Sometimes things get weird when people get on planes. Click through for the strangest airline travel stories of 2018.
Sometimes things get weird when people get on planes. Click through for the strangest airline travel stories of 2018.
Photo: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images
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Sometimes things get weird when people get on planes. Click through for the strangest airline travel stories of 2018.
Sometimes things get weird when people get on planes. Click through for the strangest airline travel stories of 2018.
Photo: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images
A mechanical problem forced a United Airlines plane bound for Washington, D.C. to return to San Francisco International Airport for an emergency landing Monday morning less than an hour after departing, officials said.
United Airlines Flight 516 departed for Washington-Dulles International Airport at 9:23 a.m., but the plane experienced an unknown mechanical problem during flight, said United spokesman Madhu Unnikrishnan. The plane turned around and landed safely at SFO at 10:09 a.m.
The only option, he was told, was to pay $2,500 for a new flight. So he did and believed he was stuck in the U.S., desperate to find a way to get back to Germany at reasonable cost before the New Year.
Islamist militant group Al-Qaeda is rebuilding itself and looking to the skies to stage a sequel to what’s often been described as the world’s deadliest act of terror, the security minister of the U.K. has said.
In an interview with London-based newspaper The Times, U.K. Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime Ben Wallace warned Saturday that he and other ministers have been kept “awake at night” by the thought of a resurgent Al-Qaeda plotting new attacks against airplanes. The group, which infamously orchestrated the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States in 2001, has reportedly been coming up with new techniques to target civilian airliners, including “insider attacks” involving aviation staff, miniature bombs and drones.
“The aviation threat is real,” Wallace told The Times. “Aviation is still a blue riband event for these terrorists. Al-Qaeda are resurgent. They have reorganized. They are pushing more and more plots towards Europe and have become familiar with new methods and still aspire to aviation attacks.”
Wallace said that officials have been on particularly high alert since drone sightings forced the suspension of multiple flights at London Gatwick, the U.K.’s second-busiest airport, affecting some 140,000 passengers throughout Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, when authorities downed the device with military technology. No group has claimed responsibility and two suspects were recently released without charge.
An Air Transat aircraft is pictured beyond a CCTV camera as it prepares to land at London Gatwick Airport, south of London, on December 21 as flights resumed following the closing of the airfield due to drone sightings. Drones were just one of the ways in which groups like Al-Qaeda were though to be researching for potential use in an attack on aviation infrastructure. BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images
Al-Qaeda was formed in the late 1980s by Osama bin Laden during the Soviet War in Afghanistan, where Moscow unsuccessfully tried to support an allied communist government in Kabul against Sunni Muslim mujahideen backed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, along with other insurgents. The fall of the Afghan leadership led to a deepening civil war that ultimately saw the Taliban, an ally of Al-Qaeda, take power. Since 9/11 and the subsequent 2001 U.S. invasion that overthrew the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda has launched numerous attacks across the globe.
In recent years, however, the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has received primary attention by law enforcement in the West due to its massive spread across Iraq and Syria in 2013 and 2014, as well as its capacity to conduct deadly operations abroad, either directly coordinated or inspired by its leadership. ISIS has its roots in the Al-Qaeda-led Sunni Muslim insurgency that gripped Iraq after the U.S. invasion there in 2003, and the group has also targeted air transportation, including the bombing of Metrojet Flight 9268 over Egypt in 2015 and bombings of the Brussels and Ataturk international airports in 2016.
With ISIS having been extensively targeted by a U.S.-led coalition, as well as the governments of Iraq, Syria, Russia and Iran and their allies, Wallace warned that Al-Qaeda “has not gone away—they have reorganized” and that “you’re seeing al-Qaeda appear in areas we thought were dormant.”
Al-Qaeda is known for its massive global jihadi network, which includes affiliated across Africa, the Middle East and other parts of Asia. Shifting regional priorities have also sometimes led the group to benefit from U.S. interventions beyond just Iraq. Al-Qaeda affiliates stood to gain amid the CIA-backed insurgency that followed a 2011 rebel and jihadi uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the NATO-assisted overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi that same year and the Pentagon-supported, Saudi-led war against the Zaidi Shiite Muslim group known as Ansar Allah, or the Houthis, since 2015 in Yemen.
Syrian fighters attend a mock battle in anticipation of an attack by the government, during a graduation of new members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham members at a camp in the countryside of the northwestern Idlib province, August 14. The jihadi coalition was formed from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, which itself was previously known as the Nusra Front, Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch. OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP/Getty Images
The U.K. has also been largely supportive of these U.S. actions, but has increasingly paid attention to the threat posed by Al-Qaeda. On the 17th anniversary of 9/11 in September, the group released a 30-minute audio lecture by its chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, who discussed “how do we face America?” and other allied “crusader” states accused of waging war against Muslims. Wallace pointed to a recent failed attempt to bomb an Etihad Airways flight in Australia as evidence that militants were still looking to target aviation.
“In 2019 we should be alert to Al-Qaeda. They are re-energizing some previous links and support and their ambition towards aviation is real. We saw in Australia that terrorists do what works and they don’t give up,” Wallace told The Times.
It’s not just Zawahiri, either. Wallace said that new leaders had “stepped up” over the years and were now “taking more decisions” into their own hands.
To rub that fact in our faces before the holiday travel season, Genfare, a company that offers fare solutions to transit agencies, conducted a survey of 2,000 Americans who fly at least twice per year to determine the worst offenses when it comes to flying.
According to the survey, 64% said it’s okay to take their shoes off on a plane, which is somehow fine if they slip them back on before using the bathroom. Things really fall apart, though, over this statistic: 20% of you monsters out there thinks it’s perfectly okay to take your socks off on a plane. It’s not. No one wants to be sitting next to someone while they lift their knee up to their face to peel their socks off in the confined space of an airline seat. Plus, when the socks come off, odor is sure to waft, and 26% of those surveyed said that the inescapable scent of body odor was the biggest plane travel annoyance.
The No. 1 spot, though, was saved for something universally agreed upon as completely aggravating: seat kicking. Among those surveyed, 54% said that was the most annoying thing (probably because they forgot about the barefoot traveler spreading their toe jam all over the shared floor space). The next biggest aggravation was being trapped on a plane with a crying child (27%), which went hand in hand with inattentive parents (21%).
Here’s the full list of air travel annoyances, ranked:
Getting seat kicked: 54%
Crying baby/child: 27%
Body odor: 26%
Talkative passneger: 23%
Inattentive parents: 21%
Drunk passenger: 18%
Seat pulled back or leaned on: 17%
Snoring: 15%
Rushing to get off plane: 15%
Reclining seat: 15%
Putting feet up: 13%
Smelly food: 11%
Man-spreading: 7%
Passenger removing shoes or socks: 6%
Bright screens on phones: 3%
Non-service dogs: 2%
Dressing sloppy: 1%
Luckily, survey respondents had plenty of remedies to combat No. 4 on the list—talkative passengers. In fact, 3% of those surveyed just ignore them. Most people, though, exited those uninvited conversations by putting on headphones (37%) or looking at their phones (13%), while my personal heroes were the 0.5% who called the flight attendant to make the passenger stop talking to them.
Here are some tips to help you survive the holiday flying season without becoming a Christmas Grinch. USA TODAY
A Michigan soldier, who hadn’t seen his family in a year, was trying to make it home to Monroe for the holidays — but ended up shelling out thousands of dollars after the round-trip flight he booked with United Airlines was unexpectedly canceled.
Pfc. Benjamin Jimenez, 21, enlisted in the Army in June of 2017 and was stationed in Germany this February. Hoping to spend time with his family, including his grandpa who is set to fly to Michigan from Florida, Jimenez booked a round-trip ticket for $1,116 on Nov. 19 that would get him to the Detroit Metro Airport during the holiday weekend and back to Frankfurt in time to report back for duty in 2019.
When he got to the Frankfurt Airport on Saturday, Jimenez was told his flight had been cancelled, according to his aunt Sarah Mundt, 31, also of Monroe. She said the airline also told her nephew a refund wasn’t available for the first flight and that he would have to dispute the charge through his bank.
“They informed him that… he no longer had a flight, and that if he wanted to get to the United States, he had to buy a one-way ticket for $2,500,” Mundt said.
“And so, that’s what he did.”
Adding to the financial strain, the airline has since told the family the cheapest flight it could come up with for Jimenez to make it back to Germany before his leave expires was $3,000.
“[United] literally had us on the phone for two-plus hours,” Mundt said. “They kept saying that they were trying to help us, but… I was on hold for 30 minutes at a time, while they said they were looking into things.”
Mundt said her nephew didn’t have access to email or phone while out in the field, but the family is steadfast that notification of the cancellation was never sent. She added that they’ve gone through his inbox together.
Mundt said they were informed that United Airlines partners with the airline Lufthansa for German flights, and Lufthansa decided to increase their rates and cancel the flight.
“By the end of it, they said, ‘Well, we sent out the email… there’s nothing we can do for you. We no longer hold your funds, so we can’t return them,” she said.
Mundt said they plan to work with Jimenez’s bank to dispute the charge, but haven’t had time yet — her nephew just got home late Saturday evening. She thinks the airline should honor the cost of the original ticket, though.
“I made it very clear, I don’t want anything for free. I understand this is a business, you guys have to make money. I don’t mind paying the original fare that he originally bought… but we want the $2,500 back, and we need a way for him to get back to Germany,” she said.
“I’ve spoken to two separate supervisors. I spoke to a manager, and I spoke to their online social media team… who said they had their reservation team review the situation,” she said.
“Each time it’s like they’re reading from a script and they’re just giving us the same old answers… I feel like they made this worse”
As a result, Mundt said their family is spending the holidays trying to find Jimenez a flight back and pooling their money to buy him another ticket with another airline.
“Right now, the only available flights are Jan. 2, which makes this whole situation worse, because my father is extremely elderly and he’s sick, and he’s flying out from Florida to be able to spend a day with [Jimenez] before he flies back to Germany,” Mundt said.
“My father flies in on the 1st. … Now, they’re not going to be able to spend time together, like they were.”
Read more:
‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem enough for our troops
Church gives “big” on holiday weekend
Madhu Unnikrishnan, a United Airlines spokesman, on Sunday confirmed the flight was canceled by Lufthansa, but said their records show that passengers were informed of the cancellation.
Unnikrishnan said he cannot speak to how Jimenez may not have received a notification.
“Our customer service team is looking into the matter and will contact Mr. Jimenez shortly to arrange his travel back [to Germany],” Unnikrishnan said.
Mundt said their family is extremely frustrated and would like to avoid having to deal with United Airlines in the future.
“The timing of this couldn’t be worse, with it being Christmas,” she said. “We’re excited that [Jimenez] has been able to come home, but… Instead of just being able to enjoy Christmas and everything, we’re now trying to pool our money to be able to try and make sure he gets back to Germany, so he doesn’t get in trouble. It’s kind of affected everything.”
Contact reporter Aleanna Siacon at ASiacon@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AleannaSiacon.
A soldier working overseas says he had to spend thousands to buy a plane ticket after his flight was canceled without him knowing.
Private First Class Benjamin Jimenez thought he was all set when he booked a ticket back in November to fly with United Airlines from Germany to Detroit. When he showed up for his flight, he found out it was canceled.
“They gave me an itinerary, they never booked it, they white listed it saying the line never paid for it and I was pretty much just out of luck,” Jimenez said.
He says he was forced to shell out an extra $2,500 to make it home in time for the holidays.
Jimenez says he never knew his flight had been canceled.
“They told me that they emailed me, they called me, but I haven’t received any of that,” Jimenez said.
7 Action News did received a statement about the incident from United saying:
“We are reimbursing Mr. Jimenez for the one-way Lufthansa ticket he purchased to get back to Detroit as a gesture of goodwill, and we are flying him back to his base in Germany on United on Jan. 2.”
Travelers move through a security check-in line at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Dec. 18, 2017 (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Today the U.S. airline industry enters its heaviest travel period of the year, an 18-day stretch when it will carry 45.7 million passengers, with the industry and many of its passengers in a joyous mood.
Weather looks manageable. Oil prices are way down. Americans have money to spend on travel. A government shutdown if one occurs is not expected to have a perceptible impact on TSA.
And so far, travelers seem to be in a generally good mood, based on their Twitter comments, although it is reasonable to assume that at some point someone among the 45.7 million will become outraged about something and will share their feelings via social media.
Thursday is slated to be the second heaviest travel day of the period, with U.S. carriers expecting to carry 2.87 million passengers, according to Airlines for America. Friday will be the heaviest day with 2.91 million passengers. Third heaviest will be Dec. 26, the day after Christmas, with 2.78 million. Air travel will be up 5.2% during the period, A4A said.
Traveling through Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Wednesday, on her way from Hartford to Austin, American passenger Mary Elizabeth Dunn posted this tweet: “Currently in the Charlotte NC Airport: Childrens choir singing holiday carols, beautiful Santa and Mrs Clause walking around greeting families, and joyous soldiers headed home on holiday leave.
“Might be the happiest layover I’ve ever experienced,” Dunn wrote, as she passed through American’s second busiest hub. (Dunn quickly corrected her spelling of Mrs. Claus’s name, which she termed “epically embarrassing.”)
USO of North Carolina tweeted that 3,300 soldiers were scheduled to make their way through Charlotte airport on Tuesday, “on the way to spending the holidays with their families and loved ones” as part of “Operation Exodus.”
On Wednesday, American and United both seized the opportunity to announce new routes, in press releases headlined “The More the Merrier,” by United and “28 Reasons to Fly American,” by American. The 11 new United routes start in June, while many of the 28 American routes were slated to start this week.
Among the celebrants were Ithaca Tompkins regional airport (ITH), which tweeted Wednesday: “A ribbon cutting ceremony will be held at the Ithaca Airport on 12/22 @ 10:30 am to celebrate the arrival of the first flight from Charlotte – all are welcome to attend.” A news item on the airport’s site proclaimed “If you like Ithaca, you’ll love Charlotte,” and noted, that “From endless attractions to beautiful scenery, Ithaca and Charlotte have more in common than you’d think.”
For now, American plans a single weekly Saturday morning roundtrip aboard a 50-seat Canadair regional jet flown by regional partner PSA.
American spokesman Ross Feinstein said the world’s largest airline will carry more than 11 million passengers during the 18-day holiday travel period. On Friday, its single busiest day during the 18-day holiday period, American will operate 6,830 flights carrying an estimated 660,000 passengers.
American’s slowest day will be Christmas day, with just 5,020 departures. Travel experts always advise that Christmas can be a good day to fly, with low fares and generally uncrowded airports.
The highest departure days at American’s two busiest hubs will be Dec. 27 and 28 at Dallas, with 811 departures, and Jan. 2 at Charlotte, with 724 departures.
United Airlines expects peak outbound traffic today through Saturday, with peak return traffic Jan. 3 through Jan. 6. Total traffic each peak day will be about 500,000 passengers, said spokesman Charles Hobart.
“Generally speaking, we have more domestic widebodies to help with full flights (typically 47 per day, during the holiday schedule, goes up to 66 per day) and more frequency on ‘vacation’ type destinations (ski cities, Florida, Mexico/Caribbean),” Hobart said.
Despite rain in the east, none of the major airlines expect major weather disruptions to pre-Christmas travel. Delta is “currently expecting the end of week weather [events] to be limited primarily to a rain event in Atlanta on Thursday and some rains and winds in the Northeast/New York area on Friday, where we may see some FAA/ATC driven ground delay programs,” Delta spokesman Drake Castaneda said Thursday.
Even if weather threatens to interfere with operations, “Both delays and cancellations have declined in recent years, likely a result of airlines leveraging technology to be proactive when bad weather is forecasted,” said airline software company Flight Aware, in a prepared statement. “Airlines are now able to re-accommodate passengers and relocate crews/aircraft in advance of major storms and it is evident that this is reducing the overall impact of these situations.”
Legal services provider AirHelp recently released its 10 commandments of air travel that travelers always need to remember in case their flight is disrupted.
“Delays, cancellations and destroyed travel plans: 2018 has been one of the worst years in terms of flight disruptions, with a record number of travel plans going awry,” AirHelp said.
10 Commandments of Air Travel
1. Thou shalt have food and water – What could be worse than waiting for a delayed flight? Having to wait for a delayed flight on the tarmac! Many travelers don’t know that they are actually granted certain rights in those annoying situations. After two hours, the airline crew is required to provide you with food, water, operational lavatories and medical care if needed. After a tarmac delay of three hours, passengers must be given the option to deplane.
2. Thou shalt have a nice comped hotel – The question of whether or not you have to pay for an unplanned hotel stay following a disrupted flight is something that even frequent travelers are unsure about. In fact, under European law EC261, the airline is supposed to provide passengers on European flights with transportation to their hotel or accommodations, and a hotel stay.
3. Thou shalt be compensated for messed up luggage – There are so many things that may go wrong when it comes to your luggage. So it will be music to your ears to hear that there is a regulation called the Montreal Convention that grants you a right to financial compensation in case your suitcase gets delayed, lost or damaged after you check in for your flight. Whether you’re flying within the US or to one of the other 120 countries that ratified the Montreal Convention, if you experience luggage issues while traveling, you may be entitled to compensation. If your luggage is damaged, make sure to file a report within 7 days, and complaints for delayed luggage should be filed within 21 days. Luggage that doesn’t arrive within 21 days is considered lost – after this period there is no time limit for complaints. A recent AirHelp survey showed that 66 percent of Europeans that make claims for damaged luggage receive financial compensation.
4. Thou shalt not leave Fido at home – Animal lovers don’t have to skip their vacations, as long as they make themselves familiar with individual airlines’ pet rules. This is especially important in light of recent tragedies. If you wish to travel with your furry best friend, we advise you to research the airline’s rules. For example, some airlines only allow assistance or guide dogs to travel in the cabin. Others base their paw fees on your pet’s size and weight, plus their carrier’s measurements. When making the decision of whether to bring your pet along, you should consider: the size of your pet; the pet carrier; pet/dog carrier fees; the temperament of your four-legged friend; and the airline’s overhead bin space availability.
5. Thou shalt avenge your injuries – If you suffer some kind of injury while being on the plane, you are entitled to financial compensation. Thanks to a modification to the international regulation, the Montreal Convention, you can now get up to $138,000. It is also worth knowing that if your case requires legal action, you might be able to take it to court in your home country, if the airline operates flights there.
6. Thou shalt help other passengers – It happens all the time in movies: a passenger gets a heart attack, the crew asks “is there a doctor on board?” and George Clooney steps in to save the day. But what if a medical urgency happens in real life? It’s worth knowing that you have the right to help out, which means that even if you are not a doctor, you can assist another passenger in need, and you are covered by legal protection if you do so.
7. Thou shalt get on the flight – Selling more tickets for a flight than seats available is a common practice in the airline industry, which sometimes leads to passengers being denied boarding, although they arrived at the gate on time and ready to board the flight. As this is an extremely frustrating situation, the airline cannot get away with offering you a food voucher as consolation. If you’re bumped, and you don’t volunteer to deplane or take another flight, you can be eligible for compensation. Under European law EC 261, you are entitled to an immediate financial compensation of 250-600 euros, besides an alternative flight to your final destination or a refund for your ticket.
8. Thou shalt be treated equally – If you have a disability, you encounter more and different burdens when planning your trip. Especially due to this, nobody should be allowed to put even more obstacles in your way. Therefore, no airline can refuse to accommodate you. In fact, they are required by law to make sure accommodations are available. This is because of the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA), a law which makes it illegal for airlines to discriminate against passengers because of their disability. Airlines are also required to provide passengers with disabilities many types of assistance, including wheelchairs or other guided assistance to board, deplane, or connect to another flight; seating accommodation assistance that meets passengers’ disability-related needs; and assistance with the loading and stowing of assistive devices.
9. Thou shalt complain – Traveling by air was once a luxurious privilege, but has become as commonplace as taking the train. However, when things go wrong and travel is disrupted, passengers still very rarely complain or claim compensation for the hassle they’ve gone through. One major reason for this is that more than 87 percent of travelers still don’t know their rights as air passengers. Besides your right to compensation, you can always complain when an airline doesn’t fulfill the service they’ve promised – some might even take your feedback seriously and try to improve their service.
10. Thou shalt be compensated – If you are on a flight to or from Europe, and you arrive to your destination with delays of more than 3 hours, you may be eligible to file for compensation. Under European law EC 261, you could claim up to 600 euros from the airline in cases where disruptions are the fault of the airline, and the departure airport is within the EU or the airline carrier is based in the EU and the flight is landing in the EU. If you don’t have time to file a claim right away, don’t worry, as you have up to three years to file for compensation. AirHelp offers a free eligibility check via the website or the app-integrated boarding pass scanner, so you can check whether you are owed money while you’re still at the gate.
