25 Absurdly Entitled Requests From Passenger, According To Pilots & Flight Attendants

Airline employees encounter people from all walks of life as they serve passengers of different nationalities, ages, and backgrounds. This diversity means every flight brings a unique set of interactions: some smooth, some slow, and others truly memorable for unexpected reasons. Spending hours in a confined space adds to the challenge—especially when a few passengers choose to behave outrageously, making certain flights unforgettable.

#1

Image source: ElNieves, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

One of my best friends was a flight attendant for a few years so I’ve heard some insane stories from her.

My absolute favorite was when she had to wait on Nicki Minaj in first class on a flight. She said Nicki was pretty much the worst passenger she’d ever waited on. She was rude, demanding, and kept doing weird [stuff] like order a vodka cranberry and when the flight attendant would deliver it she’d take one sip, hand it back to her and ask for another. My friend told me that her whole posse kept doing this until they had gone through almost all the mini bottles. As a bartender, that story pissed me off to no end.

#2

Image source: anon, DC_Studio

Not me, but a friend of mine once told me that on one flight, the attendant was trying to take a lady’s drink order when her husband turns to the attendant and says, “Sorry, she doesn’t speak to the help.”.

#3

Image source: CrouxR, DC_Studio

There was a story a while back of how on British Airways a white woman was very dissatisfied sitting next to a black man in economy class. She [complaned] to the flight attendants about it and so after a while they came back to her saying “we can upgrade to first class”. She gets up to go, but they stop her, telling her that no, the first class seat is for him.

#4

Image source: stygarfield, Alec Douglas

I fly seaplanes for a living, and when we get tourists a regular question is, “When will you fly real airplanes?”

As opposed to the fake one you’re trusting your life to now?

#5

Image source: anon, Paul Hanaoka

I once witnessed a woman lay her toddler on the aisle and proceed to change his diaper. This was during boarding. I was gobsmacked.

#6

Just a passenger here. I was flying Ryan air from Berlin to London. When the steward (he wasn’t a good looking man at all, relevant) started giving the safety instructions a couple of guys who were part of a large group of friends in their early twenties started mocking him by making monkey and pig noises.

He tried more than once to very nicely tell them to listen to his instructions as they might save their lives, but they continued to mock him. He threatened to get them kick off the flight and they continued to mock. He went to the front of the plane and the pilot pulled back to the gate and they were still mocking. They opened the door and three German police officers come in and arrested the two guys for endangering other passengers by not allowing the safety instructions to go ahead, at which point the entire plane (excluding their friends) started clapping and cheering.

Image source: dmo7

#7

Image source: ChaseOP, wirestock

My mom was a pilot for Northwest Airlines.
She was a woman captain, and a man comes on her airplane. He takes one look at her and says “Ugh, a woman captain. I’m getting off.” She replied, “Good, get off my airplane. There are people waiting on the standby list to get on.” The guy turned right around and got back on. We guessed he wanted her to submit and ask him nicely to come back. She told me “[hell] no.”

#8

Image source: Anaslexy, John McArthur

A friend of mine was a flight attendant who told me that a guy called the air hostess and very politely asked if the pilot could shut off one of the jet engines so his son could sleep peacefully.

#9

I have a story about people and their rude, obnoxious behavior.

I was in X-ray school at the time and my teacher and I were flying back from an annual conference that our national professional society hosts annually.

I was flying home from Las Vegas (2nd time flying in a commercial plane) and a women two rows behind me started having a seizure. No one seemed to care and her husband was completely clueless as how to help. My teacher was quick to jump out of her seat and called me to help. We attempted to life all of about 300 pounds of her and get her to where she was laying on her side in the isle. No one helped. Everyone just stared. I understand why people don’t want to help or can’t help. Totally cool with that. Some people are afraid of the situation, afraid of being sued, or just afraid in general.

What really got me is when we landed, the pilot asked everyone to remained seated until the emts got her and her husband off first, no one listened. They tried getting off the plane before she had been strapped to the back board and didn’t [care]. As my teacher and I were helping the emt’s to tell people to remain seated a man gets up and yells at my teacher. We were floored. Call me naive, but I was shocked at the lack of empathy these people had.

Image source: georgettesinclair

#10

Image source: canadian_climber, Conor Brown

Had a woman freak out on a flight attendant because the cookies she was serving had cranberries in them. Apparently she was on blood thinners and couldn’t eat them. We serve a number of other options. Some people just like to complain I guess. As a pilot I try and avoid dealing with the cargo.

#11

Image source: NexusEvo, Tara Winstead

Had a 20ish year old girl going to see her SO. She needed to shave so she did so in the bathroom, turbulence pursued and she cut herself really bad. Had to bring paramedics in and they carried her out. After unloaded, the FO noticed the trail of blood down the jetway.

Edit1: FO = first officer or co pilot. Unfortunately she did not cut her leg… It was her special lady area.

#12

Girlfriend’s a flight attendant and this is my favorite story of hers.

She had just started flying internationally and a woman in coach had decided to spread out in the middle three seats as no one was sitting in them. The last passenger was a man who was supposed to sit in one of those seats. The woman refused to get up, having sprawled out with blankets to sleep on the flight. My girlfriend tried to explain to the woman that the man had purchased one of the seats she was using. Woman didn’t care, simply refused to get up and said the man could sit somewhere else.

The guy was very cool throughout this, kind of giving a shrug to my girlfriend like, “Well, now what do we do?”

My girlfriend got the ISM (International Service Manager or Purser, as they used to be called), basically the head flight attendant and the person responsible for everything aft of the cockpit. She walked back and asked the woman to please move. Again, the woman refused, saying the man could sit somewhere else.

The ISM turned to the man and said, “Actually, she right. We have a couple of seats in first class and we’d be happy to upgrade you free of charge. Are these your only bags?”

The woman’s face was apparently priceless and she started to stutter out a protest, but by that time the three of them were already working their way to the front of the plane.

Image source: monkeyleavings

#13

Not a flight attendant, but was coming from Vegas to LA and some little twit in back of me started painting or nails or removing her nail polish. I didn’t know who it was at first and was like, it smells like acid in here, then realized it was nail product. The air wasn’t filtering and the whole plane could smell it. The flight attentant came over and told her to put it away because it was toxic. The girl then said, just let me finish my last two nails. The attendant was in disbelief and ordered her to put it away. Then announed on the microphone that the smell was from some passenger who insited on doing her nails in the plane and took a little poke at her.

I guess this was expected from a little LA princess…

Image source: sir_drink_alot

#14

Image source: Mablun, wosunan

Dora the Explorer without earphones on a night flight.

#15

Image source: f-mttm, nansanh

Not a flight attendant but my father worked for an airline for over 30 years and shared this story with me based on one of his colleagues’ experiences. On a flight from JFK to Heathrow post 9/11, while the plane was about 4th or 5th in line for take-off an American lady demanded to be let off the plane. The attendant naturally refused since the doors were closed and they were almost at the runway. The lady went nuts and called 911 from her cellphone and said she was an American citizen being held against her will on a foreign airline and they were about to take off and she was going to be taken to another country. In about 3-4 minutes police and FBI vans surrounded the plane, pulled her out and grounded the flight pending further investigation. In the end she was just a nutjob who ruined everyone’s flight.

TLDR: crazy american lady calls 911 before take off, says she is being kidnapped, feds surround plane, flight gets canceled.

#16

I used to work for an airline which meant I got to fly for free as a standby passenger. This is called “non-revving” (non-revenue passenger). So this one day I’m taking a flight to New York as a non-rev and there is a girl from our airline who worked as a gate agent on there with a bunch of her friends. non-revving is a delicate thing sometimes, there are a lot of rules that the airline makes you follow so you don’t tarnish their image, I almost got denied entry once because I wasn’t wearing dress shoes. These girls get boarded and immediately start acting like stupid [jerks]. it’s warm in the plane so clearly the APU hasn’t been connected to allow the plane power to run the AC. As soon as the APU is connected and activated the AC is turned on and something starts blowing out the vents. at this point the plane is fully boarded but people are still putting [things] in the overheads and stuff. what looks like steam or dust or mist or something starts coming out these vents and one of the stupid girls friends decides to shout (jokingly) “FIRE! THERE’S A FIRE ON THE PLANE!”

ON A FULLY… BOARDED… FLIGHT.

needless to say the flight attendants did not find this hilarious and they were all escorted off.

Image source: PineconeShuff

#17

After completing my passenger brief, they would often ask me where my name/accent was from. On no less than a dozen occasions, upon hearing that I am of Turkish heritage, would ask “You’re not going to fly us into any buildings, are you?”

Commenting on my youth: “Are you REALLY old enough to fly this thing?”

After telling a passenger to put away a phone or put on a seatbelt: “Who are YOU to tell me what to do?.” or “Would you tell your father to do that?”

They would also bargain with me about the rules or tried to argue that so and so rule that I was required to enforce had no basis in reality.

Passengers, don’t insult your pilot or flight crew immediately before they’re about to take you someplace.

Image source: Turkstache

#18

A family friend is a commercial pilot with a major U.S. airline. He was flying a transatlantic flight from Chicago to London. Midway through the flight one of the flight attendants pages the cockpit and tells him that they need help restraining a passenger in first class. He gets up and walks back to first class to find a 60 year woman hammered drunk fighting with the flight attendants. Apparently the woman was seated next to a younger man and after getting extremely drunk kept grabbing [him]. He asked her to stop and after the 3rd or 4th time he paged the flight attendants asking to be moved.

The women then got belligerent so she had to be restrained. They wound up making an emergency landing in Iceland and arresting the woman because she was so belligerent. The best part is the arrest was the least of the woman’s worries. She was permanently barred from the airline, had to incur the cost of the fuel the plane had to dump so it didn’t land too heavy, as well as the cost to make the landing, and probably had to register as a offender. Also the entire plane full of people probably weren’t too happy to have to be delayed several hours waiting for the plane to refuel and file a new flight plan.

TL, DR: Free drinks in first class can wind up costing you $30-40k in bad decisions.

Image source: anon

#19

My husband flies a lot for work (he makes Delta Diamond every year), so he’s got a ton of crazy stories about insane passengers; the most recent and ridiculous, however, took place on a trip back from Hawaii.

While he’s waiting to board the plane, he’s noticing a distinct smell of body odor. He’s doing the whole “wait, [dang], is that me?” panic, trying to surreptitiously sniff his own armpits, when he notices that a bunch of the other people waiting are all doing the exact same thing. Figuring that it’s either someone else, or that there are, like, a stockpile of raw onions nearby, he stops thinking about it. Until they board.

Because of all his Delta miles, he’s in first class, in the aisle seat. He sits down, and pulls out a book. The window seat next to him is empty, and stays that way for a while, so he’s thinking, cool — empty row! Then, just as boarding is finishing, suddenly, this horrible, pungent smell just FILLS the cabin. It’s so bad that he said literally every passenger in first class reacted, snapping their heads up to see what in the smelly hell just walked on the plane.

It was a young-ish woman, probably late 20’s, early 30’s. Very hippie-chick style, wearing sort of a flow-y top over a tank top. And she smelled like she had not bathed in daaays. Seriously, best guess is that she’d spent a week at a sweat lodge, and hadn’t cleaned herself since. And, of course, she plopped herself down right next to my husband.

Now, like I said, he’s a seasoned traveler, so he’s used to a lot, and his tolerance is pretty high, but he said this woman’s smell was so bad that his eyes immediately started watering. The flight attendant came over, and the woman ordered a Mai Tai; then she pulled out a book, and started highlighting passages. Meanwhile, call buttons are beginning to light up like crazy, with pretty much every other passenger on the plane being all, “Oh, HELL no” about being stuck in a metal box from Hawaii to L.A. with someone who smells like she [slept with] every member of Phish back in 2006, and vowed to never bathe again.

Anyway, over the next fifteen minutes while this woman sits there reading obliviously, my husband watches as the poor flight attendants have multiple whispered, nervous conversations at the front of the plane, all the while staring at this smelly lady. My husband is alternating between texting me in horror and making eye contact with the attendants, and he’s doing the Wide-Eyes-of-Terror at them, and they’re nodding at him and Wide-Eyeing right back. By this time, my husband is nervous that he’s going to get a migraine because the smell is so overwhelming, and people nearby are wrapping shirts around their faces to combat the odor. Finally, the gate agent approaches. She asks the woman to follow her to the front, where apparently, they gave her some soap and a new shirt, and sent her into the bathroom.

A few minutes later, she emerged wearing a new shirt, but still smelling atrocious (“THEY GAVE HER SOAP, BUT NO INSTRUCTIONS,” my husband texts miserably. “Can’t they SEE she doesn’t know what to do with it? SOAP IS HARD FOR HER”). She sits back down, and promptly orders another drink.

Another few minutes pass, with more wide-eyed-silent-“help me”- face from my husband, as well as increasingly *not* so silent complaints from other passengers nearby, until finally, it becomes apparent that if action isn’t taken, there’s going to be a big ol’ mutiny in the first class of a Delta plane. At this point, two agents approach the row. Now, this lady had the window seat and my husband was in the aisle, so this entire conversation had to take place with him awkwardly in the middle, pressing himself against his seat back, but the agents lean in and tell the woman that, sorry, she just can’t ride on the plane; she smells too bad, and she’s not fit to fly. She’s incredulous, and keeps saying, “Just because *you* think I smell?” and “This sounds like a lawsuit to me.” Meanwhile, the agents are being as friendly as they can be, explaining that they will happily put her up in a hotel for the night so she can take a shower, but that they can’t allow her to board another Delta plane until she’s cleaned herself off. She didn’t make that much of a scene, and they all gathered her things and walked off together.

The best part, though, was that right before she stood up, she complained that she had an important meeting back in L.A., and absolutely *had* to fly out that afternoon; in response, one of the attendants smiled and brightly said, “Well, *we* can’t help you, but I think there’s still room on a United flight!”

My husband said it was one of the most surreal travel experiences ever.

Image source: O_is_for_Olive

#20

Tl;dr: monkeys, alien invaders, important meetings in the Atlantic, and Tarzan.

My mother was a flight attendant for TWA since the 1960’s so she saw a lot of stuff that people could never get away with now. For example, she once had a schizophrenic man urgently call for a flight attendant because he was claiming to be receiving messages from the aliens that they were going to intercept the plane. He could not be calmed and demanded to talk to the pilot. My mother heard the commotion, ran to first class and grabbed a silver salad bowl. She then proceeded to put it in his head and tell him it would protect him from the alien messages, so they couldn’t track the plane. He spent the rest of the flight with it on his head.

Another good one was when a man, about 5’2, wearing a tweed suit, round glasses came onto the plane, and strapped his bag into the seat next to him. My mother informed him that he had to put the bag in storage, and he very politely showed her that he had a ticket for it. He comes back later, and in place of the bag, is a dead stuffed monkey that the man is carrying on a conversation with. He politely asked my mom for a banana, to which he then attempts to feed to the monkey. Goes on like this the whole trip, and then packs the monkey up at the end of the flight.

Last short one. My mom went to the front of the plane to find a man trying to open the door. She stops him in time, and asks what the man was doing, to which he replied ” I’m going to be late for my meeting, I have to get off now.” To which my mom replied, ” but sir, we are over the Atlantic.” He then proceeds to argue with her, until my mom says, ” Oh sir, they’ve moved your meeting to the coat closet ( which they had in older days), he thanks her for the update, and sits in the closet for the rest of the flight.

She definitely had her fair share of weirdos. If people want more, I can tell the story about the man who fondled an old lady, because he thought he was Tarzan.

**Edit/Update:**
Yes, these stories are quite real, I didn’t be
lieve some of them, until she showed me a copy of one of the flight logs she had where FA’s were required to note any points of interest during a flight. I will give her a call tonight to see if she can find/scan/email one of the reports over for proof.

As for my mom being good at dealing with the crazy people, she has always been person who is very out of the box thinker. Her view on the world is unlike anyone I’ve ever met, and she is a truly remarkable woman. She’s just a creative lady who likes to do crazy things, so she gets people who are *actually* crazy.

Okay the Tarzan story.

On one flight there was this man who about an hour into the flight started making these grunting sounds every 2-3 minutes. The flight attendants continually asked him to stop, but he wouldn’t let up and was getting more and more disruptive vocally and physically, so they decided to move him to a section of the plane that had some empty seats to separate him from the other passengers. As they stood him up, he seemed to zone out. My mother was the flight attendant who lead him back, and using her charm she tried to figure out why he was acting the way he was. Suddenly, he snapped back to reality looked her directly in the eyes and said something to the extent of “I’m Tarzan, tarzan need jungle, tarzan need drums!,” after which he lunged at the heavier set ~60yr lady in front of him, grabbed her breasts and started bouncing them up and down. Took 3 flight attendants to get him off of her, and they restrained him to an empty row while they turned around the plane to land back at JFK (they had been over the atlantic). My mom, being known for handling uncomfortable situations well, volunteered to take the watch over him. He then proceeded to explain how he was using this flight to get to the moon, so he could get the green cheese that his jungle friends loved so much.

I’ll ask her if she has any other good ones that I’ve forgotten, but those are definitely the 4 best she has encountered after 25 years of flying.

Image source: Barefoot__Wanderer

#21

Image source: firesgood, Ethan Haddox

When I was flying night helicopter “strip tours” up and down the Vegas strip, despite the video briefing which mentioned several times that no flash photography was permitted and my own verbal briefing mentioning this again, people would regularly take flash photos during the flight. It just blows my mind that people would think it’s ok to temporarily blind the pilot who’s flying them.

#22

My friend was on a flight that right after touching down had a lady from the back unbuckle and run to the front of the plane during taxiing to get off first, even though the buckled in flight attendants were telling her to remain in her seat. She kept saying how she had to get off fast to make her connecting flight. After arriving at the gate, the pilot announced over the intercom that they jetway had an issue and the plane would be de-boarding from the rear doors. He said the looks of satisfaction on all the other passengers was delightful.

Image source: wheatie

#23

I am not a pilot, but my dad is. One of his best stories, while not obnoxious to him personally, caused a flight to be severely delayed and really annoyed everyone, and was *pretty creepy.*

Persons who use wheelchairs or need medical assistance are typically boarded before other passengers. A woman (I’ll call her Susan) and her elderly father (Jim) were boarded early for a flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina from DFW (Dallas-FT Worth, Texas) airport. My dad is doing his pre-flight checks, when a flight attendant comes up to him and says there’s something odd about the elderly gentleman who was pre-boarded, and his daughter is acting odd. The flight attendant requests my dad come check on the old man. The flight attendant says that the old man is asleep, but looks like he may have had a heart attack or something due to his complexion.

My dad goes back and talks to the passengers and the elderly gentleman is slouched over in his seat against the window, asleep, and he doesn’t look good. Nobody wants the plane to take off with a person needing medical assistance, so my dad asks Susan if there’s anything wrong. She’s agitated, says that Jim doesn’t fly well and they gave him medication to let him sleep on the plane. Susan says her father is old, but in good enough health to fly and they are just headed home to Argentina. Susan requests that my dad not wake Jim up, and that he’ll be fine.

The flight staff are all getting a weird vibe, so my dad tells Susan something to the effect of if they can’t verify Jim is alert and in good health, they will not be taking off. She gets confrontational, refuses to get up from her seat to allow anyone to check on her father next to her, and they have to call gate security. Meanwhile as security is on their way, the woman apparently realizes they’re going to get kicked off the flight if they don’t cooperate, so she moves to let my dad check on the old man.

My dad goes over, and the guy has no pulse at all. Not just that, he’s *room temperature*. My dad thanks Susan, and the flight staff go to the front of the plane to wait for security. When they show up, my dad tells them what is going on, and they also check his pulse and then call for an ambulance.

Emergency vehicles show up, and paramedics remove the old guy from the plane. As they are doing this, the daughter is upset and continues to insist he is fine to travel, complains that their bags from their previous connection will get lost, etc.

The paramedics tell my dad before leaving that the guy is not just dead, he’s been dead for awhile (which my dad had sort of already guessed.) Apparently a plane ticket for a person is a lot cheaper than paying to transport a corpse home for burial. The real kicker is that he got on at the previous airport (which I don’t remember) without anyone kicking him off the plane. Pretty sure there’s a news story on the web for this, but it was in the 90s and I am unable to find it. [There’s several similar ones out there though.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8604663.stm)

TL;DR – Woman tries to fly her dead father home for burial by buying a normal ticket, thinking nobody will notice.

edit: This was in the 90s, pre-9/11.

Image source: Zamaza

#24

I was an F/A on private charter flights. You know that kissy-type noise you make to a cat to get their attention? When he wanted my attention, a certain NBA star (cough-Shaq-cough) would constantly call to me like that. I politely told him my name every time, but he refused to say my name, “ma’am”, “miss” or any other form of polite conversation.

He also sulked in the corner of the plane with his headphones on the whole time, playing video games like a child, while his wife (now ex) watched their 5 kids, cut up all of their food, entertained them, and made preparations for after landing. He was totally useless the whole time. No wonder they divorced.

One of my least favorite pax ever.

Image source: cressidacay

#25

Pilot here:

If you come up and make some joke about us drinking or being drunk…you just cancelled your flight. Because I’m going to go get tested right then and there.

[Get lost] if you think my aircraft isn’t “big enough”. I’m sorry we don’t have 747 from Detroit to Flint, MI.

Dont ask if I’m “awake” at 5:00am. I had to be there at 4:30, so I had to get up at 3:30. If you want me to be actually fully awake and alert quit booking these super early flights and they will stop having them.

No, I don’t make $150,000. My first officer probably is probably making under 30k. With 100k of student loans. Enjoy your cheap tickets [jerk].

Don’t get pissed if you booked a 30min connection in JFK/ORD/LGA in the winter time. You had almost zero chance of making that before you even stepped foot at the airport.

No, your bag will not fit. Quit arguing with my FA about it. She does this 1000s of times a year and sees 100,000 bags come on the plane. She knows what fits.

Yeah the plane is small. How big is your plane? Private jets are small too, maybe you should try one of those.

Don’t act like you’ve never even been outside before or seen a set of stairs when we have to deplane on the ramp. Boo Hoo. If it is raining or snowing I might have a shred of sympathy for you.

No, I don’t know what lake we are flying over. I’ve got better [things] to do on this 28 min flight than play tour guide.

Yes, I’m old enough to fly an airplane. No, you don’t want more gray hair in the cockpit. Those guys are about to die and are always falling asleep.

No, I’m not going to “grease the brakes” just because they are noisy. And yes they are “metal on metal” sounding because they are all metal.

Yes, there is a reason I have the seat belt sign on. Not because I’m a [jerk].

I don’t care if you are never flying on “A” airline ever again. Because I’ll see you tomorrow when I’m also flying for “B” airline, and then “C” airline, and then “D” airline after that. Welcome to the regionals [jerk].

Image source: summerkc