Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Flying The Friendly Skies

Whenever possible, I prefer driving over flying. There are many reasons, but here's a few I haven't experienced ... yet...

One of my biggest pet peeves about flying is when the inconsiderate asshole in front of you reclines his/her seat all the way back. I don't mind giving up a little bit of room, but I'm 6' 1" with two bad knees. The last thing I need is some bozo further reducing the already ridiculously small amount of available legroom. I usually counter this intrusion into my space by 'accidentally' bumping the seatback and then apologizing by saying "I'm sorry, but it's just so cramped back here that I every time I shift position I can't avoid hitting your seatback." They usually get the message sooner or later.

I've never gone as far as this guy, but I can't say I've never been tempted.

Man Chokes Woman on Southwest Airlines Jet for Reclining Her Seat
A Southwest Airlines jet was forced to turn back and make an emergency landing at LAX after a male passenger allegedly began choking a woman because she reclined her seat, witnesses said.

Flight 2010, bound for San Francisco, turned around  late Sunday night about 30 minutes into the journey because of a “rapidly escalating situation involving passengers who were not traveling together,” the airline said in a statement.

"Flight 2010, declaring an emergency," the pilot says in audio from the flight. "Evidently we've got two passengers that are in a physical altercation."

Witnesses reported the woman said a man sitting behind her tried to strangle her because she put her seat back...

The unidentified man was detained by Los Angeles Airport Police, but no arrests have been made...

The remaining passengers boarded another flight and arrived in San Francisco five hours late.

That flight was delayed because of human nature. But Mother Nature can also get into the act.

American Airlines Flight Delayed By 1,000 Bees Found Beneath Plane Wing
A thousand uninvited guests tried to board a flight from Texas to Germany – delaying the flight for more than an hour.

A massive swarm of bees were found beneath the wing of an American Airlines plane at Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport just before take-off.

According to reports, the pilot said that the queen bee had flown into the airliner’s wing while it was waiting to depart.

It was the second incident in one day at the airport.

In a statement to INSIDE EDITION, American Airlines said: “We had an issue at DFW with a swarm of bees yesterday afternoon, not once, but twice.

“A 767 came in from LAS and when the Fleet Service started unloading the aircraft, they noticed a lot of bees under the wing and stopped unloading the plane. We called a bee keeper out to deal with the situation. He captured the queen and the swarm and we finished unloading.”

As for the flight that was delayed, thankfully, the bees never entered the passenger cabin and were just in the cargo area.

American Airlines also told INSIDE EDITION: “Unfortunately, not long after the bee keeper left, another swarm decided to visit the same aircraft that we were using for flight 70 to Frankfort, Germany. So, the bee keeper came back and recaptured the swarm.

"We were able to finish loading the cargo and bags shortly after 4:30 p. The flight took off for Frankfort at 4:48 p, about 1:13 minutes past its scheduled departure time. Not your usual everyday situation, but certainly something that our DFW team was able to handle.”
I wonder how the bees got past TSA screening...


Of course, no collection of flying stories would be complete without a "Take this plane to Cuba!" reference. In this case, it's a college professor (of Sociology, naturally) who was the scofflaw.

Woman Caught Smoking on Plane Claims She Was Inspired By Fidel Castro
She said, “I apologize to the passengers if I caused any fear.”

Fifty-two-year-old Karen Halnon is also expressing regret to Penn State University, where she's an Associate Professor of Sociology.

“I do apologize for any harm that I have done to Penn State,” she said.
Halnon was asked, “Why did you light a cigarette on a plane when you know that's illegal?”
(Her answer) is a little kooky. Basically she says it was to show solidarity with her idol - and who's her idol? None other than Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro!
When asked, “What about those people who think, this sounds really wacky?” she replied:
“Anyone who is speaking out for social justice, it is the usual situation that most people will think they're crazy,” she replied.

Halnon was charged with disorderly conduct. 
Hey, I can understand Castro's appeal. In my younger days I was a big fan of Cuba Libres...

5 comments:

Bag Blog said...

In college I went on a kick of drinking Cuba Libres (didn't realize that was how it was spelled or where the name came from - thanks for that). Sometimes after a few drinks, I called them barracudas - some sort of brain dysfunction.

I'm very short, but I still hate it when someone reclines their seat on the airplane. It's okay if we are all sleeping, but when they leave the seat reclined through meals, I become peeved. I may try the choking thang.

CenTexTim said...

Like I said, I can live with a little reclining, but there's a point of no return. I'd love to choke the living daylights out of some jerk that deserves it, but I'm not too fond of jails...

Old NFO said...

The stupid... It SHOULD burn... sigh

CenTexTim said...

Agreed!

Anonymous said...

I'll tell ya what's stupid. IDK what airframe they were on but I assume it was jet powered. And I'll assume it was LAX-SFO flight. The stupid part is the supposedly PIC in the seat at the pointy end. Turn back? Ha! We continue to our destination which, BTW, in any jet airframe is less than one hour from now. In the meanwhile, if my cabin crew can't handle the situation...a big IF...then PNF and a few burly pax get involved. I'm in charge of this ship dammit.

Unless it's some higher up ground pounder in a cubicle who wrestled command authority from the, ahem, captain. I'm pretty sure that's it. This being so, what we have here is a shrinking violet pretending to be command authority. BS on that!