16 Airplane Passengers Who Experienced Something Unforgettable During Their Flight

No matter how many times you fly: one, five, or a thousand, every journey by plane brings new impressions and sometimes even friends. In this article, you’ll find out what surprises and plot twists the heroes of this article experienced during an ordinary flight.

• We were flying from Turkey once. A young couple was sitting behind us — tanned to a crisp. At first, the guy did an encore performance of “I won’t sit in my seat, no matter what the pilot or safety rules say.” The flight attendant, without saying a single bad word, somehow managed to make him sit down. And that’s when his girlfriend got involved. She took out a bottle of Nina Ricci perfume and with the words, “Look, everybody, what a great perfume I bought!” sprayed it generously. © Ilona Staller / ADME
• My mum told me about the first flight in her life:
  “As we were descending, the plane started to swerve onto the runway, and because of that it tilted. I grabbed the seat in front of me. And then I hear people sitting quietly, talking, and someone even starts unbuckling their belt. And nobody cares that I’m the only one holding the plane.” © Ofigela / Pikabu
• I was traveling on an afternoon flight from Belgrade to Athens. I had just sat down and a mother and her daughter of about 6 years old came to take the seats next to me. I thought how unlucky it was for me because now they will either beg to sit by the window or turn on cartoons on their tablet at full volume... They put their things on the shelf, and sat down, the girl in the center, her mother by the aisle. The girl turns to me and says, “Well, let’s get acquainted.” I was tired and replied in Greek that I didn’t want to. The girl, not at all embarrassed, replied, “If you don’t want to, then you don’t want to.” And that was it! I didn’t hear her again the whole flight. She and her mum were playing something together, watching something on the tablet without sound. It struck me so much that I wanted to buy her a toy when the shop on the trolley arrived. But I didn’t dare. Respect to her mum for such a well-mannered little girl. © Elen Aki / ADME

“Airlines pretzels are shaped like little planes.”

• This happened to a good friend of mine. So he’s flying to LA from New York probably about 10 years ago. Everyone is comfortable, eating their in-flight meals and watching something terrible on the little TVs. The captain comes on the intercom starting into his, “And if you look to the right we can see...” Then all of a sudden he screams, “Oh heck!!!” And the intercom goes dead. Now everyone stops eating immediately and looks around at each other wondering if something horrific is about to happen. There are a few nervous swears and some panic. Then the intercom sounds again with, “Hi, this is your co-pilot speaking. I’m sorry but the captain just split coffee all over himself.” © campmonkey / Reddit
• A good friend of mine told me about his first flight. This was a few months back and he was going to D.C. We live in the northwest so it was a somewhat long flight. I guess there was no in-flight movie, but the guy on his left (my friend was in the middle) had a portable DVD player. My friend talks to him a bit, he’s a nice enough guy, but he went to sleep with the DVD player sitting on his lap. So my friend carefully took it, watched the movie, and replaced the DVD player on his lap. The guy never noticed anything. The guy on his right just said, “That takes guts.” when he took it. He then said goodbye to the guy on the plane and had a great time in D.C. © HostessTwinky / Reddit
• My mother-in-law had an experience a couple of days ago where a flight sold more tickets than seats on it. She arrived at the airport in advance, went to the check-in desk, and heard the following, “It’s all booked up! But you are lucky, you’ll be upgraded to business class!” That’s how my mother-in-law flew for the first time in her life in business class on an economy fare, having tasted all the joys of the business class service. According to her, there were several other people as lucky as her. They gave themselves away by taking pictures of their food during the flight and were glowing with happiness! My mother-in-law couldn’t resist and took this photo too. © Superman1990 / Pikabu

• I was crying while boarding a plane. My boyfriend had broken up with me and I was going back home to live with my parents because I was pregnant and broke. Some woman ahead of me looked back and saw me, did a double take, and stopped in her tracks. When I got up to where she was standing, she asked if I needed a friend. I broke down sobbing, and she grabbed my hand and told me jokes while we walked to the plane door. When we got to my seat, she asked the guy beside me if he’d switch with her so she could sit next to me. We talked for the entire 3-hour flight about life, the universe, and everything. It was the kindest, most sincere human interaction I’ve ever experienced. (For those who care to know: that baby is 23 now, and the jerk who dumped me is sitting on the other end of my couch.) © Alphaghetti71 / Reddit
• I was a copilot on a 777 departing from Shanghai. A passenger came up to the cockpit and said that another passenger still in the waiting area was concerned because we were leaving with “a huge dent” in the side of the airplane. I had just completed a walk-around inspection and hadn’t seen any huge dents so I went out to talk to the lady. She was irate, told me our airplane was unsafe, and couldn’t believe we were going to fly with the huge dent. I asked her where the dent was, expecting to see something maybe the size of a softball or basketball, she pointed at the plane and implied I was blind, incompetent, or just stupid. I apologized and said I’m sorry but I couldn’t see the dent she was talking about. In an attempt to be more clear, she said “The big dent by the back wing!” again amazed by my incompetence. Now if you’ve ever looked closely there is a fairly substantial “dent” where the “back wing” attaches to the airplane fuselage, it is, in fact, actually huge. The only problem is that’s the way it’s built. It’s designed that way for aerodynamic reasons and it didn’t occur to me that anyone would call it a dent. I finally figured out that this was what she was talking about and explained the “dent”. She still didn’t believe me and was still angry until I took her to the other side of the airplane and showed her another “dent” in the same place − I guess that satisfied her, because she turned around looking still angry, didn’t say another word, and got on the airplane. © Bill / Quora

“Someone didn’t find their USB port, so they are using yours...”

• One time a woman with a medical alert dachshund sat next to me on a plane and her dog kept alerting me and she was like, “Not to be weird but you should get your heart checked out” and that’s how I found out I had a mildly irregular heartbeat. © debtbarbie / Х
• On my return from a business trip, I found out that my employer had bought me the crappiest airline tickets, with no option to pre-select a seat. I approached the check-in desk in a dreary mood. But a beautiful girl behind the counter greeted me with a smile and unexpectedly asked, “Do you want a window seat or an aisle seat?”
  After a lot of flights, in which I was squeezed between large-sized passengers, this question sounded like, “Do you want to go to heaven or paradise?” I decided that it would be easier to fall asleep by the window, so chose a window seat. I got my boarding pass, went into the cabin and, after seeing the seat, I was ready to propose to that girl. It turned out that my seat was right behind the business class seats, and with my height of 6 feet 1 inch I could reach the seats in front with my legs only by sliding down from my seat, my knees didn’t bump against the seat in front of me. It was the most comfortable flight of my life. © 12gramm / Pikabu

• I once flew home from another country, it was a long flight, 10 hours. There was a screen in the seat in front of me where you could watch movies. Mine wasn’t working for some reason, so I called a flight attendant. When I asked her why it wasn’t working, she replied, “Nothing works here!” © Overheard / Ideer
• I used to work as a flight attendant and I noticed that many people get annoyed when they are asked to show their boarding pass. I have a story in this regard. Once we were flying to Hong Kong via Bangkok. One passenger boarded the flight, ignored the pre-flight briefing, made himself comfortable, and went straight to sleep. A few hours later he woke up, pressed the call button, and demanded to explain why we hadn’t arrived yet. I informed him that we had 2 hours of flying time left. He looked at me incredulously and asked how long the flight would take. I replied that it would be 8 hours. He got nervous, “8 hours to Cairo?!” This is when I started to get worried, “We’re not going to Cairo.” He almost fell from his seat in shock, “What does that mean? I’m flying to Cairo! I have an important meeting in Cairo tomorrow!” And, without having to be asked, he rummaged into his hand luggage and willingly offered up his boarding pass. Finally. But, too late. He had already boarded the wrong flight. Same airline, different destinations. © C. Nthenya / Quora

The following sources were used to create this material: VerhovniyMemolog / Pikabu

• On my flight today I woke up from a nap and an attendant was walking down the aisle holding a pug, saying, “We found this pug. Whose pug is this??” And for 3 hours we all just took turns holding the mystery pug until a very stoned man in the last row woke up and was like “Roscoe?!” © laurapeek_ / X
• Our family flew with connecting flights. My little brother, who wasn’t even a year old, was sleeping peacefully in the cradle given by a flight attendant. At some point, my mom looked into the cradle and the baby was not there! Everyone’s in a panic, the entire plane is looking for a 9-month-old baby. And he is sleeping in warmth and comfort, nestled between 2 service dogs that were sitting in the tail of the plane. It turned out that when we went out for a walk, one flight attendant took off the cradle and put it on the seat, and another one hung it up before landing. The baby woke up, found the right moment, and crawled away on all fours to the back of the plane. Then he curled up between the dogs and fell asleep. And they lay still and kept the little rascal warm during the whole flight. © Olga Kosheverova / Dzen

“3 rescue dogs traveling peacefully on a plane”

• I was going on vacation. It was a 4-hour flight, so I had prepared audiobooks and movies in advance so as not to be bored. A woman was sitting next to me with a baby in her arms. The baby slept for the first half an hour and then began to whimper. The mother distracted the little girl with coloring books and toys. But after a while, the girl got tired of it and cried. The mother was already exhausted, I could see how tired she was. The little girl suddenly looked at me and poked her finger at my necklace. I took it off and held it out to the child. The girl was busy and quiet for a while. I looked at the tired mom and said, “Would you like me to hold the baby? While you straighten your legs and take a nap.” I saw hope and gratitude in her eyes. She held the baby out to me, closed her eyes, and zoned out for a moment. I entertained the girl with my jewelry, then found a keychain in my backpack and we started spinning it. Then we watched the clouds and examined my phone. After about 20 minutes, the woman woke up, smiled, and thanked me, and I was only too happy to communicate with the baby. © Not everyone will understand / VK
• Our mother often pressured my brother and me, blaming us for “her ruined youth.” But then one day my brother flew to Asia. And on the plane, he met a girl — smart, beautiful, and ambitious. They started dating, but my mother disliked my brother’s new girlfriend. As always, she manipulated and complained about her poor health. And then the brother began to block her for the first time in years. It was his girlfriend who taught him to stand up to his mother, not to pick up her calls when he doesn’t want to or can’t. I hope I will also find the strength to stand to my mother’s hyper-parenting, I just need a little courage. © Not everyone will understand / VK

Being a child of toxic parents means reaping the benefits of their upbringing even after leaving your parent’s house. Fortunately, it’s not too late to start a new life at 40, 50, or even 70.