Weird Airline Stories

Security: Please Do Not Bring Holy Water on the Plane

Aug 29th, 2007 | By Jared Blank

Passengers flying on the Vatican’s new charter flights are being told to leave their holy water at home (basically). Officials France’s Tarbes-Lourdes Airport told a passenger who was carrying 8 Madonna-shaped bottles filled with holy water that she couldn’t take them on the plane because they were a security threat. They said this with a [...]

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Child Thrown Off Plane For Saying “Bye Bye”

Jul 13th, 2007 | By Jared Blank

A Continental Express flight attendant had a 1 1/2 year old child and his mother removed from a flight from Houston to Oklahoma City because the baby repeatedly said, "bye bye plane" during the flight attendant’s safety speech. The flight attendant was annoyed that the baby was talking during her spiel, and told the mother, [...]

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Clay Aiken Involved in Minor Dispute on Continental Flight

Jul 9th, 2007 | By Jared Blank

American Idol star (?) Clay Aiken was involved in a dispute with another passenger on a Continental flight to Tulsa over the weekend. Details are sketchy, but he may have put his foot on the armrest of the passenger in front of him, which led to said passenger (a woman) giving him a bit of [...]

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Stuck on Delayed Plane, Passenger Uses Police to Get Him Taken Off

Jun 26th, 2007 | By Jared Blank

The NY Times has an interesting story about yet another flight stranding passengers on a plane for 5 hours. A passenger on the Comair flight from JFK to Detroit was fed up after spending 5 hours on the aircraft, which had no air conditioning. After being told by the pilot that the long delay meant [...]

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Did a Passenger Cause a Ruckus Over a Sippy Cup

Jun 18th, 2007 | By Jared Blank

A story is making the rounds about a former secret service officer getting into a bit of a tiff with TSA staff at Washington National Airport. The former officer was flying with her small child and was said to have gotten into a disagreement with security staff over whether she could bring her son’s sippy [...]

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Two Airport Security Dogs Fired for Sexual Harassment

Jun 11th, 2007 | By Jared Blank

Two drug-sniffing dogs that worked in Thailand’s Chang Mai airport were fired for sexual harassment and urinating on passengers’ luggage. I know, that sentence doesn’t make any sense. But apparently it happened. Passengers were complaining about the dogs’ behavior. An airport spokesman said of Mok, one of the dogs, "Mok liked to pee on luggage [...]

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Guy Buys 787 Because of Underwear

Jun 6th, 2007 | By Jared Blank

(thanks to UpgradeTravelBetter):
A Hong Kong based tycoon has purchased his very own Boeing 787 because he was embarrassed after seeing a fellow first class passenger in his underwear. This embarrassment led to him purchasing six private jets for himself, including the 787. I’m not sure what to make of this.

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Does Mike Figgis Want to Shoot a Pilot?

May 30th, 2007 | By Jared Blank

(Editor’s Note: I’m calling bullshit on this one, but I’m printing it anyway:)
A number of places are reporting that director Mike Figgis was detained at LAX because he told screeners he was in LA to "shoot a pilot." (that would be a TV show pilot, not an airplane pilot). I believe this is too good [...]

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Bees on a Plane

May 30th, 2007 | By Jared Blank

You can read the article for the details, but just know that a swarm of bees forced a plane to make an emergency landing…
Don’t see that every day…

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Fog Causes Near Riot Over Duty Free

May 16th, 2007 | By Jared Blank

(Thanks to reader Scott for the heads up):
A United Airlines flight from LA to Sydney was diverted to Brisbane because of fog. So far, so good. Passengers were told, though, that after flying 14 hours, they would have to stay on board for another 9 hours because, and this is where it gets odd, if [...]

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This Week on BNET (June 29 - July 3) - Recession Means More People Travel Locally, Take Shorter Trips It’s not a surprise, but people are changing their travel habits in this economy. The numbers are sobering to see. US-EU Open Skies Phase II Talks Begin All eyes are on round two of the talks - this, the EU hopes, will result in cabotage rights within the [...]

Airplane toilets really suck… literally - Some light fare for a pre-holiday Friday afternoon… My favorite gimmick from the recent (brilliant) AirTran PR stunt, wherein comedian Mark Malkoff lived on AirTran planes for an entire month, ostensibly to get over his fear of flying. In the process, he learned about the vacuum power of airplane toilets, as is evidenced [...]

Photo #100 - Can you believe we’re already at picture 100? To make it a bit more challenging, let’s do five pictures today instead of one. Feel free to guess any one of the pictures, but the winner is the first person that guesses all five. 1. Thanks to JonNYC for sending in this one. 2. Thanks to Roberto for sending in [...]

Alaska Route-specific Double Miles Promos - Alaska has some upcoming new service to Texas which they’re promoting with double miles offers, registration required for each: Service between Seattle and Austin starts August 3, and they’re offering double miles through October 15. Service between San Jose and Austin starts September 2, and they’re offering double miles through October 31. Service between Seattle and Houston starts [...]