groovinaviator

Those must have been the "golden years" of aviation we all at one time dreamed about!

jdr7225

Someone once posted what I thought was a good response...."It's ok, I have a permission slip from my mom."

Fluboy340

Excuse me, " Does that engine Work?" No,but its ok, we have another one.... Why are people so dumb?

favila008

I think most people are not dumb, but rather afraid. Thus to soothe their fears, they have to reassure themselves that the engines work, or that your not to young, etc. Remember it is because their fears are submerged that they are able to fly and you as pilots are able to get paid for it. Most of the people I speak to actually have a fear of flying, and the ones that don't wouldn’t do it if it didn't get them there faster.

freezingflyboy

The people that genuinely are afraid of flying are usually afraid for 2 reasons:
1. They don't understand it. People inherently fear what they don't understand.

2. They are very uncomfortable when they are not in control. There are few other times when so many people trust so few so implicitly as when you board an airliner.

Then there is the very large and growing majority of passengers who leave their brains at security. These are the folks who can follow signs to find a restroom in a mall or the freeway exit they need to get off at but can't look 12 feet above their head and find the sign that directs them to baggage claim or to the next terminal.

XJet-MX

I'm in mx, but we get silly questions and comments as well.

Passenger as they were boarding and I was finishing up the log book in the jetway...

Pax: Did you fix it?
Me: Yes, its a good airplane.
Pax: Are you going with us?
Me: No ma'am.
Pax: Why not?
Me: I have to stay here.
Pax: Well if you wont fly on it, why should I?
Me: Ma'am I wont let an aircraft leave if I'm not willing to put my family on it, and this is a good aircraft.

That shut her up, but I've been asked on more than on occassion. If I was going with them.

I've also been yelled at by pax when we are on a mx delay....as if I caused the aircraft to break and the flight to be delayed. People are silly.

Just the other day, FA told a passenger that his bag was to big for the overhead bin... He tried to stuff it in anyway and got the door jammed about halfway to the closed position. I had to pull the ceiling panel and take the door off track to get his bag out. He told me it fit on the other flight....(both ERJs). I wanted so bad to say that the company felt that people had too much room since his last flight so we installed smaller overhead bins.

Didn't mean to hi-jack the thread, but wanted to share some of the silliness mx hears/sees as well.

bintynogin

I recently went back to my High School to see my coach and guidance counselor. My guidance counselor knew I had my commercial but kept asking me when I'm going to get my Masters license. He says that’s how it works in the military, but I've never heard of that one. He was a bit confused about which airline I fly for too. He kept in telling people in his office that I fly for “Verizon Air.” The Verizon Air thing is something i get alot from people on the east coast.

JoeyMeatballs

Dude that is the funiest picture I have ever seen thats awesome

MikeB525

I'm not an airline pilot, but of course I've gotten some standard ones from people.

Also had this happen to me over the summer as I was a pax on a CAL 737-800 going EWR-PHX: It was a hot humid morning at EWR (very hot summer for us) and it was somewhat warm in the cabin during bording. I was sitting on the right hand side, window seat, right next to the engine, and noticed there wasn't much gasper air and that it was pretty quiet. Eventually, I see the howler cart pull up just outside my window and the ramper began hooking up the air. Of course, I immediately knew what was going on: the APU was busted so we needed to start off external air.

I had already been talking to the pax next to me for a few minutes and she had been complaining that it was warm. Now I was able to explain to her why that was. As would be expected, she momentarily freaks out thinking that the engines are busted. I wound up explaining the entire concept of the APU and pneumatic system to her, and amazingly she understood and was fine with it. Once we were started we got the packs running and it was a normal flight to PHX.

SharkyBN584

Had this one today -

Female Pax - "This plane is so small...this thing flies???"

Me - "Nope, we're just going to taxi the whole way there, I think we're taking the 401."

I'm not disputing the 145 is small...but I can only imagine her reaction if she had crawled on to the SAAB next to us...