Most Outrageous Passenger Requests As Told By Flight Attendants

The most annoying passengers on a flight are usually people who talk a lot, fall asleep on you, or have too many bags so you end up checking yours, and they may get lost. What all of these "features" have in common is that they affect you. Travelers on a plane rarely think about what crew members have to deal with. As it turns out, some of the requests are outrageous and absolutely hilarious.

"An elderly World War Two veteran asked me to dance with him in the aisle of first class," Heather Poole, flight attendant and author of the New York Times bestseller Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama and Crazy Passengers. She agreed. "That was nice. But, for the record, I wouldn't dance with anyone else," she adds.

"I once helped a passenger with his love life as he explained to me that 'there is the most beautiful girl' sitting in 8C," Lia Volpe, flight attendant and owner of Flight Attendant Prep Academy, says. He gave Volpe a napkin with his name and number on it. "Can you please give it to her? I am too embarrassed to hand it to her," he said. "So, I walk over to 8C and give her the napkin. She starts giggling and starts to blush, looks back and winks." The lady waited for him to get off the airplane and both left together, Volpe says.

"A passenger tried to stow her baby in an overhead bin," Poole says. As you can imagine, the request was not granted. As shockingly as this may sound, it's happened more than once. Volpe says the crew was getting the plane ready for takeoff as she started hearing a baby crying in the overhead bin. "I immediately took the baby down from the overhead bin, where it was stuffed in between two pieces of luggage. [...]The mother claimed that was her new born infant [and] asked if she could keep her baby up in the overhead bin because it looked like a bassinet and thought that's where the baby was supposed to be during the entire flight," Volpe adds.

"I had a passenger offer to fix my shoes," Poole says. She had no idea they needed to be repaired but the person was a cobbler, so he may have seen something most people won't notice. "He told me to box them up and mail them to the address on his business card." There is market for used flight attendant shoes on eBay. 

"There was obviously a honeymoon couple on our flight who couldn't keep their hands off of each other. They were making out and hugging for everyone to see. As I was passing by, they had stopped me and asked if they could join the 'Mile High Club,'" Volpe says. She told them that she would be bringing the beverage cart past them, starting service all the way in the front of the airplane, and that after that, the couple would have 15 minutes. "I gave them advice that they would need to go one by one. They left very happy and thanked me on their way out," Volpe adds.

"A passenger once asked me where the play area was," Poole says. "I just looked around and tried not to laugh. Then I reminded her that 'you're on a plane.' She said, 'Well it would be nice if there was a play area for kids. This is a long flight.'"

Volpe was once asked by an elderly passenger if he could use the oxygen mask the entire flight. "I told him that he wouldn't need it unless there was an emergency and we needed supplemental oxygen in the air. Little did I know that this was his first time flying and he thought you needed to use the oxygen mask while we flew the entire time," she adds.

Two or three passengers have asked Poole to borrow her dental floss. "That might seem like a strange request to you, but where else in the world does that happen or you feel that comfortable asking a complete stranger to borrow something out of their suitcase," she adds.

"I've had passengers order Dr. Pepper and Red Wine – mixed together.  Apparently that's a thing," Poole says. The cocktail has apparently become more popular. It now has its own Facebook page, even though it doesn't have many likes.

If there is one thing people know about flying is that they cannot smoke inside the plane. But some folks don't listen. "A passenger once asked if he could smoke a cigarette in the lavatory since it was a 5-hour flight and he hadn't had one all day. While doing our routine service, I smelled smoke wafting from the lavatory [...] He thought it was okay to smoke as he saw the ashtray on the door. These ashtrays are actually used for people who try to smoke in the airplane but are caught – apparently that happens more than you know. "We would rather have it in the ashtray than start a fire in the trash can in the air. Very dangerous," she adds.  

"I had a passenger corner me in the galley and scream at me for ruining her vacation because we ran out of eggs...in business class," Poole says. "You see, she's a mom and she never gets to go away and it was my fault it [was all ruined] because of... cereal?" she adds.

"I've had passengers get mad at me because I wouldn't let them borrow my own personal charger," Poole says. Some people don't like to share their personal items for several reasons. "What's mine is not yours. But that didn't stop another passenger from stealing the egg McMuffin I left in my jump seat," she adds.

"Someone I know had three chicken strips stolen off her salad when she turned to pour a passenger a drink," Poole says. "She found them in the exit row clutched in a passenger's hand."