What's your worst flying experience?

Reading the replies, for me the worst are where things go wrong on the ground vs in the air - so the folk's stories where flights get cancelled, or there were issues and they had to spend a day in an airport.
I can deal with being uncomfortable in a plane for hours; will suck but at least I know there's an end in sight and I'll get to where I'm going.
Being stuck in a typically non-English speaking place with no clear understanding of how I'm getting home, that to me is far more stressful. So yeah, some real horror stories here.
 
Internal flight in Finland. Had to walk to the plane through a snow storm at Helsinki airport, boarded, freezing, covered in snow, took off, an hour and a half later returned after circling Vaasa airport half a dozen times. Back in Helsinki, waited 6 hours for the next flight they had put us on. 5 hours later that was cancelled, spent the night in a hotel that they organised and that I eventually got to at 1am before flying next morning.

View as we were about to taxi to take off…

IMG_3153.jpeg
 
About a year ago now, I arrived at check-in at Dakar's new airport. Long story short, the time from check-in to takeoff was just shy of 24 hours.

Ethiopian dispatched one of their old 777's for that route with an INOP APU, on arrival at the en-route stop in Bamako the air start cart on hand broke down. ET eventually flew the spares out not for the airplane but for the start cart, and with a new crew on board.

The rescue airplane ( a 737 MAX) dropped the parts off in Bamako, picked up some passengers and proceeded to Dakar after which then only boarded passengers that needed to travel back to Bamako.

The 777 eventually arrived at 03:00 in the morning (departure was at originally at 08:00 the previous day) with passengers who needed to travel from Bamako to Addis, we boarded and thank goodness traveled direct to Addis from Dakar. As the APU wasn't working the aircon wasn't working on the ground, and that, coupled with lights coming on and off plus passengers who've all been up over 24 hours made for an interesting flight :D 0/10 will not willingly do that again.
 
neoprema said:
They once ran out of Lattes on my Q-suite flight on Qatar. Never again...

lol J/k
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:ROFL:

neoprema said:
since i don't like turbulence despite flying so much, my worst was Montreal to Paris on an A350 in 2022. This thing was getting shoved about like we were a rubber dingy in a hurricane lol.. I was in Business Class and i still hated every moment. For like 3 hours of a 7 hour flight you had to hold on to your drinks or they went walking... With small batches of smoothness in between.
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Can't believe my worst experience is worse than yours, given how you seem to live in the air :- o

Flying back to SA from Singapore, a massive thunderstorm right across the whole Indian Ocean. Wings of the 747-400 literally did flap, and without a break. About 10.5 hours!!

:sick:😵☠️

Thought I was going to become a 👻
 
The Kulula checkin staff that were retrenched and taken over by Qatar Airlines. A bunch of idiots that do not deserve jobs taken by a leading airline to only trash their reputation.

Not all, but Kulula went down for a reason.
 
Brian_G said:
:ROFL:


Can't believe my worst experience is worse than yours, given how you seem to live in the air :- o

Flying back to SA from Singapore, a massive thunderstorm right across the whole Indian Ocean. Wings of the 747-400 literally did flap, and without a break. About 10.5 hours!!

:sick:😵☠️

Thought I was going to become a 👻
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Those wings can flex surprisingly well, so can the fuselage :-)
 
Brian_G said:
I know, have learnt much from pilot friends. Still scary as shyte though
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Yup I can concur :-) no one ever said they should be almost touching the rest of the plane and that they can look like bird wings flapping.
 
Two flights, one local and one into Africa.

1. Very bad landing in East London, late afternoon in a terrible storm. Plane came in over the ocean. (we all knew about the Rietbok by then and what happened to it).

The aircraft hit a downdraft and dropped like a stone just short of the beach over the sea. Scared us all silly.

2. There used to be a milk run from JHB up the West coast of Africa, (stopping at every railway station to pick up milk cans), all the way to Paris. Air Afrique - we called it Air Afraid. Just about every flight I ever took from JHB to Abidjan was filled with drama, things not working, no air con, lights, no food, water - a string of issues. One flight went horribly wrong on landing at Abidjan.

Late as usual, in a monsoon rainstorm where the aircraft hit the deck so hard it bounced 3 times, before blundering to a stop on the runway, with a distinct lean on one side. The lights went out, pitch dark, and no one said anything. Passengers are screaming and trying to get off, but the crew block the exits.

Finally, after about an hour, a vehicle arrived, driving through the rain, all we could see were the headlights. A guy got out, casually walked under the aircraft and then bolted back to his vehicle and drove off. Much later, a tow vehicle arrived and hooked up the aircraft and towed it to the terminal. The sound it made reminded me of a supermarket trolley with a wonky wheel. We disembarked in the rain yards away from the terminal and had to walk.

A week later, when we were due for our return flight, the aircraft was still standing there with the undercarriage on one side collapsed.

Air Afraid lived up to its name - scared the hell out of me.
 
ShaunSA said:
And that's how you met @epah?
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I said things took a turn for the better at that point, so no :ROFL:

that is however where I had Highland Park 12 for the first time, still enjoy it today decades later although it's not the same as before :cautious:

fwiw second worst flight:
- routine Joburg to Cape Town flight, takeoff delayed more than an hour due to weather
- fly all the way to Cape Town, no flights allowed to land, thick fog on the runway
- everyone redirects to George, except we left Joburg so late that everyone else now occupies George airport which had no space left
- redirect to Port Elizabeth to land, all passengers stay on the plane, PE airport already closed
- some more hours later the airline makes the call to head back to Joburg, meaning we were in transit 6 plus hours to fly from Joburg ... to Joburg ...
- Joburg airport already closed (this was around 01:00), more time wasted in queues as ground staff rebooked people, writing everything down by hand
- more queueing and waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to a hotel
- more queueing and waiting to check in at the hotel
- finally get to sleep around 4am
- get woken up at 5am for the first shuttle bus heading back to the airport
- at the airport SAA staff now want evidence that I really have a ticket seeing as this rebooking was done in the dead of night on a piece of f-ing paper by 1time staff
- multiple rounds of back and forth with my employer and SAA, they end up just buying a new ticket and claiming it back from 1time later
- and I get home eventually, about 16 hours in transit for a Joburg Cape Town flight
 
Eish, compared to some of you. I had it easy. Worst was luggage getting misplaced in Old Berlin airport.
 
Brian_G said:
:(
Moral of the story - stay in Jo'burg, CT weather is much worse these days.
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if someone told me up front: you can choose a 16 hour transit to Cape Town or just stay in Joburg a few days more and have a normal incident free flight afterwards ... I'd probably choose the 16 hour transit, anything to get our of Joburg faster :ROFL:
 
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