Air travel - your experiences

air travel is a bad joke to be honest. people that travel a lot i suppose get used to it. But the sheer lack of good info or help from airlines, airports, travel agents, customs etc is awful.

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Try spending over 12h at Heathrow over a light chilly drizzle for a flight to Toronto that eventually gets cancelled (meanwhile flights to Montreal and Boston have already left laughing), then have to go through Customs all over again because you "technically left the country". Oh and customs is a room the size of an airplane hanger where the entire floor is covered with a line snaking the entire surface. Then waste a day in London working till 10PM because it's a Monday and no one's covering for you back home. Then get a flight to Chicago the next day, which does thankfully arrive safely, if a tad delayed. As you leave the airplane the flight staff is hurrying you down the walkway where big orange envelopes containing your boarding passes for your connecting flight are tacked on and you have to GTFO to another terminal because it's leaving RIGHT NOW! Run your ass right up to the gate to board only to be told that flight is now cancelled.

Reign in your now justifiable homicidal rage and get a hotel for the night, get up at 5AM and finally fly home.

This is why I don't fly to Europe anymore. At least not in winter.

Best flight experience I ever had:
- Wanted to fly from Europe to NYC
- After an 8 hour flight, as we approached, JFK there was a storm and they closed the airport for half an hour (which apparently was exactly our landing slot).
- They flew circles for about 2 hours, then they diverted to Washington DC
- Landed in Washington but didn't have a gate. We had to stay on the plane for another 2 hours.
- Then they taxied back on the tarmac and told us they'll take off again and fly us to JFK.
- After another hour just standing on the runway, they said that it's too late now and they are closing JFK already.
- So we rolled back and had to wait another hour for a gate
- After 15 hours on the plane, we were allowed to debark in Washington at 1 am. They told us there would be buses to drive us to NY but since the airline didn't have ground personal in Washington, there was no one to tell us anything specific.
- After another hour and a half on a parking lot, 2 small buses arrived. Probably with enough space to hold about 1/3 of the people there.
- I was lucky and got on one of the buses. They drove us through the night for about 4.5 hours and (despite the fact that they actually drove through Manhattan) would only let us out at JFK, saying that that was the destination we had booked. It was 5 am and the airport was closed, no services, no taxis, no air train connection to get to the subway, no nothing.
- In the end, me and another passenger got into the only (shifty private) taxi that was there to bring us into the city. Obviously the driver tried to rip us off and we only got out with a normal price when threatening to sue him.

Throughout this entire thing, we didn't get as much as a drop of water (all the way from approaching NYC at 7 pm to getting home at about 8 am). You couldn't even get away for 5 minutes to buy something in Washington because you didn't know when you might have to be around if things happened.

Fun fun fun! At least, after complaining, I got a couple of hundred dollar voucher from the airline for my next flight. Wouldn't really say it was worth it though.

In b4 someone sez I prefer to drive 72 hours, instead of using pleb's transportation systems.

Well, the maximum hours of flight I've had was about 4-5 hours and it wasn't that bad. 5 hours of Good flight > 1 hour of Ryan Air!



I haz no fear yo! Flights are as safe as it can be!

I'm currently at an airport, too. I have been here since 4am this morning (it is now almost noon local time) when I found out I got bounced from a flight the airline overbooked. Was supposed to depart at 6:00am. Now I'm hoping to get on a flight that departs at 6pm local time, so uh, got a ways to go. And once I get on that flight it's still going to be 15 hours before I'm finally back home. Going to be in a borderline dis-associative state from jet-lag and exhaustion by the time I land.

Noise cancelling headphones help a lot, but yeah, it's no use if you've got a baby crying next to you.

For long flights like over 12 hours, sometimes I just pop some Xanax and pass out.

After you get through the security, buy a bottled drink before you board.

Or just ask the flight attendant for more water.

Tried that already, the crew of the planes I boarded so far told me that I am not allowed to take fluids of any kinds on board, even from the ''safe area''.  

No, just inside the European Union and yeah, no water allowed but the stuff they serve, at least the Airlines I traveled with.  They demanded to throw water bottles in the bin right before entering the gangway. I usually hydrate myself pretty hard before boarding a plane, but it never lasts for the entire flight and I get a sore throat and all kinds of dehydration related problems. 

Fun fact, the harshest security check I ever got - including drug dogs, explosives trace detection and taking a reeeeally close look at my camera lenses - was at the Keflavík Airport in Iceland, when leaving. And - according to my own experiences- the laziest security checks happen in Germany. Who would have thunk, huh? 

Always been good. Tho i hate and will resist eating plane food tho. It's also a good thing I don't get airsick (like i get carsick tho)