What's the weirdest/strangest thing you've seen on a flight or at the airport?

[ceddes]

For me, it was a mid-2001 flight from Phoenix to Las Vegas. I noticed that nearly everyone was paying very close attention to the safety briefing. The FA wasn't doing anything funny; it was run-of-the-mill. I shrugged my shoulders and went back to reading my magazine.

Since I was sitting near the front, I overheard two FAs talking to each other. One asked the other what was up with everyone paying attention. The other FA told the first one that there was an emergency landing earlier in the day, and everyone had to evacuate. No one was hurt, and it turned out to be a false alarm, but the pilot took no chances. These passengers were finally making it to Las Vegas.

I guess the experience spooked them enough to actually pay attention to the announcements.

[dfwskier]

Years ago had a Continental flight that encountered  unexpected severe turbulence during beverage servace. The FAs could not make it back to their seata so they sat down in the aisle.

One sat next to me and asked me to grab her belt so that if we hit a big drop I might keep her from htting the ceiling. Luckily we did not hit any big drops.

[SoCalFlyer97]

Thanks for sharing!

I'll share two strange moments.

One involved a very bumpy descent from a night trip from OAK-ONT flight from last January when the plane crossed over the San Bernardino Mountains...

Imagine riding Disneyland's Indiana Jones Temple of the Forbidden Eye attraction. That's how bumpy it got! There were no sudden drops but the plane was shaking like a thrill ride when we passed from the desert over the mountains and into SoCal. Turbulence is typical over this area but I wasn't expecting it to get that bumpy. Everybody stayed calm.

Still the pilots managed to keep the plane aligned to its prescribed route and we had a perfectly aligned landing.

I posted a trip report of this:

https://community.southwest.com/t5/Inflight-Experience/Jan-24-Photo-Trip-amp-Southwest-Hotels-Report...

The second involved my first SW flight after getting A-List. There was a late gate change at SAN that was announced about 10 minutes prior to boarding time that required a concourse swap. Usually concourse swaps are not difficult but it gets tricky with SAN. I "blame" it because the original gate was Gate 13 for a Vegas-bound flight (well, that's not the real reason).

11 months ago, I was headed to LAS. The pic above shows 7:48am, just a little more than 10 minutes prior to the 8:00am board time. I realized that I needed to refill my water bottles so I go to the drinking fountain. Once I return, I see this:

I go up to an available SW Customer Service agent and asked them what that was all about and they confirmed and later announced the gate change. The only problem is SAN at present has no airside connectors between the two concourses:

That meant 10 minutes prior to scheduled boarding time, everybody for that flight had to go through TSA again. And no exceptions to beverages that were refilled or bought airside...those had to be dumped and purchased again. Thankfully, SW held the flight at the new gate until everybody cleared and TSA was able to get everybody (even all the Standard Screening passengers) through within 15 minutes. Plane pushed back about 15 minutes behind schedule at about 8:50am but recovered most of the lost time en-route. 

I posted a trip report of this flight and described what caused the late gate change:

https://community.southwest.com/t5/Inflight-Experience/Sept-23-Photo-Trip-Report-SAN-LAS-with-2x-TSA...

Safe Travels!

[AliceRodriguez]

Thanks for sharing it.

[tappingmom1]

During the pandemic, I continued to fly my normal Portland, OR to San Diego run.  At the gate, a woman was seated with 8 rolls of toilet paper in her lap.  Not wrapped.  Not in a package. Not in a bag.  Just 8 rolls held together by a cord running through the cardboard core of each roll.  Picture a giant circle of toilet paper.  She also had a purse and a wheeled carry-on.  This was going to be either very funny or could turn...interesting.  Since the flight was practically empty, I stayed in my seat near the gate and just watched.

She queued up to board.  Naturally, they reminded her that she was only allowed 1 personal item and 1 carry-on item.  They told her that she needed to gate check either her toilet paper collection or her wheeled carry-on.  She argued, indicating that there was plenty of overhead space for both.  The gate agent held his ground.  All eyes were on her as she slipped the circular chain of toilet paper over her head and declared it a "covid necklace"...that was part of her outfit.  She looked ridiculous, her face dwarfed by toilet paper rolls.  Laughter erupted, all was good, and she was allowed to board.  She proudly wore her accessory onto the plane (I followed her while biting my tongue), where, once again, the FAs burst into laughter as she made her way down the aisle.

Yes, fond and interesting memories of flying during covid.

[aMomTo6]

@tappingmom1- thanks for sharing.  I laughed so hard til I cried while reading this to my husband

@ceddes, the OP- thanks for a little diversion from the usual here 🙂