Air passengers name their worst airport and plane experiences

The plane landed safely, without injuries, and the pilot received a Safety Medal.

Musical chairs

One user says she spent three hours sat on the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel after a number of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men "failed to plan ahead and refused to sit next to women".

"Spent the whole time playing musical chairs to appease them," she wrote. "As a woman it was infuriating because I had to move multiple times."

See also: Reclining seats on planes: Here are 10 more annoying traveller habits

False alarm

"One time I was on a flight and all of a sudden the pilot raced out of the cockpit, stopped at the row in front of me, and started frantically demanding we get out of the seats because he needed to get a better view of the plane wing," wrote another user.

"Once the row has gotten up, he kneels over and looks from the window seat for about a minute. He thanks them, turns around and goes back to the cockpit.

"People are confused and asking what's going on and nobody knows. Maybe 30 minutes later he finally announces on the speaker that everything is fine with the plane and there was some erroneous warning light. I didn't feel much calmer after that."

Half a seat

One user was put out by paying full price for a seat only to have the opportunity to use a fraction of it.

"I got to my seat and saw that the woman sitting near the window was quite rotund," the user wrote. "So rotund in fact, she could not put her armrest down. And she was spilling over and taking up 1/3 to ½ of my seat."

"I felt bad saying something (what could I say anyway?) and so I spend the whole five-hour flight trying to take up as little space as possible."

See also: Flight attendants: What they're really thinking about passengers

Worth the wait?

One user had a 45-minute flight delayed six hours – after they had already boarded.

Toilet troubles

Another user had an awful bout of food poisoning come on just after boarding the plane. The user rushed to the toilet as the plane was taxiing to the runway, even though a flight attendant attempted to intervene, where the person vomited violently and passed out.

When the user came to, the plane was headed back to the terminal where medical staff – and a clean change of clothes – were on hand.

Long delays ahead

"I was stuck in Paris for four days because apparently I needed an unabridged copy of my birth certificate to enter my country of birth," one user wrote. "I spent four days on train rides to and from embassies and help desks."

For more travel observations from the finest Reddit has to offer, see the community's worst hotel rooms, weirdest hotel guests and the airline industry's biggest secrets.

The Telegraph, London

See also: Most ridiculous reasons for flight delays and plane turn-arounds
See also: The glamorous life of flight attendants revealed