NZFF

Posted: **Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:02 pm**

sorry i it has already been discussed, i'm a bad searcher! BUT i did look!

What was your worst pilot i.e you didn't feel to safe etc
I'll start:
Mexicans should not be allowed to fly passengers, they are hopeless! One thing is that their A319's are falling apart...they can see anything that they don't want to see, AND they run on Mexican time(most Mexicans turn up 2 hours late)
We are waiting in LAX to board our plane after our flight from Auckland. The flight attendants start boarding business/first class passengers through the last jetway in the Tom Bradley Terminal. For those who know ot is very long! All of a sudden we see our pilot sprint through the terminal and straight onto the plane=0 After taxiing as slow as his heart desired he waited for 10 minutes next to the runway. No plane were landing(i had a good view of were the planes would approach. we also saw noone was on the runway as we taxied to it.. He takes off making me think....OMFG he is suicidal!! He wasn't taking off!! He rotated so we left the ground before the nose raised 5 degrees! The speaker system was broken so they had flight attendants knock on the doors and say "get out the plane is about to land!" after landing we taxi past 10 exits after the spoilers had gone down. Imagine how i was feeling(i got a headache as well in the last hour of the AUCK - LAX) and with him not vacating the runway. We got down in one piece.

When we left it was more of the same, but with a woman pilot!!!(I'm not trying to be being sexist )

Posted: **Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:39 pm**

Ok to get a few points straight,

yes the Tom Bradley terminal is very long but Mexicana (I guess that is what you were on) will have allocated parking spaces.

also LAX i a Hole, complete and utter (3rd world country in is own), My Dad who spends 60% of the year overseas and goes through, many many airports thinks there is no worse airport (in a 1st world country)

also if the Mexican pilots are cleared to fly into the US they will have a good amount of training, they would not stop in the middle of one of the worlds busiest airports for no reason, (it could have been anything).

But LOL about the pilot being late, although I have had that happen on a QF dash-8 out of Newcastle.

As for my opinion on the worst pilot (crew), Last year I was on a inter China flight between Beijing and Yechung on a Hainan Airlines Boeing 737-400. Due to fog the flight was delayed for 2 hours, we were finally let on to the aircraft but by that time they had run out of Air bridges for Hainan Airlines, so out into the -1 C air went, after sitting on the aircraft for 40 minutes the pilot came across the inter com and in Broken English and said something like, "Arr bad weather please stay seat flying soon" at which point he got up left the cockpit, down the air stares and of into the night to be never seen again (or at least by me) after 5 more minutes the cabin crew got us of the plane and advised us the flight was cancelled and find another way.

Regards, Scott

Posted: **Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:08 pm**

Well I've had some very interesting Origin J31/32 NZWB-NZWN flights..

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:11 am**

scon wrote:

Ok to get a few points straight,

yes the Tom Bradley terminal is very long but Mexicana (I guess that is what you were on) will have allocated parking spaces.

also LAX i a Hole, complete and utter (3rd world country in is own), My Dad who spends 60% of the year overseas and goes through, many many airports thinks there is no worse airport (in a 1st world country)

also if the Mexican pilots are cleared to fly into the US they will have a good amount of training, they would not stop in the middle of one of the worlds busiest airports for no reason, (it could have been anything).

But LOL about the pilot being late, although I have had that happen on a QF dash-8 out of Newcastle.

As for my opinion on the worst pilot (crew), Last year I was on a inter China flight between Beijing and Yechung on a Hainan Airlines Boeing 737-400. Due to fog the flight was delayed for 2 hours, we were finally let on to the aircraft but by that time they had run out of Air bridges for Hainan Airlines, so out into the -1 C air went, after sitting on the aircraft for 40 minutes the pilot came across the inter com and in Broken English and said something like, "Arr bad weather please stay seat flying soon" at which point he got up left the cockpit, down the air stares and of into the night to be never seen again (or at least by me) after 5 more minutes the cabin crew got us of the plane and advised us the flight was cancelled and find another way.

Regards, Scott

Ok Ok i exaterated, but whats the harm!

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:04 am**

Ok Ok i exaterated, but whats the harm!

slander? libel?

Seriously tho, I do not think I have had any really bad flights crew wise... the only thing that would count was when we were coming back from Malaysia one time and several of the toilets on a 744 were inop... its bad enough at the best of times with 300+ people and like 7 toilets... when you cut it down to 3 or 4! :ph43r:

Oddly enough, that was the return flight of what was probably one of my best flights ever... The loading was heavy but not full, so I nabbed an exit row seat right next to the drink station

there was a guy in the window seat and we had a spare seat in between...

Seated across from us was the Inflight Service Manager, who after take-off got up and said to me "Can I get you a drink, sir?"... "Bourbon and coke thanks!"

for the rest of the 10 hour flight... if he walked past and my glass was empty or low he would just bring me another! woooohooo!! :clap:

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:12 am**

I cant say Ive had any bad NZWN-NZWB Flights as of yet-

But, My worst was flying YBBN-NFFN on Air Pacific 737-800 Worst Pilots ever! The landing was the roughest ever, and I felt like we were going about 180 knots on landing!

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:53 pm**

ooOO00OOoo wrote: sorry i it has already been discussed, i'm a bad searcher! BUT i did look!

What was your worst pilot i.e you didn't feel to safe etc
I'll start:
Mexicans should not be allowed to fly passengers, they are hopeless! One thing is that their A319's are falling apart...they can see anything that they don't want to see, AND they run on Mexican time(most Mexicans turn up 2 hours late)
We are waiting in LAX to board our plane after our flight from Auckland. The flight attendants start boarding business/first class passengers through the last jetway in the Tom Bradley Terminal. For those who know ot is very long! All of a sudden we see our pilot sprint through the terminal and straight onto the plane=0 After taxiing as slow as his heart desired he waited for 10 minutes next to the runway. No plane were landing(i had a good view of were the planes would approach. we also saw noone was on the runway as we taxied to it.. He takes off making me think....OMFG he is suicidal!! He wasn't taking off!! He rotated so we left the ground before the nose raised 5 degrees! The speaker system was broken so they had flight attendants knock on the doors and say "get out the plane is about to land!" after landing we taxi past 10 exits after the spoilers had gone down. Imagine how i was feeling(i got a headache as well in the last hour of the AUCK - LAX) and with him not vacating the runway. We got down in one piece.

When we left it was more of the same, but with a woman pilot!!!(I'm not trying to be being sexist )

I would assume that most of those 'problems' were ATC doing their thing....its not as if the pilot can just go wherever he/she wants in a controlled airport. One only has a very narrow view of what is going on as a passenger, the pilot has a bit more information but ATC has a better overview of where A/c are and where they should go.....it is their job to tell the pilot what to do.

Exits, hold shorts, entering the rwy etc are all controlled by ATC not the pilot (at a controlled airport)

My worst flights?.....hmm that would probably have to be when I am PIC :blink:

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:07 pm**

ooOO00OOoo wrote: Ok Ok i exaterated, but whats the harm!

No Harm

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:38 pm**

The worst landing i've ever been in was when I was up with my cousin's friend and there was widshear and the plane sped up and litterally slammed on the runway. We had to go around. Happy times :lol:

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:45 pm**

I've never flown on a commercial flight with a crew or aircraft I didn't feel safe with, and I've flown on my fair share of third-world carriers too.

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 5:00 pm**

Let me give you a hint... Indian Airlines (yes I said Indian Airlines, NOT Air India :unsure:

) a a310, and lots of fog.... cause for a scary, bumpy, noisy, and very bouncy landing..... :clap:

I loved it though :thumbup:

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:08 pm**

Timmo wrote:
ooOO00OOoo wrote: sorry i it has already been discussed, i'm a bad searcher! BUT i did look!

What was your worst pilot i.e you didn't feel to safe etc
I'll start:
Mexicans should not be allowed to fly passengers, they are hopeless! One thing is that their A319's are falling apart...they can see anything that they don't want to see, AND they run on Mexican time(most Mexicans turn up 2 hours late)
We are waiting in LAX to board our plane after our flight from Auckland. The flight attendants start boarding business/first class passengers through the last jetway in the Tom Bradley Terminal. For those who know ot is very long! All of a sudden we see our pilot sprint through the terminal and straight onto the plane=0 After taxiing as slow as his heart desired he waited for 10 minutes next to the runway. No plane were landing(i had a good view of were the planes would approach. we also saw noone was on the runway as we taxied to it.. He takes off making me think....OMFG he is suicidal!! He wasn't taking off!! He rotated so we left the ground before the nose raised 5 degrees! The speaker system was broken so they had flight attendants knock on the doors and say "get out the plane is about to land!" after landing we taxi past 10 exits after the spoilers had gone down. Imagine how i was feeling(i got a headache as well in the last hour of the AUCK - LAX) and with him not vacating the runway. We got down in one piece.

When we left it was more of the same, but with a woman pilot!!!(I'm not trying to be being sexist )

I would assume that most of those 'problems' were ATC doing their thing....its not as if the pilot can just go wherever he/she wants in a controlled airport. One only has a very narrow view of what is going on as a passenger, the pilot has a bit more information but ATC has a better overview of where A/c are and where they should go.....it is their job to tell the pilot what to do.

Exits, hold shorts, entering the rwy etc are all controlled by ATC not the pilot (at a controlled airport)

My worst flights?.....hmm that would probably have to be when I am PIC

I understand that ATC controls when to turn on/exit the runway(where appropriate) but taking minutes when nothing was landing! Maybe it came in far too high and went around

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:20 pm**

The slow taxi could have been caused by a tech problem in the cockpit, having the reprogram the FMS cos of an unexpected ATC clearance, etc. But who cares about slow taxi anyway, you get to see more aeroplanes out the window which is good :thumbup:

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:27 pm**

Time at the holding point can be any number of things not just ATC - most usually it is the pilot that has reported not ready, whether it be technical or a hold up in the cabin etc. - likewise at NZAA we taxi the aircraft around but the gate allocation is done by the airlines and it is a very common occurence to see THEM hold an aircraft off an empty gate that is being held for one still on approach, and to wait for one that is still boarding. Some of the domestic gates can only take certain types and some adjacent gates can only accept certain combinations side by side etc. Same goes at the international gates. We only get them from the runway to the aprons and vise versa.

As for what the passengers can see of the approach ...welll!!! can you see the seneca doing the departure that has 'unannounced' decided to pull an assymetric training exercise while the B733 on left base has decided to keep it at 240kts until turning final and you want me to line up and roll your A340 pig that has burned quite a few of us in the past? Yeah right!

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:44 pm**

My experience was fun as well as a bit scary at the end.

We were in an Air New Zealand 737-300 from NZCH to NZWN.
It had been raining at Wellington but had now stopped.
Using a combination of coming in fast and a wet runway, the pilot landed a bit heavily (if I can remember as it was nearly six or so years ago) and slammed on the brakes and put on full reverse thrust.
We slowed to taxi speed and exited off taxiway 2 thats when I saw how close we could have been to sliding off the runway. (For those that don't know, taxiway 2 is about 100m from the threshold 150m from the end of the concrete strip a.k.a. runway 16/34)
Also for a comparison most 737's taxi off taxiway 3 which is about 500m form the end of the runway.

Also when in a Malaysian Airlines A330 descending into Penang, I had been reseated (it was a midnight flight and there were literally 30 people on board a 250 seater aeroplane) and didn't quite know where I was in the aeroplane (after landing I realised I was directly over the landing gear) and we were starting our final and then there was a really big vibration that scared the #%@! (sorry about my language) out of me. I recovered after a couple of seconds, when I realised that we weren't about to crash (but these were massively scary vibrations). I later put together that it would've been the landing gear extending. Silly me :whoops:

(plus towerguy you aren't by any chance an ATC are you? Just wondering)

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:53 pm**

Towerguy is a controller at Auckland tower

Good points Towerguy BTW :thumbup:

Do remember that every pilot does a harder landing every once in a while- gusty weather can cause sudden losses of airspeed for example, if this happens early in the flare, the landing might be a bit hard :plane:

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 10:09 pm**

I had a funny story when flying home from hong kong on a flight a few years back. As the 747 was flying along the lights started flickering on and off, on and off etc. The captain(who was dutch) then said "ladies and gentlemens-we have slight problems.."(I was just about %^&%ing myself!) ".. could you please lift your feet off the floor.."(all the passengers obeyed and lifted their feet) ".. We are currently flying over the equators, you lift your feets and you jump.." - I'm telling you now, when you hear those words after somthing dodgy you absolutely freak out. That was a flight! :lol:

Posted: **Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:38 pm**

Air India 747 from London to New York, 2004. The flying was fine, but the plane interior was awful. Most of the pax seemed to be emigrants from Mumbai (nothing wrong with that per se), complete with extended families & dozens of young kids screaming their heads off. They all had WAAAY over their baggage allowance, thus there was nowhere on the plane AT ALL to stow my small carry on bag, and everything was opened and inspected at LHR, making for very long loading times. The plane itself stank of two week old curry and vomit. The overhead compartments were overloaded (naturally) and rattled like they were going to come off at every slightest bump (which set the kids off again...) The inflight entertainment was piped over a few scattered 15" CRTs, not that that mattered much, because it didn't work (the VCR was near my seat, and the purser was forever tinkering with it). On the odd times that it did show something, it bore no relation to the published guide. The advertised English audio and subtitles were not available. If you reclined the seat the few degrees that it did recline, the seat cushion would slide off. The food bore no relation to the menu in the seat back (two week old 'unnamed meat' curry, or nothing). The one positive was that my seat was only one row back from the door, so I could make a quick exit to join the queue for the 'unwelcome to America' rigmarole.

I have no idea what happened to the additional 50 pax on the roof...

Posted: **Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:20 pm**

Sorry, but just to add to my collection:

On take-off from Sydney I was peering out the window and the pilot made an announcement which only caught a few words of which were don't worry...low...take-off and thats about all.
Anyway we took of from 34R and made a right turn all of a sudden, the aircraft appeared to be dropping - I thought we were actually falling out of the sky. I came incredibly close to #$%@ (censored as there are younger people on these forums).
After this I realised that the pilot had to do slow climb out of Sydney.

Also while descending and landing into Melbourne, the pilot descended in very fast and when turn onto runway 16 the pilot lowered the landing gear before the flaps. He lowered those at about 1000feet or below! I was a bit worried but we were nearly an hour late so that explains it all really.

NZFF

Worst Pilots/flights