Airline Gazette: Fictional headlines for wishful-thinking events

Is this the only way for nuns to fly these days?

 How many times have you been on an airplane when you wanted a lot more than mild-mannered Miss Manners traveling with you? Times when maybe Vito Corleone would have been a better choice in a useful traveling companion.

Following are some headlines that might have appeared after recent flights my friends and I have taken, had we not been so basically forgiving and equable.

1. Woman strangles elderly Pakistani woman on an Atlantica Airlines flight

Halfway through the red-eye to Heathrow Monday night, U.S. air traveler Mitzi Smith leapt from her seat, twirled under the “hat rack” and lunged across her seatback, pinning Fatima Khan against her seatback. In the melee, Ms. Khan’s shawl  slipped upward and was caught under Ms. Smith’s hands, strangling Ms. Khan instantly.

“I had no intention of harming the lady, much less killing her,” Ms. Smith noted when taken into custody at Heathrow. “I feel terrible about this. I really just wanted to get in her face, so she’d stop screeching and, uh…well….”

Other passengers interviewed for the story noted that on a random schedule of every 11 to 22 minutes, Ms. Khan emitted an ear-piercing scream, followed by audible and olfactory nerve-damaging gaseous emissions.

No charges were filed.

2. Man destroys seatmate’s laptop on Omega Airlines flight from Miami to NYC

Early Wednesday, a man was escorted off an Omega flight by cabin crew after he had picked up, thrown to the aisle floor, and stepped on his seatmate’s laptop computer.

“I just couldn’t stand it anymore,” he told transit police. “She was editing a dental textbook, and when she pulled up those photos of dental implants with all the blood and tongues and holes in gums, I just couldn’t stand it. I offered to buy her a drink if she would stop, but she wouldn’t. I just couldn’t stand it.”

The woman who owned the laptop is a medical editor, and was trying to finish a project before the meeting for which she was flying in. “Look, he could have changed seats; the plane was half empty. How often does that happen anymore? There was no need for him to interrupt me, never mind trash my life’s work. Of course I’m pressing charges.”

3. Kids barricaded in lavatory while parents sleep

Two children, ages 3 and 5, were held in an airplane lavatory for several hours last evening on a Pan World flight from New York to Paris. The man who kept them there has been charged with reckless endangerment; kidnapping charges are not contemplated because of mitigating circumstances.

“I would do it again,” noted Lew Neebin, as he was handcuffed at Orly. “Those kids kicked the back of my seat nonstop for three hours. Their parents were asleep and, although I shook the father’s arm, no one woke up. Except those kids! So I took them to the lavatory—the parents still didn’t wake up, and they were on the end—and just closed the door and held my foot against it. Actually, the little buggers fell asleep in there. And I think the parents must have been on drugs; I mean, how can you ignore young children like that for hours?”

Cabin crew had noticed that the children were unruly and the parents were asleep. The parents had not responded to earlier requests to control their children. “We didn’t want to interfere,” said cabin attendant supervisor Lawanna Snooze. “We are very conscious of laws regarding mistreatment of children and didn’t want to risk problems for the airline.” The cabin crew were all asleep during the middle portion of the flight, when the incident occurred.

4. Cabin attendant ejects passenger through emergency exit, grounding plane for five hours

Thursday, a cabin attendant for FlightTransit Airlines opened the rear emergency exit just as the captain backed the plane away from the pier. The passenger, not identified by the airlines as yet, suffered a broken leg and severe concussion after dropping from the airplane’s tail about 25 feet to the ground.

The cabin attendant was taken into custody for attempted murder.

“I think she should get off,” said another passenger of the incident. “He was the most annoying human being I’ve ever seen on an airplane, and that’s saying a lot. If she hadn’t done it, I might have killed him.”

Passengers noted that the man had begun complaining about “foul smells” coming from the rear lavatories, despite being told they had just been cleaned. He apparently persisted, expecting to get a free flight, according to passenger reports. When informed that wouldn’t happen, he became personally abusive to the cabin attendant, resulting in her hustling him out of his seat and out the emergency door.

“I think she did the right thing,” another passenger noted. “I couldn’t imagine crossing the Pacific Ocean listening to that jerk. So, we had to wait a couple of hours while some investigation was done and the door checked out. So what? Frankly, I’m tired of ignorant people making life in the air hell for the rest of us.”

5. Three nuns refused boarding in Atlanta

Three nuns on their way to a retreat in Saskatchewan were denied boarding at Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport last evening. The reason cited was that they were drunk and disorderly.

“I’m quite sure that if that was the case,” said the order’s Mother Superior, Sister Mary Benedictine, “there was a very good reason.”

The flight the nuns were to take had been delayed several times over a ten-hour period. Having taken vows of poverty, the nuns had no cash with them, so they accepted food and drink from kindly strangers, as the airline seemed unwilling to provide meal vouchers or any other recompense. “He told us it was water with lime in it,” one of the nuns said of the final meal provided to them by a Samaritan. “I guess it must have been vodka.”

For a very funny mock-airline video, go here: