The flight from hell

By James Wysong

Travel columnist

updated 11:55 a.m. ET July 31, 2007

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Trips from hell — everyone has a horror story about a bad flight on an airplane. I've been a flight attendant for 18 years and I've had some really bad flights, believe me — everything from truly terrifying weather to sickness and deaths on board. But one flight stands out in my memory for sheer misery. Here it is:

We arrived at the gate about 5 p.m. for our 11-hour flight back to the United States, only to discover that we had a half-hour mechanical delay. The other flight attendants and I immediately became suspicious, because in the world of air travel, the words "half hour" and "delay" seldom occur in the same sentence. Still, we were asked to board the airplane and perform our preflight checks. We would be told later when passenger boarding would commence. Exactly half an hour later, the passengers were boarded, so we thought some miracle had occurred and the problem was fixed.

Wrong.

In fact, every half hour thereafter, an announcement was made stating that it would be yet another half hour before the problem was fixed. This went on for three hours, until our work rules kicked in. Flight attendants' contracts specify how many hours they are allowed to work on board an aircraft. This shift limitation prevents aircrews from being flown until they are so tired they could not possibly evacuate an aircraft safely. Given that we had an 11-hour flight in front of us, we were coming up fast on our deadline to leave the gate.

Two minutes before we became illegal, the ground staff closed the doors and the plane pushed back. Yes, we were tired, but we were also happy. It seemed we were about to be on our way.

Wrong again.

The ground staff had removed the Jetway to prevent the crew from walking back into the terminal; meanwhile, the mechanics continued to work on the plane. An hour later the problem still wasn't fixed. The only thing the mechanics succeeded in doing was breaking the plane's air conditioning system. Three hundred people started to sweat. Tempers began to flare.

While we were waiting, one passenger suddenly had an epileptic seizure. The passenger needed further medical attention and needed to be taken off the plane, so we had to be pushed back to the gate, which took 45 minutes. Back at the gate, the passenger was safely offloaded, and the flight crew, which had long since become illegal to fly, demanded to get off the plane. The gate agent replied that this was impossible — there was no replacement crew, no vacant hotels in the city and, besides, the mechanics had fixed the problem.

"Oh, no they haven't!" a voice shouted out from the cockpit.

"Out of the way, we know our contractual rights!" yelled two senior flight attendants as they stormed off the plane.

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Furious, the gate agent got on the microphone and made the following announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen: Thanks to your flight attendants, this flight has to be canceled until tomorrow. At this time, we are unsure of any vacant hotels due to the conventions taking place, so bring your pillows and blankets off the plane with you and prepare for the worst." (The gate agent has since been fired.)

As the passengers deplaned, they hurled endless verbal abuse, threatened and shoved; one elderly passenger even spat in a crew member's face. The airport security manager greeted the flight crew and informed us that a small riot was occurring in the departure lounge. We would have to be smuggled out of the airport the back way, with a police escort.

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We got to a hotel (which had plenty of rooms) at 1:30 a.m. When I went to the soda machine, I got several dirty sneers from some of the passengers, who had been put up at the same hotel. Departure was supposed to be at 12:30 p.m. the next day, but the mechanical problems still were not fixed, so the flight was delayed again until 5 p.m., 24 hours after we had reported for work.

The passengers boarded around 5:30 p.m. They were not at all happy, but just wanted to get going. As the plane pushed back and rolled along the runway, we said our belated farewells to the airport. Or so we thought.

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