irrational fear of flying

[beeatnik]

Aeromexico to CDMX. Very bumpy, worst landing. First time I've felt terror on a flight.

[rwsaunders]

I wasn’t so sure that we were going to make our morning flight home, as it took our cabbie almost 2 hours to get from Kensington to Heathrow…first world problem of course. Fortunately the crew was late due to the same construction traffic and some kind gentleman in security hustled us through.

[Saab2000]

I wasn’t so sure that we were going to make our morning flight home, as it took our cabbie almost 2 hours to get from Kensington to Heathrow…first world problem of course. Fortunately the crew was late due to the same construction traffic and some kind gentleman in security hustled us through.

You’re sitting in the good seats on a 767-400. Could be far worse. Enjoy.

[echappist]

You’re sitting in the good seats on a 767-400. Could be far worse. Enjoy.

What’s the giveaway that it’s a 767-400 as opposed to an A330 or A350?

[rwsaunders]

Saab definitely identified the correct plane.

[Saab2000]

What’s the giveaway that it’s a 767-400 as opposed to an A330 or A350?

Wing tips.

[htwoopup]

When you leave the lake at 3 to make a 6 pm flight out of YUL, end up in traffic so bad you go to the parking lot and run up stairs and downstairs and across half a mile of pavement, only to stand on an old school security line of computers out and shoes off etc and only 2 machines working, and then global entry has only 1 out of 10 kiosks functional, you still manage to make the gate 3 minutes before boarding….and get a notice at that moment that the flight is now delayed until 7:30 and the gate agent says it is really 8:30 but if they were honest then people would miss the flight because security is so bad of a line which is bs because everybody for the flight is at the gate at that moment…and that means that you will get home in NYC at 11 which means that you could have driven for the 7 1/2 hours and been there 1/2 hour earlier…

And the pilot shows you the FAA website with the whole east coast closed but you point out to him the winds are only gusting to 26 knots at LGA and the AC flight to Dulles is in final boarding and another east coast flight just closed its doors. You can only say WTF and really wonder what side of the bed did you and this entire airline wake up on….

If this were Thursday it would be in that thread.

When a flight is delayed for twice as long as it is scheduled to take it just is beyond annoying.

[j44ke]

Delta flight last night JFK -> CDG. First a lady behind us in a group of travelers from Paris and the (former) colonies fainted and initially could not be roused. At some point she came too but seemed pretty obviously (in my non-doctor opinion) suffering some sort of diabetic issue. People waved her with magazines. Gate crew member brought her water. Fortunately there was an Algerian doctor (woman) there who came over and got the woman on the ground, added sugar to the water for her to sip and said "call the paramedics now". Then boarding started and pretty quickly the gate crew lost control of the crowd and boarding became a mosh pit. When I got on the plane, I saw why. All overhead baggage compartments required putting the luggage in sideways not wheels-in. Tiny. Fortunately I travel with just a small backpack. Then after everyone had bruised themselves fighting with their luggage, the rest rooms and their seats, the plane sat at the gate and didn't move. And sat and sat and sat. Finally the pilot came on and said that the woman passenger in the waiting area had been taken to the hospital so would not fly but therefore her four bags needed to be located and retrieved from the baggage compartment. We got in the air an hour and a half late. Which meant that the many people who were changing planes in Paris for Africa or the Middle East missed their connecting flight(s) but were without visas for visiting the EU so were a bit panicked about what they were going to do if there were no other flights to their destinations today (which in many cases, there appeared not to be.) So I feel just fine with my dose of jet lag while chewing a baguette and sipping coffee in our Paris apartment, you know?

[echappist]

Air France or Delta? And which plane?

We are booked to travel btwn ORD and LHR around Xmas. Part of me is looking forward to it (first overseas trip in 3 years), but then im reminded of the potential circus.

[rwsaunders]

Air France or Delta? And which plane?

We are booked to travel btwn ORD and LHR around Xmas. Part of me is looking forward to it (first overseas trip in 3 years), but then im reminded of the potential circus.

Going back to the US, security in LHR required liquids to be outside the luggage in a clear plastic bag and we needed to remove laptops and iPads as well. The liquid "thing" surprised quite a few people, so there were overstuffed suitcases being opened in front of the X-ray machine conveyor belts, with people handing out baggies, which further slowed down the scanning process. verticaldoug can chime in on LHR travel.

[Tom]

Missing connections totally sucks but I'd hope there was some dispensation for meaning to travel through but getting stuck like the airport is some kind of special zone where if you don't leave you can hang until you get a chair on another flight out.

It reminds me of the time we were flying on British Air from JFK to Vienna connecting in Heathrow and we were delayed a long time for thunderstorms leaving - you ever see a 747 wing dip to about 20 feet from the ground on takeoff as they stood up and did a 180 from the wall coming in, we were the last one out before they closed up for a bit - and when we got to London two ladies in their 60s who were clearly fly backs before they went to work for the airline commanded follow us before they charged through the place shouldering the hapless aside and deposited us at our departure gate. Our luggage didn't make it but we sure did.

[Tom]

I just remembered what impressed me the very most about that time. We sat on the runway at JFK for quite some time, it was a hot and humid day and they didn't have the AC going. It was really quite warm but the gentleman in the aisle seat wearing the tweed jacket never broke a sweat. There will always be an England.

[72gmc]

After my last flight out of LHR I try to achieve very strict and/or stupid levels of security prep.

[j44ke]

Air France or Delta? And which plane?

We are booked to travel btwn ORD and LHR around Xmas. Part of me is looking forward to it (first overseas trip in 3 years), but then im reminded of the potential circus.

Delta 264. A330-200. Seemed old and worn. Plastics yellowed and carpet threadbare in spots. Time for a redo.

[BBB]

Delta flight last night JFK -> CDG. Fortunately there was an Algerian doctor (woman) there who came over and got the woman on the ground, added sugar to the water for her to sip and said "call the paramedics now". Then boarding started and pretty quickly the gate crew lost control of the crowd and boarding became a mosh pit.

Oh FFS. It should never be a 'mosh pit'. Want to learn something about humanity...go for a drive in peak hour or watch people 'line up' to get on a plane. We are doomed.

Except the Japanese. Despite being a densely populated country they politely line up to catch a plane/train/bus without any fuss. Why can't the rest of us do that? Oh yeah, that's because we are doomed.

[rwsaunders]

I’ve never taken the Tokyo Metro, but videos of the professional “shovers” doing their job at least make it look like an organized mosh pit.

[j44ke]

Going back and forth from Prague a number of years ago, I came to understand that there were certain routes (very often through CDG) with arrival times that connected to departure times to Africa and the Middle East that always had the smallest seats with the smallest overhead storage and the most people with the most baggage and every flight began with big squeeze of human beings and baggage into a plane that was an insult to humanity. I believe this was one of those flights.

[72gmc]

I’ve never taken the Tokyo Metro, but videos of the professional “shovers” doing their job at least make it look like an organized mosh pit.

I love visiting Japan but I skip the traditional train restrooms and the rush hour shovers.

[echappist]

I love visiting Japan but I skip the traditional train restrooms and the rush hour shovers.

From what I have seen on videos, those train restrooms are really clean, certainly orders of magnitude better than what I have seen on trains on the NorthEast Corridor.

Then again, that may just be limited to Shinkansen trains only. I'll let the resident Nippon experts chime in.

[72gmc]

From what I have seen on videos, those train restrooms are really clean, certainly orders of magnitude better than what I have seen on trains on the NorthEast Corridor.

Then again, that may just be limited to Shinkansen trains only. I'll let the resident Nippon experts chime in.

Oh, they are. I'm not quibbling with cleanliness, I'm just confessing that my sense of adventure goes farther with food than it does with toilets. https://japaninsider.com/traditional...-disappearing/