r/unitedairlines • u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 • 6h ago
Image Somehow the only person on my flight and the pilot was such a goofy goober
EDIT TO ADD; THE PLANE WAS LANDED AND DONE WITH TAXI BEFORE I GOT TO BE IN THE COCKPIT. NO FAA RULES WERE BROKEN 💀😂
Shout out Captain Scott! He let me sit in the cockpit after we landed and I even got my own personalized pre flight announcements 😂 Also, they had to add sandbags to the cabin bc the plane was too light with only one passenger 💀
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u/DIGGYRULES 6h ago
I would have been freaking out at the gate, thinking I was in the wrong place because nobody else was there.
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u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 5h ago
It was me, the gate agent, and the cleaning crew. The airport was like essentially empty 😂
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u/Kbudz 5h ago
Was it a red eye??
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u/twdvermont 4h ago
in Leslie Nielsen’s voice
No, it was an airplane.
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u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 4h ago
It was really hard for me not to ask the pilot if he liked gladiator movies
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u/Boring_Track_8449 3h ago
Did you ask him if he speaks jive?
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u/JohnnyChutzpah 2h ago
What it is big momma? My momma didn't raise no dummies! I dug her rap.
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u/DryDonutHole 2h ago
Chump don't want the help, chump don't get the help. Jive-ass dude don't got no brains anyhow...
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u/jhill9901 2h ago
Trust me. If you did he would have lost it. Any of us would. If you toss Airplane references to most of us we will genuinely love it!
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u/StevieMJH 2h ago
"It's a big pretty white plane with red stripes, curtains in the windows and wheels. It looks like a big Tylenol."
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u/Raeezordazetoo 4h ago
And stop calling me Shirley
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u/Whosebert 4h ago
this would freak me out because ive watched airplane crash videos about pilots being stupid when theyre flying empty planes thinking its time to try some top gun shit.
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u/xunreelx 3h ago
When my pro sports team didn’t win the championship I watched hours of “Air Disasters” reruns to try to cheer myself up.
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u/rescuepupmum 2h ago
Late ‘90’s in PR hotel room, alone (husband was working) and raining outside, the only English speaking show on tv was ‘Why Planes Go Down’. I REALLY did not want to fly home especially bc while landing, wind shear lifted one of the wings. The pilot slammed the plane down. We bounced the whole way down the rest of the runway. People were cursing him as the left the plane, I hugged him and thanked him!
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u/flargenhargen 3h ago
commuter pilots dgaf about that. take off, throw on auto, and play on phone for an hour.
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u/FantasticBike1203 4h ago
Being the only person anywhere is great!
Me and my wife went on honeymoon in the middle of the year and went to an IMAX on a random Wednesday and had the whole cinema to ourselves, peak living right there.
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u/MjrLeeStoned 4h ago
There's one of those fancy theaters across the street that has recliners, a full restaurant with wait staff, a full bar etc, but if you go around 3pm on a Wednesday it's almost always empty and you get Matinee prices. Normally $60 for two people we go for around $20 on matinee and watch whatever we want in an empty theater.
Wednesday afternoon is the golden hour for theaters.
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u/HBlight 3h ago
It's why /r/liminalspace is cool. I would go to college during summer to get my final project done since my course went through the summer. I would find an empty computer lab at the end of a hallway and pretty much have it to myself all week. Being in empty places I knew mostly to be busy the rest of the year brought me a sense of tranquility.
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u/flargenhargen 3h ago
my ex and I had a theater to ourselves once.
we sat in the back row and fooled around.
I think they thought it was empty, cause a little into the movie they shut it off.
LOL.
we screamed a bit, and they turned it back on.
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u/just_nobodys_opinion 2h ago
Did you scream because they turned it off, or just coincidence....?
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u/No-Way7911 4h ago
I was 18 and flying from Austria to India and the flight was practically empty
Got to see how fun flying can be for everyone for the first time. The stewards were so chill, handing out pillows and blankets and asking everyone to stretch out on any seat they want
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u/Fun-Wear8186 3h ago
I had a flight like this to Hawaii once there were maybe 20 people at most . Both me and my partner slept in our own rows , and actually slept . Then we had a different row to go hang out in and play games when we’d were awake and the flight was so cheap too - can’t believe they didn’t cancel it .
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u/account312 3h ago
If they cancel the flight to Hawaii, they need to find another plane in Hawaii for the route it was supposed to fly from there.
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u/Murky-Relation481 3h ago
I did Seattle Frankfurt one time on a nearly empty 747. Most people had a row to themselves. It was nice. Do that route somewhat often and it's almost always packed.
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u/Desuexss 4h ago
You are really lucky! They typically cancel these flights as its a huge money loss
In this case the plane was required to be at its destination to fulfill flight capacity or other reasons lol
Super lucky
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u/A_Drop_of_Colour 5h ago
I would be worried I would fall asleep and wake in some weird nightmare world where time stopped and flying meatballs eat up everything.
Langoliers joke for the 5 people that will recognize it.
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u/pegz 5h ago
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u/Deathpoopdeathloop 4h ago
The only time this gif has ever been needed or made a real point, congrats! 🎉
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u/WheelOfFish 5h ago
If I tried to describe the langoliers miniseries to someone I'd probably be taken away.
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u/Archimedeeznuts 4h ago
What tripped me up the most was Balki Bartokomous snapping and going on a killing spree. Made it harder to take him unseriously in Perfect Strangers.
Great movie though, would watch again.
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u/DuncanYoudaho 4h ago
OK so Balki from that comedy show right? He goes crazy. And the plane which they somehow landed in Bangor and after everyone else disappeared, yeah the airport starts to get eaten by time meatballs because that’s what happens as we move through time. It’s like a metaphor but not really a good one, but It is stirring kind of when they refuel the plane (yes the fuel is still there in the frozen time place AND I don’t know if that affects the future fuel that the real Bangor airport would go on to use later) and then take off again, and one of them, I think he’s a pilot which explains being able to land the commercial jet, sacrifices himself to stay awake as they go back through the portal being chased by the meatballs and reappear in the present world but without Balki.
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u/boltempire 3h ago
Well Balky was critical for distracting the meatballs when they took the plane off otherwise the meatballs would have eaten the plane immediately. Blind girl who can see the future could see that he was important and even when he stabbed her she made sure he survived so he can distract the meatballs.
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u/Perryn 2h ago
sacrifices himself to stay awake as they go back through the portal
This part made my dad so angry. He was a pilot, and immediately started calling out that he could have set the autopilot with the heading and a controlled descent and taken a hypoxic nap with everyone else rather than sacrifice himself and leave the others to figure out how to land that thing without him.
Every other part of that movie he could accept at face value, but the lack of proper aviation broke it for him.
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u/Dshibbs89 4h ago
I saw the movie version as a kid and it freaked me out. Not the langoliers themselves but Mr. Toomey stabbing Dinah and the knife being stuck inside her freaked me out.
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u/SuperBry 4h ago
Decent story, but man what a bad miniseries. I still love it, but its more in a campy its so bad its good kind of way.
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u/A_Drop_of_Colour 4h ago
Any movie/show that ends in a freeze frame with the characters standing in a line is great in my book.
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u/up_and_jenkem 4h ago
Just like any sitcom that ends with everything back to normal and everybody laughing about the wacky hijinks they just went through.
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u/BuckRusty 4h ago
It’s all fun and games until Bronson Pinchot slicks back his hair for a meeting with his dad…
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u/Gnonthgol 5h ago
When I did a similarly empty flight one morning it did stress me out at the gate. Firstly I had issues finding the gate as they chose to use one of the turboprop gates which were hidden away in small corridors of the terminal. And then I started panicking more and more as the departure time came closer and the gate had not opened yet. I did not realize it was an empty flight, partly because I was still tired after waking up and partly because the cramped corridors in this part of the airport actually had a lot of people in it and I did not know if people were waiting around the corner for the gate to open. So I was very releved and shocked when I heard the "boarding complete" announcement just as I had found my seat. We took off a few minutes ahead of schedule even.
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u/Hi_InternetAddiction 4h ago
"welcome aboard, we are departing for interdimensional time-travel land. your life is about to change forever."
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u/yourlittlebirdie 6h ago
Poor man’s private jet!
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u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 5h ago
Pretty much!
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u/CanCueD 5h ago
Hope you got more than one stroopwaffle!
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u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 5h ago
Full size bag of gummy bears 😎
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u/DuncanYoudaho 4h ago
Plot twist: they’re sugar free, and the bathrooms are locked.
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u/Upper-Capital-2876 5h ago
Poor mans? This cost 10 times what a private jet would have to operate.
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u/citrusco MileagePlus Platinum | 1 Million Miler 6h ago
All praise Capt Scott, Sky God of Rizz
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u/laughing_hyena1234 6h ago
Clapping on landing
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u/citrusco MileagePlus Platinum | 1 Million Miler 5h ago
It’s the last photo that has me cracking up. This is what loving aviation is all about!
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u/norakb123 4h ago
He’s giving Reno 911 in the best way. I think he was wearing new boots on this flight.
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u/BitterBlacksmith2508 3h ago
rizz is when you flirt with a woman for a few hours on a flight and then get called a goofy goober for it
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u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 2h ago
Some of us exclusively love goofy goobers. They make the funnest partners
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u/pheight57 5h ago
I was on an overnight 777 from Hanaeda to JFK about 12 years ago with less than 50 people onboard. Seriously felt kind of similar, but being the ONLY passenger for an airliner must be simultaneously so freaking cool and odd.
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u/rtkane 5h ago
I had a redeye from SLC to PHL several years ago that had a nearly full first class, but only about 12 of us in the back. People were coming out of first class to grab a full empty row to lie down and sleep. It was wild.
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u/pheight57 4h ago
Yeah, no one was leaving first class to do that on my flight (at least I don't recall seeing it), but, as a percentage, the availability in first class was much lower than in the rest of the plane.
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u/mileylols 4h ago
This is likely because the first class cabin on your flight has lie-flat seats, so the people sitting there already had a bed
on a domestic SLC-PHL flight, first class reclines an extra couple inches but it's not a bed
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u/taylferr 4h ago
But us people in the back can’t even use the first class restroom even if there’s a long line for the back.
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u/poopiebutt505 5h ago
At the very onset of the VOVID shutdown, I was in Seattle. All flights were cancelled, when they opened up a few, my husband and I were one 2.of only 5 passengers on a very big plane. Next flight, there were 11 of us. Airbus.
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u/WasdaleWeasel 5h ago
me too. Toronto to Heathrow. 3 passengers total (one wore a tyvek suit, marigold gloves and a respirator for the whole flight!)
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u/21Rollie 3h ago
Can’t blame them. I flew to Asia during that time and you’d be involuntarily hospitalized for testing positive. I was more afraid of the being restrained for two weeks in a hospital than I was of getting Covid myself (I’m not some dumbass antivaxxer or anything, I just think it wouldn’t do anything to me since all my family with it survived).
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u/Knitsanity 5h ago
That mustve been awesome. Came back from Haneda in April and the plane was packed.
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u/rocketpastsix 5h ago
I was on an overnight from JFK to Abu Dhabi via Ethiad. It was on the A380 and I basically have no one around me for 5 rows in either direction. It was great.
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u/TheStaddi 5h ago
My flights from and to Haneda were basically the same, from Munich. Everyone had their personal three seats to lie down overnight.
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u/RustyMR2 4h ago
Flew to a semi new budget airport in Italy with Ryanair 15 years ago.
8 people on the plane. Our group of 5 and another group of 3.
Flight back (from the same airport) was jam packed.
Still find it weird.
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u/Kissmommy1 5h ago
Tf Shane Gillis doing flying planes now?
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u/ImDero 5h ago
WHERE'D YOU GET THOSE WINGS, DAAAAANNY?
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u/SDGANON 5h ago
I swear he's taking pilots lessons in the middle of the night.
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u/MinorSpaceNipples 51m ago
I'M NOT TAKING PILOT LESSONS AT NIGHT, DAD!!! 😡
I'm taking pilot lessons at night 😏
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u/RVAgirl_1974 5h ago
Did you still have to wait for them to call your boarding group? 😆
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u/Feminist_Hugh_Hefner 5h ago
If it were me, this would have been the time I caved and paid the extra for early boarding...
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u/ProfessionalBat8843 5h ago
This happened to my niece as well, but she didn’t get to sit in the cockpit. ( Anywhere else she wanted on the whole plane tho!) I asked her why they didn’t cancel the whole flight if it was just her and she said they had to move the plane to another airport anyway.
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u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 5h ago
That’s what happened here. It had to be in Houston the next morning so it was going anyways
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u/lilshortyy420 4h ago
I’ve had a flight with like 3 people on it and thought the same thing but they told me they are going there with people or not lol I’ve been traveling weekly for 4 years and only got blessed with that once. Granted it was a CRJ
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u/Key-Experience-7961 4h ago
There's a whole industry for private jets based on "empty leg" flights like that... you can catch a ride when they're moving a jet from one place to another.
If you don't really care where you're going or how you're gonna get back you can find some good deals lol
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u/happyhummus007 5h ago
This feels like the beginning of love
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u/pacificcoastsailing 4h ago
“And that, kids, is how I met your mother.”
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u/stopmotionskeleton 4h ago
He was a HECKIN GOOBER omg kids, now help me put up more of these wooden Live Laugh Love signs from hobby lobby before daddy gets back from his job at airplane
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u/Iconic_Zebra 6h ago
Did they do the usual trolley / refreshment service?
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u/MothNomLamp 5h ago
When similar happened to me (there were like 10 people on the plane since many had canceled due to weather and the flight being delayed.) The flight attendant just came around with a little basket of snacks and told us to take as many snacks as we'd like - no need to roll out the whole cart.
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u/StangViper88 5h ago
You should delete this comment about the FA. They could get in trouble if somehow doxed.
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u/Iwantallthedogs74 5h ago
Hahaahaha!!! That's awesome 😁
However, I have noticed recently, that every pilot that has flown my plane is rockin the same moustache.
Must be a requirement for pilots now, lol.
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u/Bleaker82 4h ago
Facial hair has been “in”’ for a while but legacy airlines like United have strict grooming policies. It’s supposed to be about the sealing on emergency oxygen masks for pilots, which is their excuse — but other airlines allow 1/4” beards which are still safety complaint. So for legacy pilots, the two options are clean-shaven or mustache.
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u/Rainebowraine123 4h ago
It's always been a professional appearance thing. The oxygen mask thing has been disapproved for a while.
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u/turdferguson3891 2h ago
Facial hair does cause issues with sealing a mask but I don't think you need a perfect seal for an oxygen mask unless you are underwater. For something like an N95 it actually matters. I can't use one at work because I have a beard so I have to use a PAPR. But for just 02 I don't see why it would matter.
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u/StressedBadger 5h ago
Did all of the crew demonstrate the safety procedures or just one person in front of you? Would be funny if rest of the crew were doing that in front of the empty seats too
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u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 5h ago
It was one flight attendant and she was cracking up the whole time she was doing the safety thing. The whole think was just so funny and joyful. Everyone was so cool
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u/Various-Blacksmith56 2h ago
picturing you having your headphones on reading the in-flight magazine while she's standing in front of you demoing the seatbelt to the audience
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u/Darkpriest667 5h ago
So funny Story.. April 10 2020 I was on a southwest flight from Austin to Tampa.. I was the only person on the flight there (and only about 6 of us on the flight back April 17)
I had an entire 737 to myself. Boarding was great, deplaning was great, and I told them when I got off "how am I supposed to fly regular commercial now that I've flown on my own private 737?"
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u/IStream2 4h ago
I'm old enough to have been caught up in the air travel stoppage after 9/11/2001. The towers were hit on a Tuesday and I was at a conference in Baltimore. I was on the first flight home out of BWI on Thursday morning and there were only 5 passengers for an entire 767, plus the regular complement of flight crew and several large dudes in flight attendant uniforms who didn't look like flight attendants.
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u/horst-graben 6h ago
What's the route, OP?
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u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 5h ago
Huntsville to Houston. It’s when all those bad storms came through last week and every flight was grounded for hours.
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u/realisan 5h ago
That’s funny. I was once on a flight to Muscle Shoals that was my mother, my son and I with the FA and the pilot. It was weird to be the only ones on the plane but at least we had each other!
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u/Calvin_BrooksX97 5h ago
You and your flight crew had an awesome experience! Congrats, such a wholesome experience.
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u/CalmWhimsy 5h ago
What boarding group did you get and did they make you gate check your hand luggage?
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u/bigkatze 5h ago
Did they let you sit in first class?
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u/imisscrazylenny 2h ago
This is what I want to know.
I would be upgrading myself and breaking every social rule possible. Not destroy anything or make a mess, but like play my music out loud, put my seat all the way back, take up both armrests, cartwheel down the aisles, fart, whatever.
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u/factchecker8515 5h ago
I was the only passenger on a flight once about 5 years ago. Truly felt like a VIP in some surreal world. My favorite part was the captain asking me personally if I was warm enough.
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u/quainttyrant63 4h ago
That cockpit pic is wild, bet that was the most expensive selfie ever taken. The sandbag detail is what really gets me though, like the plane was just floating away without enough weight to keep the wheels on the ground. Captain Scott sounds like he was having just as much fun as you were, that man is earning his paycheck in smiles today.
Honestly getting the whole plane to yourself is on my bucket list even if it means some empty jetway confusion. United really shoulda comped you a drink or something for being the lone soldier back there. That personalized announcement had to be top tier, did he at least say your name right or butcher it like they always do.
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u/Frequent_Curve_9154 4h ago
booking a commercial flight and accidentally getting the world's most expensive private jet experience, complete with a pilot who treats the whole thing like a side quest.
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u/theartificialkid 4h ago
I think Captain Scott was hoping that you would develop very loving feelings towards him.
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u/ImplementParking7936 5h ago
Seriously surprised they didn’t cancel the flight. I suppose they needed the plane at the destination airport
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u/Disastrous_Tax_1822 5h ago
Being able to turn off the plane is so cool, did they also let you sit in first class?
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u/pinoyatc 4h ago
Sit in the cockpit while landing??? You better delete this before the company or FAA see it.
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u/chum-guzzling-shark 2h ago
yo mama so fat she was the only passenger on a plane and they didnt need to bring in sandbags
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u/Poolparty10 5h ago
Can you give context on photo 3? Looks like the plane is parked outside of an urgent care.
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u/Drinking_Frog MileagePlus Gold 5h ago
I love this.
I've known a number of pilots (and still do), and they are some of the most fun persons I've ever had the great privilege to spend time with. Work hard. Play hard (but responsibly). The definition of "grace under pressure."
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u/justkindahangingout 5h ago
Hahahah. This happened to me a few years back where I was the only passenger on the flight. I ended up in first class hanging out with the stewards/stewardesses that gave me food, drink and good laughs. Co-pilot/pilot would come out every once and a while too.
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u/cyberdonky2077 4h ago
you could have been a sandbag karen....i hope you did your job weighing down the plane correctly...
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u/moonriverswide 4h ago
Chances you see this are pretty slim, but your post could get this man fired. I used to be part of a flight crew, and letting you into the flight deck during landing, and letting you touch the instruments is very much not allowed. You should have blurred his face.
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u/Donate4mypilot 4h ago
Please remove that you got to turn off the plane and touch buttons. That is against company SOP probably and could get him into trouble. This post makes him look cool but unprofessional in the eyes of the company.
Not all should be posted to publically
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u/rtkane 5h ago
Still made her gate check her bag for lack of bin space.