Gadling

isn't that why women become flight attendants in the first place? Looking for love..heck, Kathy Lee Gifford's husband found love on a plane, too. See how well that turned out!

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I met a German guy (who lives near Cologne) on the flight back from a business trip in Vegas. He was sitting in the seat next to mine and at first, I was just listening to my iPod and sort of annoyed that he kept talking to me. But once I was finally into the conversation, the nearly 5-hour flight flew by and we were exchanging business cards. He had a layover at Newark Airport (my final destination) and asked me to grab coffee with him but I had someone waiting to pick me up so I couldn't. We did however keep in touch for a few months after that via email. It may have not been love per se, but there was definitely some flirtation going on. The idea of dating someone in Europe is appealing only in theory because I don't do long distance-- especially when he's on a different continent. But it would have been interesting to say the least!

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I've never found love on airplane, but I've flown with the love of my life many times. Flying is a great way to spend time with your loved ones and travel. However, I think that if you found the one on a plane that would be an amazing story. I would love this book!

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I took my love on a plane.....does that count? It was surely an act of love.

Back in the day..........back before 9/11 ruined the last remaining bit of fun in this industry.....I was a pilot for a small cargo airline.

We were allowed to bring spouses along and they could sit in the cockpit jumpseat of our Boeing 727's.

Do you have any idea how uncomfortable jumpseats are?

So I had my newly wedded wife drive from Detroit to Toledo in the middle of a cold winter night, so she could fly with me to Pheonix, and layover a few days in warm weather.

I though she would be impressed riding in the cockpit of a large jet, what with all the gadgets and bells and whistles. I told her this is something nobody ever gets to do, and that she is fortunate to have this opportunity, so she should enjoy it.

Less than enthusiastic was her response though. Must have been something to do with "being awake all night" thing.

When the flight was over I asked her what she thought about being in the cockpit.

"I like how the airplane talks to you," she said, referring to the radio altimiter's voice call outs during landing.

"Minimums minimums, 100, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10" [squeek, kaflump!]


So driving late at night, in the winter, alone, then sitting in the world's most uncomfortable seat for 4 hours, in a loud 727 cockpit, with a bunch of goofy pilots....just to be with her new husband....

Yeah, that is an act of love.


[She was rewarded with a trip to Sedona that weekend.]


There have been other acts of airborne love......[back when wife was still girlfriend.......and in private planes]..... but decorum prohibts me from mentioning them here.
;-)




Bob badly singing:

http://www.myspace.com/maddoggydog777


.

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My favorite mile-high love story has to be on the famous British Airways Flight 009 in 1982 that suffered from engine failure after running into some volcanic ash over Indonesia. Thanks to the amazing flight crew, the flight landed safely... but for some time the crew and passengers aboard the flight were positive they were doomed. Love bloomed between two passengers sitting near each other and eventually married. The experience was chronicled in the woman's book, "All Four Engines Have Failed" by Betty Tootell.

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Well, Bob is a very hard act to follow, but I'll give it a shot (and make it easier for everyone else):

I was 13 or 14 and in a pretty well-regarded youth orchestra (nerd alert! nerd alert!). Now, this being high school and there were a whole lot of unspoken rules about what made you hot or not. Generally speaking, if you were one of the better players in your instrument, that could go a long way in overcoming actual physical hotness. Also, certain instruments were considered more flattering than others. Looking back more than 20 years later at these "rules," they make no sense. But like, playing a brass instrument (trumpet, French horn, trombone) generally made a boy more attractive but a girl less attractive. The percussionists, male and female, were sort of "dangerous" and the string players were the nerdiest.

I played the cello, which, in the hierarchy of hot instruments, is somewhere in the middle. We didn't look quite as goofy as the bass players hunched over their basses, and we got to play more interesting stuff than the violas, and there were fewer of us than the violins, so we were somewhat average.

Anyway, when I was 13 or 14 our orchestra went on a concert tour to Paris (!!). For many of us it was our first time on a trip away from our parents, and with about 100 other kids. And to a foreign country! When we boarded our flight (I can't even remember what the airline was, and this was way way way before 9/11), our chaperones (other hapless parents) just gestured helplessly at one cabin in the back of the plane and said, "just find a seat somewhere." We piled in like we were getting on a bus, and I found a nice window seat near my friends.

I was just getting settled in when a boy - an oboist who was one of those kids whose skill made him more attractive than he otherwise would have been - looked at me and asked, "Is this seat taken?"

(Holy moly, that may have been the first pick-up line I ever got!)

I shrugged, and he sat and we chatted about nothing much in particular. It was an overnight flight, so some time after dinner while we were all riled up, his hand crept over toward mine and he took it. All I could focus on was his hand holding mine. It was warm and soft and gentle. Eventually we decided we should get some sleep, and so we went to sleep like that, sitting in our seats and holding hands over the Atlantic.

As we circled for landing and we raised our window shades, we looked at each other in the harsh unforgiving light of dawn. He wasn't really that cute, and I was really more excited about seeing Paris with my friends and trying out my high school French. He turned to me, and said, "Well, that was a nice flight. (pause) Maybe we should..."

"...see other people?" I finished.

"Yeah."

"Yeah. Ok."

And that was that.
--------------------------------------
Yes, I was 13 or 14 when I slept with a boy on the first "date" and had a one-night stand...

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I pretty much fell in love with Michael Jordan when I flew on the same plane as the Chicago Bulls once. I was flying home from New Jersey to Chicago and this was before they had their own chartered plane. The whole team flew with me. I locked eyes with Michael and fell in love. Problem with scenario: he was married, I was married, he sat in first class, I sat in coach. Oh well.

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I much prefer these types of entries of interesting, happy things rather than an article summarizing a flying Sodom and Gomorra or a rolling snuff film of a bus.

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I have met some very nice women on a plane, but never had the luck to fall in love with any of them or them fall in love with me. I think that flying does add an instant intimacy as many people think about their mortality when a plane takes off and lands or during a lighting storm.

Once I was on a flight and a woman became very nervous and was having an anxiety attack. As this is something I know about, I sat down next to her, held her hand (which she almost crushed due to her fear) and reassured her. She happened to be very attractive and nice, but sadly it ended there.

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I fell in love in the Mexican Cantina in the United terminal at DEN. I was in The Mile High City after all, but alas, I didn't get to join The Club that day!

Bob, you've got a great woman ya know - mountain biking wipe-outs and all! Congrats on the house! ;)

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Let's not forget about the "love" Ray Fiennes and the flight attendant found on the plane...sometimes love on a plane isn't worth it...
she sure paid for that one!

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I flew back to Australia (from the USA) last October (07) for my 25th reunion and met my man at Sydney International airport. I changed my flight to depart a day later than originally planned - he later told me he changed his flight to depart 2 days earlier than his original plans too. We were standing in our respective check-in lines - he to San Francisco, me to LAX. Our eyes met and locked across a crowded terminal. I usually look away when a gorgeous man looks at me, but no siree, not this time! We both grinned at each other, and I thought, "oh well, that was nice," and thought nothing more of it. I saw him about 30 minutes later at an internet kiosk inside the terminal and we struck up a conversation. It wasn't hard, he was gorgeous and so easy to talk to...Did I mention he was in uniform? I thought it was a flight attendants uniform, though it turns out he is a senior captain (pilot!) I found out he lived in VA, and I was going to grad school in PA at the time, and we were both single!! We exchanged contact details and got in touch with each other a few days later when we were back home. I had no firm plans to move anywhere once I graduated so I ended up moving to the same city as him and we still see each other. An amazing set of coincidences bought us together, and I still can't believe my luck!!

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I'm also a flight attendant and met my husband while working a flight out of Cuba to McGuire AFB. He was the flight engineer on the flight. After a 6 hour mechanical delay (which he assures me wasn't his doing;) I had invited him to meet my family for Thanksgiving. What can I say, I'm shy.;) That was 5 years ago, we're celebrating our 4 wedding anniversary in Oct. and have a beautiful little girl. Fate has a funny way of putting the right people in the right place at the right time.

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i met trent on a flight out of denver that was delayed on the runway for an hour. for most of that time i sat quietly while he chit chatted with the couple next to us. but by take off we couldn't stop laughing. we kept in touch on the phone for a few months and later that summer i ended up flying out to denver to spend a week with him. the sparks weren't there, but we had fun and i was shown a good time in denver!

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I've flown a lot in my life (I was an Army Brat), and I've enjoyed many flirtations on planes over the years—all fun! What better way to pass the time?

But the closest I've ever come to feeling LOVE for a fellow passenger was a couple of years ago during a heinous trip from Fort Myers back to Nashville, which ended up detouring through Detroit and taking about 17 hours.

I was traveling with my two youngest children, and over the course of the day, we were "offloaded" from three different planes due to "mechanical difficulties." Late that night, we boarded what we believed to be our final plane. My exhausted children buckled up in the middle and window seats; I took the aisle seat. All I wanted to do was get home to my husband, take a bath and go to bed.

Across the aisle from me was a young man about the same age as my oldest son (in his early twenties). We struck up one of those fun, commiserating conversations where we were sharing our mutual horror stories of the day and all of our difficulties in getting back to Nashville. He told me he was married and hurrying home to his wife and new baby.

The pilots started the engines and I knew, immediately, that our plane wasn't getting off the ground (I'd become quite an expert that day). Of course, the flight attendants did their best to assure everyone that we'd be in the air soon, but I knew it wasn't happening. They asked us to sit patiently while a mechanic was summoned.

It goes without saying that many of the passengers were not content to sit patiently. I didn't put up a fuss, being practically in a comatose state, but it wasn't long before my children were feeling irksome and fretful (and who could blame them?).

My young neighbor came to the rescue. Above the din of whining passengers (the adults were worse than my kids), he asked, politely, if the attendants could at least break out the drink cart and some snacks while we waited for the mechanic's verdict. The attendants confabbed for a few moments and, I'm fairly certain, realizing in their heart of hearts that our bird wasn't flying that night, they decided to do just that.

My seat-mate then bought me a whiskey, gave his extra snacks to my kids, and told me a few funny stories about his experience as a musician in our shared hometown.

We did end up changing planes yet again, but I was feeling pretty mellow by then. We both (and my children) napped our way back to Nashville, but he'll always hold a special place in this gal's heart.

http://www.candiemoonshower.com

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Just last week I had an experience related to this. I travel east coast to west coast almost weekly for work and have experienced my share of delays, but up until last week I never thought of it as a good thing. Last week I arrived to LAX at 8pm to wait for my scheduled 10pm flight home. Upon arrival, I was informed that the flight was delayed until 11:40pm. Frusterated, I went and sat in the general terminal area, dreading the next 3 hours. The terminal was slowly filling up since all the flights were delayed and a guy on a cell phone sat right next to me. After overhearing his conversation, I found out that his delay was worse than mine and because of it, he was missing his connection and would have a 5 hour layover (after a red-eye, yikes!!). So when he got off the phone I looked at him and said "I don't mean to eavesdrop but i'm not gonna lie... a 5 hour layover is gonna suck." Luckily, he laughed. From then on, we spent the next few hours talking non-stop, enjoying a beer (and a shot) at the airport bar. The time went by so fast, I was almost wishing there was more of it! We laughed and shared stories, he was the most friendly, entertaining (not to mention good looking) peerson that I have ever met at an airport. We both agreed that this was better than we thought since we had eachothers company. He walked me to my gate and exchanged contact information. I got a nice email from him the other day and am curious to see where things go? If nothing else I have a new friend, but honestly..I can't wait til work sends me back out there just to see what may happen (which should be in the next few weeks)! It's not love, but I believe things happen for a reason and you just never know!

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