The tray tables had adverts for Verizon on them. The arm rests were cracked, and one overhead bin was missing its latch. This was a little weird and disturbing… but just a little.

As we were about to push back from the gate, a ground crew member boarded the plane holding a red button, about the size of a keyboard key. He asked the flight attendant if he knew where the button was supposed to go. I turned to my fiance and said ‘oh, that’s the button that holds the wings on’. The crew member walked into the cockpit and the pilot, the flight attendant and the ground crew were all looking for where this button went, opening each overhead compartment and scanning each seat and call button. After five minutes of intense searching, the ground crew member gave up and left the plane, leaving the rest of us confused and a little freaked out.

If I know that the flight and ground crew doesn’t know where a button goes and proceeds to search the cabin with passengers seated, my confidence is shot and I will never fly the airline again.

Flew from Los Angeles, CA (LAX) to Boston, MA (MA) with a stopover in New York, NY (JFK). Flight from LAX to JFK was uneventful, but the flight to BOS was delayed. At first, they said it was something having to do with equipment, but I found out later that our crew didn’t have enough time on the ground between flights.

Eventually, our flight was canceled, but we were told that American had arranged to have us take the Delta Shuttle to Boston. However, we had to go downstairs, get our bags, get on a shuttle bus and go to Laguardia airport to get that plane. OK, a pain, but what can you do?

We all head down to the baggage claim, and wait for what seemed like another 1/2 hour or so. The bags come out and … they’re not ours, they’re from another flight … the bags go back to wherever they came from, we wait around for another 15 minutes (at least), and finally get our bags. Then, it’s out to the shuttle for the trip to the Delta Terminal at Laguardia.

We get to the Delta Terminal at Laguardia and are told that the they never heard of us, were never contacted by American, and the flight (the last flight of the day) is gone anyway. There is, however, one more flight out of Laguardia, on Northwest, out of another terminal. The Delta rep said he would call Northwest and tell them we were on our way there and call for a shuttle bus, but he couldn’t guarantee that the shuttle would get us to the Northwest terminal in time to make the flight, so he recommended we share cabs and later try to get our money back from American. Which is what most of us did, and we made the Northwest flight and finally got to Boston.

I suppose it’s possible that the Delta reps lied to us and had been contacted by American but didn’t hold our flight, but I still blame American for taking so long to cancel the flight and putting us in that situation in the first place.

Virgin also ranks up there, canceling flights without sufficient notice, cramped seating, all topped off by a flight attendant who wouldn’t let a disabled man move to an empty seat so that he could stretch his crippled leg.

The best is Virgin America. Never once had a delay and actually have left early before. Decent sized seats and in-flight personal entertainment. Plus Google maps as you fly which is awesome.

By far the best I’ve been on is JAL (Japanese airline).the food is great and they are super friendly. Plus I saw some video about how humble their CEO is. Like taking a huge paycut and eats at the cafeteria with the rest of the employees.

American cancels my flights on short notice 2/3 of the time, so I’m going to have to go with them. Why isn’t Airtran on here? I never really have bad service on their flights, but their planes can be pretty junky and gross.

Best experiences domestically have been on SkyTeam flights, so Delta, Continental, and Northwest. But everybody knows the best airlines are out of Asia.

I vote JFK. Worst airport ever.

I’ve only had a few flights through there but I have never had a flight go through there were I didn’t end up stranded overnight and having to pay $140 or so for a crappy hotel room around the block. And I mean both ways, going and coming.

Nationally: Alaskan. They are the only airline that flies in and out of my Alaskan town, and I get to see their “dark side” because I fly them so much. I really dislike them.

I just don’t like it when you get there 2 hrs early and the bag-check line takes 1 1/2 hrs, then they detect ‘bomb’ material on my diaper bag and detain me another 30 minutes. THEN have the nerve to ‘lecture’ me at the gate that I should’ve gotten there 2 hrs early, so as to not miss my flight.

I had to sit with a tired baby all day and part of the night until the next available flight.

Thank God that SeaTac has a children’s nursery/ play area for breastfeeding mothers and tired babies.

That trip made me regret flying out with a young child and no husband to accompany me. It just made me appreciate my husband more!

Aberguy, I have had great service and do appreciate the work all of you do. I know it can’t be easy. But, unfortunately, complaints are heard far more often than positive experiences. I’d post one if I could remember the details, but alas, the negative ones stick out more.

Personally, I’ve had bad experiences with United and Continental, but both were results of the circumstances, really. My United flight was delayed, then disappeared off the board so the only way I could find out info was to look it up on my iPhone-their website said it was still on time. Meanwhile the desk was crowded with people trying to get on another flight. Five hours later, with the majority of my info coming from my iPhone and not from anyone at the airport, I finally boarded the flight. For Continental, the flight was delayed five hours and then canceled, because when the plane finally landed the crew had gone over their allotted hours and there was no crew for the plane. Unfortunate, but due to weather. I will agree that United has crappy customer service.

American Airlines, though, has always been great.

What the real joy of this is that the 2 later flights both run by US Awful arrived before my flight did (remember mine was first of the day), both were less then half full and they got their luggage. My company got a 50% refund on the cost of the tickets for my suffering.

After I asked why they did not move us to one of the later flights after they realized that they were going to leave before our plane was ready was because our luggage would then be on the wrong plane. Never mind the fact that the luggage was never sent to the plane and actually took a flight 12 hours later (9 flights between mine and the one my luggage took).

Return flight was delayed 20 mins because the co-pilot was not there yet (never got a good reason for this) which caused a 40min wait to take off and a 55min wait for a terminal at my destination.

Southwest makes the top of the list for me. As mentioned above, the way they do the seating is SO dumb. And they tout it like it’s a big advantage over every other airline!

For those who don’t know, SW doesn’t allow you to reserve seats. You get assigned a Zone, and have to STAND IN LINE at the gate, so you can hopefully get the seat you want. But they ARE kinda sorta assigned, because there are numbered areas within the zone! So, if you’re assigning zones within zones, why not just assign seats?!? Arg! And who wants to stand in line while having to travel all day? ARG! And to get a better seat, you have to stand in line longer! ARG ARG!!

The thing that is most aggravating is that I can plan everything well in advance, get my ticket 3 months ahead of time, and some random person who just bought their ticket at the counter 5 minutes before I arrive at the airport can get a better seat than me. Stupid.

One can’t arrogantly assume other people experience flying differently. It’s like living in a city, unless you get mugged or profiled, your perception of the city will probably be good if you ignore the plight of other people.

I paraphrase: Your flight is delayed, maybe there is a chicken on board, but did you not just fly, like a bird, in the sky???

aberguy: I think most people do not grasp the complexity of the airline system and the work and coordination it takes to make it run as smoothly as it does.

One of them out right canceled a flight -poof- it disappeared from the departing screen without explanation- no “cancelled” on the screen. Had to hunt down someone to find out that the flight was cancelled and got the handoff twice to “go to that desk”. Ended up that everyone was rebooked on a later flight so the airline could combine two flights (but they didn’t tell me that). Well,the later flight ends up delaying 1, then 2, then 3 , then 4 hours. Once we were on the plane it took 1 1/2 hour delay to load up and get airborn. I get into the medium sized but podunk city I was flying to at 1am on a Tuesday night so nothing but an Arby’s drive through was open for food- no pizza, no bars, nothing.

Conversely all the people above crowing about Southwest are just whining about the seating. Bah, seating issues are nothing to deal with compared to being treated like I was by the other airline. Southwest might be like taking the bus, but Southwest typically treats its passengers as humans, will communicate problems in real time with real explanations, and are typically on time.

CharlesNelsonReilly, you’d have to set your standards mighty low to find this an acceptable travel experience.

Delta is probably about the best; taking a Delta connection after a Southwest one is like upgrading from the baggage hold to first class.

CharlesNelsonReilly, most service industries carry a high expectation of positive customer interactions. Airlines have been doing this less and less well as they stretch their employees further and charge their customers for more little things to increase their profit margins. Everyone complains about poor customer service because it’s true. Flying can be a harrowing experience even with good customer service, but when bad customer service is added on top, it’s particularly unpleasant.

Then, the luggage went to Burundi instead of Uganda. And even though I identified that within 30 minutes of landing, it still took 3 days to get it back.

Oh, and I’m just shy of 5′ 8″. I had bruised knees on that flight.

[That said, I've certainly had worse *flights*. For example, the spring, 2002--just after 9/11---flight to London...in which the 3 year old kid near me screamed, ran up and down the aisles, threw toys which hit other passengers, and woke people up if he say they were nodding off...for the ENTIRE flight. Flight attendants tried to occupy him, but his mother sure didn't. And I think people were just too scared to complain about inconvenience and rudeness at that time, especially to folks with brown skin---they were middle-Eastern, I think. A combination of biases, prejudices, and passivity meant that we put up with this for the whole flight.]

But Delta, overall, is worse — they think they have a lock on eastcoast / southeast travel so they treat their customers like cattle.

I hate United profoundly.

I travel a fair bit since my family is on the other side of the country, and that was the worst experience I’ve ever had. I’ll never fly with them again!

LAB (Lloyd Aereo Boliviano – Bolivian Air Lloyd), before it was bought by VASP, a brazilian airline, that now is defunct.

Dude, those 2 flights were bad.

The last few years I’ve flown right before Thanksgiving the passenger loads were actually rather light. Most people I would say live within driving distance of relatives or don’t want to really pay a couple grand to fly thier family somewhere for one meal.

As for the worst airline I’ve ever operated as a pilot for (Im a regional pilot that flys for about 7 differnt ones)? United is the joke of the airline industry. The best? Continental.