Do you have a story? Airport boredom or adventure

[Pauke! Pauke!]

Total boredom: Waiting for a flight at McCarran Airport. Bored out of my mind so much that I'm taking pictures of myself at the airport bar. Who has a story of Airport boredom or adventure?

[Railrunner130]

Ok. First off, put the camera DOWN! Drunk picture taking can lead to nothing good!

Just kidding!

Me and the new Mrs. were trapped in a hotel room for two days during Tropical Storm/ Hurricane Omar. We went on a tour the day before it hit where the guide made a point to explain that they hadn't had a Hurricane on Curacao since 1898.

[Panther_99FS]

:icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol:

[smoores]

I once had a 40 second layover.

[Navy Chief]

What a coincidence that you mention airport layovers, as I was talking about an experience I had as a young boy of 11 yrs old.

In 1964, my parents put me on a flight from Indianapolis, IN to Birmingham, AL, for a visit with some family friends. They lived in Jasper, AL, and planned to drive up to pick me up in Birmingham.

When the flight I was on from Indy (I think it was a Convair 880) landed in Atlanta on the first flight, the second flight to Birmingham was canceled or I missed it (can't remember what happened, exactly).

But I spent over 12 hours in the Atlanta airport at age 11. I distinctly remember a janitor taking me to a passenger VIP room, and providing me with a pillow, blanket, food, magazines, etc...., and made sure I was safe.

Can you imagine such a thing happening nowadays? Heck, an Amber alert would have been issued, and the janitor probably put in prison!!!!

NC

[mike_cyul]

How about spending about 20 or so hours on a BA 747, sometime in the late 1990's? Wouldn't land in light snow in Montreal after 7.5 hour flight, so we went to Detroit, where US custom wouldn't let us off. Then after some 6 hours of waiting, the crew ran out of duty hours so no one could fly us out of there and they had no replacement crew in North America. After 8 further hours of them telling us a replacement crew was being flown over from the UK, they then told us that, uhh, no they actually aren't. The plane ran out of water and food so we had the cabin crew order pizza to the plane. I forget who paid. We all got one slice. They finally let us off at 3 in the morning, and then you have 300 or so passengers in Detroit terminal and no one there to tell us what to do. No one. 300 extremely irritated and exhausted people can make a noise, so eventually we were shunted to a hotel. My room has the windows wide open when I went in, for some reason, and this is mid-winter in Detroit. The bed was as cold as a block of ice, no exaggeration, but I didn't give a damn at that point.

BA has also lost my baggage every single time I have flown with them, which stopped at around 7 flights as I now will not fly with them. Once, I had a window seat, and watched out the window at Heathrow as the baggage carts were loaded onto the plane. I couldn't believe my eyes when the handler seemed to deliberately leave two bags on the cart and drive off - my bags. Another time they put an entire baggage container onto the wrong plane, which then flew off with it.

They also lost my wheelchair-bound 80 year mother once, believe it or not. I was waiting for her to come through the gate after her flight, and about an hour or so later still hadn't turned up. I went to the BA counter, and they would not even tell me if she had been on the plane. The attitude was not exactly customer-friendly, either, to put it mildly. I was frantic. Eventually I went back to the reception erea, and found her in her wheelchair alone, behind a far-off pillar at the far end. She was scared to death. Turns out they had taken her out a different door on the plane, had difficulty getting to the passenger reception lounge, left her until someone came to get her, and once eventually in the reception hall the exployee's job was apparently done and he just left her there. I'm getting angry again just thinking about it.

Voila, my two cents worth of rant. BA pilots, however, have been some of the nicest people I've ever met.

:)

Mike

[luckydog]

I was headed to my gate at Lester B. Pearson (Toronto) after spending the summer working as a white-water river guide on the Ottawa river west of Ottawa (Wilderness Tours, Beachburg, Ont.).

I was intercepted by four very large RCMP and escorted to a small office where an oriental Arnold Schwarzenager sat behind a little desk.
"You like jump out of airplanes, Mr. Shelton?" Arnold asked.....
Duh !! I was wearing a baseball cap that said "Gravity Sucks!" and my jump jacket ( a blue-jean jacket adorned with sky-diving club patches,
SF Airborne on left shoulder, blood wings over my heart, etc.)
" Yes sir, its the most fun you can have with your clothes on", I replied, wondering if they thought I was another D.B. Cooper.
" Why you assault disturb peace and no show for court??" kinda threw me...I thought about it and asked:
"You talking about a bar-fight last June??"
Arnold smiled.
" I showed up for that", I replied ,"But the other guy didn't, probably because I gave him $300 to fix his face. The prosecutor dropped the charges".
.Arnold smiled........he was always smiling.
He said, " Ah, must be old paper !! You know I was Thai Airborne before I come to Canada ? Plane leave in 5 minutes....go now double-time!".

[cheezyflier]

luckydog, that story rocked! :costumes:

[stiz]

according to me parents when i was young (bout 2 or 3) we where flying back from hong kong .. and i screamed all the 12 hrs non stop :icon_twi:

turned out i had an ear infection :isadizzy:

[Craig Taylor]

Mike's rant brought memories of the times I flew BOAC. One of the attendants (but they weren't called that back then :d) would invariably spill whatever drink I had ordered on me. Coke, milk (yuck), OJ - you name it, I wore it. :banghead:

[luckydog]

Part II......Near miss going into Ohare (when I get the time).