and says "Hello Sir could you please follow me? this is for your own security!"

didnt put to muh thought and basically said alright and followed him.. I thought he was letting me get by the security cause he brought me to my own "security check".. it was basically a huge table with another security guy on the other side..

"Sir can you please unlock your bag and put it on the table?"

I do it..

Security puts on some gloves and starts going through EVERYTHING I have in my bag..

"Sir did you pack everything here yourself?"

me - yes, positive!

(I forgot that I had a small bag with basically two high heels, a dress and some girly stuff that belonged to my friend that moved to Melbourne 2 weeks before me..)

he pulls out one of the high heels and just looks at me..

I giggle and tell him that it belongs to my friend who bla bla bla bla..

after like 15minutes he'd basically gone through every tiny bit in my bag..

then he calls me up from where I was sitting and brings up a pair of sneakers I had my bag.. they had like a TINY bit of dirt at the bottom cause I wore them a few days before and he points at the dirt with his pen and says with a pissed off tone "SIR YOU DO KNOW IT'S ILLEGAL TO BRING SOIL INTO THE COUNTRY??"

... I was like.. are you ****ing kidding me? you can't be serious... that's just some dirt that's cought in there.. you expect me to clean it with my toothbrush just to bring it through the damn security?

security guy brings up his radio, "Matt can you come to station 5"

this fat bald dude walks up to the table after a minute and takes my sneakers.. I get told to put all my stuff back into the bag and follow him.. after 10minutes I get them back.. soaking wet from some anti-germ bath that he sad was crucial.. I can't even explain how pissed off I was!

but hey.. shit happens ;)

[heyseuss]

This happened at the airport in Vienna, Austria, I went through security to board the flight to Melbourne Australia.

I thought the story was going a different way. Taking off from Aus to fly to Aus could confuse them. My Australian mother was frequently told she was Austrian by airport officials.

I have a zillion airport/flying stories, but the one that sticks out (not including the time my bags came off the plane smouldering in Australia or the time I dislocated my shoulder muscles from my ribs in the cargo hold in Glasgow or the time I set off an alarm in Honolulu and got an military response) is the time I was poisoned and had to pass through a security checkpoint 3 times in Montreal Canada paying a $10 departure tax each time, to throw up in the bathrooms. I ended up passing out at the gate and woke to find 3 mounties holding my convulsing body down. Ambulance ride across the tarmac and a day in a Montreal hospital later, I got on the same flight the next morning and had various mounties and security and gate staff, wish me well and say "it's good to see you're alright sir". I didn't even recognise them but as I progressed to my gate, I got many weird looks of relief. BTW, flying without your luggage or carryons even is very difficult. In flight ANYTHING (mags, books, music) doesn't compare to your own prepared backpack.

[heyseuss]

"Sir did you pack everything here yourself?"

me - yes, positive!


All the years I've been asked that and said yes .. ... one time at band ca -,. wait, no, one time flying from Australia to America I unpack in the hotel in los angeles and find a framed picture of my gf in my suitcase between the stacks of clothes. It was just a picture, but it still surprised the hell outta me.

[ryanknapper]

Oh, crap. I was going to write about how the Airport I have set up to extend the wireless net at work is all wonky and refuses to work properly.

I guess the on topic story would be when I got lost in the Rome airport, missed my flight back to the States and had to spend twenty-five hours trapped with no money, no place to sleep and no books. This was during the first Gulf War so the security was extra tight and there was no leaving. Additionally, this was before iPods.
When I couldn't sleep sitting up all I had to do was stare at people with loathing.

[tokenuser]

I have arrived in Sydney, Los Angeles, and London without luggage. KNOWING your luggage has been delayed (trip to London and Sydney) is actually not bad, as it allows you to breeze through customs pretty quickly.
Not knowing where your luggage is is a PITA.

The upside is that I always travel with clean socks and underwear, and it going from cold to hot climate, a pair of shorts (or where my "convertable" trousers). Hotels always have basic toiletries available (tooth brush and paste, etc) if you ask the desk.

I was stranded at Charlotte airport. It was snowed in, and in the end I caught the train (Amtrak) back to Chapel Hill. Nerves were getting frayed at the airport, but there are ways to make the time pass.

I had a data projector, and two DVDs ... someone else had a set of portable speakers. We set up a theatre, and watched movies all night. People pooling DVDs to watch. It passed the time :)

[afflaf]

ryanknapper

may I ask where you were positioned during the first gulf war?

Heyseuss

man that's sounds aweful :S

tokenuser

that sounds like a pretty nice thing to do to pass time, wish I would have hat that when I had to pass 76 hours in tunis airport ..

[tokenuser]

Did I mention that my name flags watch lists each time I cross the US/Canada border (and I do that trip about 6 times per year). It appears I share my name with someone that is on a flight restriction - a little inconvenient, but now I hand my passport over, smile, say "I am not the other guy, I am friendly :)", they laugh, hand the passport back, and let me though.

Unfortunately, when I travel one way (which I often do because of multi leg trips on different airlines), I also get singled out for the SSSS on my ticket. If you ever see that on a boarding pass, it means you are in for a search.

[brettville]

Aarrgh! The dreaded SSSS! I ALWAYS fly one way (because frankly there's almost never a reason to go back to were I came from) and get "super seached." That's what finally drove me to just give up and walk to the front of the line, show off my S's and hand over my bag. Now I'm that guy that makes TSA work for it.

[casually-drowned]

One time I was at the airport in Orlando and I went up to the counter and asked to purchase a one way ticket with cash. The person at the counter had no clue what to do, and had to call their manager over to figure out how to conduct a transaction with cash; it took almost 20 minutes of confusion before I walked away with the ticket in my hand. I know that it is an odd thing to do, but the circumstances at the time made it so that was my only choice, and besides they still offer the service of selling tickets at the counter.