I once had a whole row to myself… until the guy in front of me noticed, and decided to sit in my row. He pulled out a trash bag (literally, a black trash bag) of pop corn, and chewed on it for a half hour. Then, an hour in, he took out a box of dumplings. And then, if that didn’t radiate enough smell, he took out a pastrami sandwich. Then to round out the flight, back to the trash bag of popcorn. 

If you told me he was Frank Reynolds, I would have believed it. 

Luckily all my worst flying stories just involve delays ---sitting on the plane for 2 hours, deplaning, and then getting told the flight was canceled, etc. The worst delay was when I was flying back to NYC from a 48hr trip to Chicago for a friend's wedding. I had a 2pm flight, and had a job interview the next day. There were so many delays I don't think we landed at JFK until after midnight! Then we had to take a stupid bus to get us to the terminal. I don't think I got home before 2am.

Jan 20, 2017. Was flying to New Orleans for a girls trip out of LGA. On the plane, on the tarmac, we just had to sit. And wait. Because "someone" was scheduled to leave New York for Washington DC for a "big event", but wasn't on his plane yet, and as LGA usually works, only one runway was functioning, and this "someone" had the right of way. So we had to sit, for HOURS — truly 2.5 hours — before "someone" took off and made the next four years really, really, really bad. 

My mom and I were coming back from Florida and we had a connecting flight in Philly but there was bad weather so they rerouted us to DC. We then proceeded to sit on the tarmac for 5 hours before taking off and then obviously we had missed our other flight so we spent the rest of the night in Philly airport. What a joy! 

Oh, and I was once taking a 45-minute flight between Pittsburgh and NYC that was supposed to take off at 2pm. We finally took off at 11:30pm. We flew for what seemed like a long time — 90 minutes, to be exact — before the pilot came on and said we had flown to NYC only to find out the airport was closed, so we flew all the way back to Pittsburgh. 

Took me almost 12 hours to travel right back to where I started.

Charleston to NYC. The flight attendant comes on and asks if there's a LynneCurtainsCuffe on the plane. I raise my hand. They proceed to say that the plane is overweight limit, and I have to get off. Now, it was because I was the last one to board, not because of my weight, but it felt like it was! So I was kicked off the flight and had to wait hours for the next one. I got drunk at the airport bar and then lost my flip phone. It was a time!

Couple with a baby say next to me. Thought I would be in for some cries, but no biggie. But the father in the middle seat chewed and spit tobacco the entire time, spitting it into a water bottle he stored between our seats.

Once when I was in high school, I was on a school trip flight and sat next to a girl I thought was cute so we started talking and right before I asked for her number, she pulled out a jar of honey mustard sauce and started eating it with a spoon. I was so shocked, I froze in my seat the rest of the flight. I didn't know how to react because it felt like my reality was falling apart. 

I'm going on vacation in a few weeks so my mind is just completely set to vacay mode. All I think about is packing, making arrangements for when I'm away and, of course, getting on the plane. I don't love flying (what weirdo actually does) and while I've never been in a terrifying life-or-death situation while in the air (phew) I have had some bad experiences. 

I'd have to say the worst one was a flight to Nashville in the summer of 2019 (my own fault for going there in the summer, for real) when the air conditioning on the flight was busted and when it did kick in, it blew hot air. I don't like being hot and feeling stuffy and without cool air on A PLANE for two hours really tested me. I had to do some serious breathing exercises and just tell myself, "You'll get through this." I did. Just barely. 

What about you? Was it a crying baby on a flight to Australia that drove you to your breaking point? Did the drunk guy next to you talk your ear off, even when you were trying to watch a movie? Or, did you ever experience something genuinely terrifying like turbulence or an emergency landing? 

Worst experience you've ever had on a flight?