Thread: Horror passengers on planes

Flying back from Tokyo the other week there was a Japanese guy who had us in stitches for most of the flight. He was like an Asian cross between Frank Spencer and Mr Bean. I'm not sure if he was all there upstairs, but looked to be about 40 and was traveling alone in business class despite being dressed like a hobo (might have been attempted street fashion gone wrong). We hypothesized that he may be some kind of mildly autistic tech-genius who owned a multi-million dollar IT company, but probably not.

He got on and straight away we knew this was going to be interesting. Being seated one row in front of us across the aisle I had a good view of everything that he did during the flight. As soon as he sat down he unpacked every electronic device from his backpack, dropping half of them on the floor. The backpack by the way couldn't go in the overhead locker... because he couldn't reach it - so he just left it lying in the aisle up against the side of his seat. After uncoiling headphones and fiddling around for about 10 minutes (we were still parked at the ramp) he started playing games on his tablet. The centre seat next to him was spare so he proceeded to dump god knows what on it, but it was full and both his and the empty seat tray tables were down and loaded.

As she came down the aisle closing the overhead bins, the flight attendant told him to put his bag up in one and turn off his device. At this point I'm not sure whether he understood either Japanese OR English as the attendant tried speaking to him in both. He was definitely Japanese - not Chinese or Korean - as the games I saw him playing were all in Japanese. He had another stab at putting his bag in the overhead bin and eventually ended up standing on his seat to do it. It fell out on him a couple of times and the attendant fortunately came and helped him. Everyone else at this stage was buckled in as we were pushing back. The chap then resumed his seat and kept playing games.

Another flight attendant walked down the aisle and told him again to turn off his tablet & stow his tray table. He did this but I know for sure he didn't turn it off-off, just pressed the button to put it to sleep. If I suspected for a moment this would actually cause problems I would have said something, but that is all absolute BS and the entertainment was just beginning.

The safety demonstration... this is where we discovered that old-mate had never put on a seatbelt before. Despite watching the live demonstration he looked blankly at both ends of the buckle and tried pushing the tongue into the back of the clasp. When this didn't work he TRIED TYING THE ENDS TOGETHER. He left the twisted knot on his lap and started looking at the emergency brief in the seat pocket. After studying this he had another go at buckling his seatbelt and AGAIN tried to push it in backwards before flipping it over and buckling it the right way. I breathed a sigh of relief as I had nearly passed out with laughter (you know, that silent type that almost suffocates you when you're trying to be quiet). THEN he couldn't work out how to tighten the belt, so again he just let it hang loose in his lap. I figured he was small so wouldn't cause much damage if he went flying around the cabin during turbulence.

This guy had obviously never flown before as evidenced by the seatbelt fiasco, so I waited for the reaction on take-off. There was none - major disappointment. However, we were only just off the runway and he was up trying to go to the toilet. This was, of course, still locked and the attendant told him to sit down again. More seatbelt origami, more stifled laughter from me. Finally the seatbelt light went off and he was up again to the toilet. I made a mental note to avoid using the bathroom after him as I could only imagine the mess in there as he tried to work out what buttons and levers to press. Next he was up standing on his seat getting his bag back down and out came all the electronic devices again.

Time passed with a chaotic juggling of his bag, clothes, snacks (which he brought with him despite flying business class), tablet and seatbelt. Then came dinner. It was like watching a toddler. His headphones went in the soup a couple of times. If he hadn't had a spare seat next to him I don't know what would have happened. There was a choice of Japanese or western meal, and surprisingly he chose the western one. I started to worry being in business class and he having access to proper stainless steel cutlery. All it meant was that it was louder every time he dropped his knife on the floor.

Dinner was cleared away and he resumed playing games on his tablet. These games were the kind of hypercolour, epileptic seizure inducing kid's games that a lot of Japanese people seem to play, but given the preceding 2 hours that didn't seem too odd. That lasted for another hour or so and he fell asleep. Every device was still on and one by one things kept dropping off his lap or tray table on to the floor. But our friend had clearly slipped into a coma and was snoring so loudly I could even hear it through my own noise cancelling headphones. Every now and then I glanced up from what I was watching and observed him slipping further and further down and under the seat in front. The tray table was still down so I knew it would be interesting when he woke up and had to extricate himself.

A couple of hours before landing they handed out our immigration and customs declaration forms. I don't know if he was able to fill them in, but by now I was sure he would be stopped at immigration anyway just because he was clearly, well, you know... too thick to enter the country. When we got off in Cairns we hoped like hell this guy was joining a tour group or something because there was no way he would survive Australia on his own. He would most likely get robbed by the taxi driver leaving the airport. By now he has probably drowned on the reef.

Australia really needs to have a warning label for people like this.

Originally Posted by solmanic

Flying back from Tokyo the other week there was a Japanese guy who had us in stitches for most of the flight. He was like an Asian cross between Frank Spencer and Mr Bean. I'm not sure if he was all there upstairs, but looked to be about 40 and was traveling alone in business class despite being dressed like a hobo (might have been attempted street fashion gone wrong). We hypothesized that he may be some kind of mildly autistic tech-genius who owned a multi-million dollar IT company, but probably not.

He got on and straight away we knew this was going to be interesting. Being seated one row in front of us across the aisle I had a good view of everything that he did during the flight. As soon as he sat down he unpacked every electronic device from his backpack, dropping half of them on the floor. The backpack by the way couldn't go in the overhead locker... because he couldn't reach it - so he just left it lying in the aisle up against the side of his seat. After uncoiling headphones and fiddling around for about 10 minutes (we were still parked at the ramp) he started playing games on his tablet. The centre seat next to him was spare so he proceeded to dump god knows what on it, but it was full and both his and the empty seat tray tables were down and loaded.

As she came down the aisle closing the overhead bins, the flight attendant told him to put his bag up in one and turn off his device. At this point I'm not sure whether he understood either Japanese OR English as the attendant tried speaking to him in both. He was definitely Japanese - not Chinese or Korean - as the games I saw him playing were all in Japanese. He had another stab at putting his bag in the overhead bin and eventually ended up standing on his seat to do it. It fell out on him a couple of times and the attendant fortunately came and helped him. Everyone else at this stage was buckled in as we were pushing back. The chap then resumed his seat and kept playing games.

Another flight attendant walked down the aisle and told him again to turn off his tablet & stow his tray table. He did this but I know for sure he didn't turn it off-off, just pressed the button to put it to sleep. If I suspected for a moment this would actually cause problems I would have said something, but that is all absolute BS and the entertainment was just beginning.

The safety demonstration... this is where we discovered that old-mate had never put on a seatbelt before. Despite watching the live demonstration he looked blankly at both ends of the buckle and tried pushing the tongue into the back of the clasp. When this didn't work he TRIED TYING THE ENDS TOGETHER. He left the twisted knot on his lap and started looking at the emergency brief in the seat pocket. After studying this he had another go at buckling his seatbelt and AGAIN tried to push it in backwards before flipping it over and buckling it the right way. I breathed a sigh of relief as I had nearly passed out with laughter (you know, that silent type that almost suffocates you when you're trying to be quiet). THEN he couldn't work out how to tighten the belt, so again he just let it hang loose in his lap. I figured he was small so wouldn't cause much damage if he went flying around the cabin during turbulence.

This guy had obviously never flown before as evidenced by the seatbelt fiasco, so I waited for the reaction on take-off. There was none - major disappointment. However, we were only just off the runway and he was up trying to go to the toilet. This was, of course, still locked and the attendant told him to sit down again. More seatbelt origami, more stifled laughter from me. Finally the seatbelt light went off and he was up again to the toilet. I made a mental note to avoid using the bathroom after him as I could only imagine the mess in there as he tried to work out what buttons and levers to press. Next he was up standing on his seat getting his bag back down and out came all the electronic devices again.

Time passed with a chaotic juggling of his bag, clothes, snacks (which he brought with him despite flying business class), tablet and seatbelt. Then came dinner. It was like watching a toddler. His headphones went in the soup a couple of times. If he hadn't had a spare seat next to him I don't know what would have happened. There was a choice of Japanese or western meal, and surprisingly he chose the western one. I started to worry being in business class and he having access to proper stainless steel cutlery. All it meant was that it was louder every time he dropped his knife on the floor.

Dinner was cleared away and he resumed playing games on his tablet. These games were the kind of hypercolour, epileptic seizure inducing kid's games that a lot of Japanese people seem to play, but given the preceding 2 hours that didn't seem too odd. That lasted for another hour or so and he fell asleep. Every device was still on and one by one things kept dropping off his lap or tray table on to the floor. But our friend had clearly slipped into a coma and was snoring so loudly I could even hear it through my own noise cancelling headphones. Every now and then I glanced up from what I was watching and observed him slipping further and further down and under the seat in front. The tray table was still down so I knew it would be interesting when he woke up and had to extricate himself.

A couple of hours before landing they handed out our immigration and customs declaration forms. I don't know if he was able to fill them in, but by now I was sure he would be stopped at immigration anyway just because he was clearly, well, you know... too thick to enter the country. When we got off in Cairns we hoped like hell this guy was joining a tour group or something because there was no way he would survive Australia on his own. He would most likely get robbed by the taxi driver leaving the airport. By now he has probably drowned on the reef.

Australia really needs to have a warning label for people like this.

We have lots of Japanese Manufacturing plants here in Ohio and I have a complete understanding of what you just witnessed...I worked as a machine operator/part inspector in a Japanese plant that made shock dampers for Honda (and sometimes Mitsubishi). A machine that I operated used air jets to dry parts after being washed. This machine sounded like a jet turbine, so in an effort to dampen some of the noise, it took a team of five Japanese engineers a week and a half of arguing like school children to solve the problem. They turned down the air pressure. This, in turn, put one air pressure reading out of spec on the machine. With them standing there, I got their attention, turned the air pressure back up, and simply adjusted the pressure going to the air jets. All readings were in spec, and the machine wasn't deafening anymore.

I got fired a week later LOL!!