Korean Job Discussion Forums

[periwinkle]

I want to hear some stories about annoying passengers you guys have travelled with in an airplane, bus, or whatever. My last flight wasn't too bad, except I had forgotten my trusty earplugs, so I had to listen to a guy about 4 rows behind me singing off and on throughout the flight (Simon Cowell would have had choice some comments for him, for sure). Didn't bother me too much, but at one point, I did feel like throwing rotten vegetables and booing. He was part of a goup of around 15-20 college students or something. I could hear most of one girl's conversations, and she was seated a row behing me, and on the opposite side of the a/c. I kept thinking about how Patchy kept arguing in a thread about Americans being loud

I guess I was somewhat of an annoying passenger, too. A f/a went around waking people for the breakfast service, and before they even started serving, she wanted people to put their seatbacks up so that the person behind them could comfortably put their tray table down. Now, I know this isn't a KAL serice standard, and the f/a was doing it to make her job easier, so I idn't do it. I wanted to sleep. Well, she kept at me, so I told her I'd put my seat up when she started serving food to my section. She insisted I put my seat up, and I was like "FINE!" My husband was not impressed with me, and asked me to be more cooperative . Anyway, I was irritated, so l went to the back galley to ask a different group of flight attendants for a comment card, but they didn't understand.

[Qinella]

On the way back from Las Vegas, a girl in the row in front of me puked during the angled part of take-off, and my brother got splattered with it. And he had to sit there and wait like 5 minutes for the seatbelt light to turn off before he could get up and clean himself off.

So far, nothing I've experienced on a plane has been as bad as that.

[k_b]

I'll be flying to Seoul from the States fairly soon to look for an EFL job and of all the horror stories and bad experiences I've read, the 12 hr. flight from California is probably what disturbs me the most. That's just too long to be on a damn plane for me, but oh well.

[ajgeddes]

I have two bad experiences.

First, on my first flight over here on KAL, I had an old grandma behind me. She got up about every 15-30 minutes. Everytime she got up she gave my seat a huge pull and jerked my seat. It was enough that I couldn't sleep for the whole flight, and as KAL doesn't have a good entertainment system, I was going crazy. I asked the F/A to ask her to stop, but she couldn't speak English, and then I tried to ask the lady to stop, but she wasn't listening.

Second, I usually fly Cathay Pacific home, which connects through Hong Kong. The Hong Kong to Toronto flight takes 17 hours, it's painful, but at least they have a good entertainment system. Anyways, the first time, there was a baby right behind me that cried for the whole 17 hours, it must have been a record. I didn't have any ear plugs, and even when I was watching the movie, I could still hear the baby. I felt sorry for the parents, but I was going nuts. I ran off that flight to get away from it.

Other than those, nothing to terrible that really needs to be written about.

[crazylemongirl]

I just flew back on Asiana from Cambodia. I thought I had hit the jackpot as the requiste screaming baby was absent from the flight. Instead I was seated next to three soju-laced adjeoshis that stunk of kimchi and snored the whole flight. The flight attendents wouldn't do anything except give me earplugs (full flight). As a final coup de grace, they tried to cut infront of me in the foreigners queue at passport control (I was the only foreigner on the plane) until I yelled at them.

[Grotto]

[Ya-ta Boy]

In my very first international flight, I was stuck with a French rugby team who partied loudly. It would have been more entertaining had I not already been exhausted by having travelled 12 hours before I got on that flight from LAX to Tahiti following my second migraine/vomiting experience in my life.

[poet13]

A few years ago, during the SARs scare, I flew from Washington DC to the Philippines, or Korea. Not sure which, I have made the trip to those two countries a combined 30 something times. For some reason we changed planes in China. Anyways, I was working for the Govt at teh time, and early in the flight I unzipped and opened my work folder. Inside were business cards of all kinds of military and fed people, and my various ID's...military, FEMA, explosives licenses, etc. This fellow looks at my stuff before I could close it, and decides that I'm some kind of super secret agent with a decoder ring and everything. I'm a friggin' contractor for chrissakes! And he starts talking, and talking, and talking........and talking....ohmyf-inggawdshutthef---upalreadywillya! He tells me he's also going to the PI or Korea. I think it WAS the PI. He shows me his onward ticket. Damned if he isn't sitting beside me on the next leg too. We debark in China. They had lines where you filled out a short questionaire, and they took your temperature. The questionaire asked if you had had an elevated temperature, a cough, stuff like that. There were two lines. He was beside me. They took our questionaires at the head of the line, and as we stood in front of the Chinese health people, I turned to him and said, "It sounds like your cough is better." He wasn't on the next flight.

[Mashimaro]

[Lizara]

[poet13]

I've been on many, many flights. Some short little red-eyes, the shortest was commuting from Clarke Air Force Base to Manila. 15 minutes in the air with a tail wind. But I hvae also been on some very long flights. New York to Jo-burg, South Africa, was one of the longest. DC direct to Seoul is long too, but after the tenth time, I could do it standing on my head.
I had very few unpleasant trips though. Just long. On one trip we hit the tiniest spot of turbulance and a kid a few seats back puked. Smelled awful. That set off a kid in my row but across the aisle. That in turn set off a couple of more. I was surrounded by puking kids. It was pretty foul, but the stewardesses moved me and a couple of other passengers other seats.
On one flight I had some kid who just would not stop kicking my seat. Strong legs for a five or six year old. His timing was impeccable. The moment I nodded off, he would give my seat a good kick. It was night, so all the lights were off and most people were sleeping. At one point I actually got up, knelt on my seat, leaned over the back and growled in this kids face. His mother called the flight attendant. She came back and said I hasd spoken harshly to her son. I said my bit. The mother said, "my son is well behaved, he doesn't do that." Just then the kid gives me seat a good double kick. The flight attendant was not impressed.

[Homer]

My last bad travel experience was with Air Canada. It was a domestic flight back home while on a visit .

On a TO-Vancouver flight:

The plane was stuck on the runway for 2 hours while waiting for a part...they taxied us from one spot to another...we were stuck on the plane.

There was no meal on the flight...only a small snack (thankfully we brought our food!)

One of the flight attendants was so....corpulantly challenged that she had to turn sideways to walk down the aisles. She also smoked in the F/A area (I kid you not!).

When the flight took off we got nasty service all the way to Van.

Finally, the lost my luggage and it took them 4 days to get it (my visit to Van lasting 10 days!).

Now...I should have flown Westjet....

[ajgeddes]

[poet13]

"I felt for him because then he had to make a flight after having done all that."
THAT'S HORRIBLE!!! Man, I would change in the restroom, and discard that entire set of clothes....

[ajgeddes]