Airline Veterans Spill Stories from Their 10 Craziest Flights Ever

We asked a pilot, a flight attendant, and a CEO to spill some of their wildest stories. Turns out, they're more outrageous than we'd even imagined.

This is the kind of thing your flight attendant normally wouldn't tell you. Just before takeoff, while one of her colleagues was finishing the safety briefing, Farida Boland, a flight attendant and senior purser for over a decade and co-founder of HolidayPromoCode.com, heard a baby crying, but she couldn't figure out where the sound was coming from. The cries were kind of muffled, and the sound seemed to be coming from nowhere in particular. And then she realized: It was coming from one of the overhead luggage bins. Turned out that one of the passengers had managed to stow her baby, snug in its bassinet, into the overhead bin without anyone seeing.

Believe it or not, Farida explains, this wasn't a sign that the woman was a bad mother. Rather, in some cultures, it isn't uncommon for first-time fliers to be under the misapprehension that the overhead bin isn't just a place to stow carry-on luggage, but also a perfectly cozy sleeping cove for a newborn or infant baby.

Farida located where the cries were coming from, reached up, took the baby (leaving the bassinet, which is where it belongs on a plane) and handed to its mother, who was confused until Farida managed to explain that babies without their own seats must be held during takeoff.

Dan Boland, a pilot, travel consultant, and co-founder of HolidayPromoCode.com with his wife, Farida, flies an Airbus A330, a wide-body twin-engine jet airliner that can accommodate up to 335 passengers. In other words, Dan flies a large plane.

That's why he's not surprised, although you might be, to learn that some parents who are taking their children on such a large plane for the first time assume that there must be a place onboard where kids can play with toys and relax on flight. "They ask me where the playroom is," Dan says, "and I have to break the news." This has happened most often on Dan's longer (10 to 14 hours) flights. It might sound silly, but if you think about it, it's not such a bad idea, having a playroom in the sky, now is it?