When you’re on a plane, especially if you’re in economy, there’s not a whole lot of personal space. You’re elbow to elbow with the person (or people, if you’ve got the middle seat) next to you, and you’re less than 3 feet away from the folks directly in front and back of you.
That’s why it’s so easy to have difficulties when someone is watching something like this on their personal device, or when you can’t help but see what someone texting on their phone (remember when this happened?). Of course, you can always just turn your head, but…
Even more difficult to ignore in those tight quarters is when other people are having conversations and you can’t help but hear the whole thing. I mean, it’s not like an IFE screen or someone’s personal device, where you can divert your eyes. If someone is talking loudly enough where you can hear them, there’s not much you can do, unless you have headphones or ear plugs handy.
And this brings us to so rather…”unusual”…things people have overheard while on a plane. Someone on Reddit specifically asked, “What’s the craziest thing you’ve overheard on a plane?” in their r/AskReddit forum (r/AskReddit is the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions) and they got over 5,000 comments in about 5 weeks. Some of their responses were wild. And I mean WILD. Here were some of the better responses:
- A guy coming home early to bust a cheating wife. He was on the phone with a friend/family who told him the other guy was at his house abd they didn’t expect him back until the next week. — mauore11
- I overheard a passenger passionately arguing with their seatmate about the correct way to eat a slice of pizza with chopsticks. — zaramarley07
- Not that “crazy” as such but when literally about to touch down, a lady got up and started walking urgently towards the bathroom. The cabin crew immediately started saying “Madam! We’re about to land! You have to sit down!” The lady responded by screaming in a panic “I’M GONNA SH*T ME-SELF!!!” They allowed her to continue — ChangingMonkfish
(Note from Sharon: Click here to find out if you actually can get up to use the lavatory when the Fasten Seat Belt sign is on) - “There is a crack in the bathroom and I can see outside the plane.” — TheMission2023
- Bumped to first class on a flight from Atlanta to Boston. There’s a delay taking off so the free drinks start flowing, and all of these business guys behind me start getting chummy and chatting about what they do for work. The guy in the seat directly behind me starts describing how he investigates aviation accidents and crashes, and gets a little gathering of interest from the rest of first class. This continues for most of the flight, lots of q&a with the airplane crash Ted talk, all these guys are fascinated, and when we land and arrive at the gate, everyone gets up to gather their stuff. I look to see the aviation expert behind me… and lo and behold, it’s my dentist. — in_a_cloud
- “He’s 17!” – my dad, to the flight attendant who was about to serve me a Jack & Coke instead of the Coke I had asked for. Killjoy. — ZormkidFrobozz
- Sitting next to a young woman and her boyfriend on a flight about to depart to San Diego. They were going for a romantic getaway, and apparently she decided to “find God” on the way to the airport. What did that mean? Well, she decided that they weren’t having anymore sex until he married her, but kissing, hand holding and other PG rated intimacy were perfectly ok.
Boyfriend tried his best not to flip out, but you could tell he was very agitated. An hour later we’re in the air and they’re both awkwardly sitting there without saying a word. She gasps and starts crying rather loudly. Apparently he logged into the planes WiFi, canceled the hotel and booked himself a turnaround flight home. Pretty sure they were done as well. — KidPowered17 - “I’ve been to Okanawa three times!” Shouted a loud American voice to a confused looking japanese man. — DanniTampa
- Pilot accidentally left the intercom switch on. The whole plane heard him say “Ooo. That’s weird”. Nothing else. Plane took off amid varying levels of anxiety throughout the cabin. I’m here to tell the tale today, so thankfully it wasn’t too weird!
- My competitor’s entire sales plan for a prospect I was on my way to visit. Definitely helped my pitch. — HavingNotAttended
- I was sitting next to a father with his small child. The child wouldn’t stop hopping around, until the father said “sit still and be a good boy or the plane will crash because of you and we will end up dying.” Never seen a kid so quiet before. — Alternative-Yak-8657
- “I cant give you water but you can have a cup of ice” — Lytheburr
- On a flight from Honolulu to LA, I hear a woman say, “Why are there so many white people on this plane?” — Poultrygeist74
- “B3!” “F**k.” Anyway, I watched two people argue if their acid tabs were kicking in via the plane battleship game. “C3!” “F**k me and f**k you. Are you getting these texts? When is this flight taking off?” — I_Am_The_Grapevine
- i sat behind alex pettyfer’s ex and heard the tea about their divorce before it became official lmao — booboothepooh
- Two older guys in my row on the way to an academic conference. One of them mentions that the first thing he is doing is attending lecture on some esoteric physics topic, but before he can even finish the name of the topic, guy #2 says “oh, of course: The Effects of co-limited tesseracts on quantum membrane string interactions (or somesuch physics jargon.) Are you familiar with the topic?” Guy #1 gets half way through saying “well actually I-” before he is cut off by guy #2 who says “Because, you see, most people, even in the field are woefully undereducated in this particular subject…” and then proceeds to talk guy #1’s head off for about ten minutes. Guy #1 just nots and smiles patiently through the whole exchange. At the end of his missive, guy #2 says “So, the lecture is being given by Dr. So-and-So, one of the leaders in the field, and absolute legend. Do you know his work?” And, of course, guy #1 puts on a very kind but somewhat sheepish look and says “Actually, I am Professor So-and-So: your understanding of the field is actually quite good!” Guy #2 turns red as a tomato for a few seconds but seemed to get over it quickly and they spent the rest of the flight casually talking shop about theoretical physics. — StyrkeSkalVandre
- “Oh God! She’s puking!” It was me. I was puking. I just didn’t like that the woman behind me decided to announce it to everyone on the plane. — brandyknits
- There was this kid was behind me that kept telling her dad she lost her tooth and the dad was disgruntledly trying to find it, and some guy nearby said “hey kid, I hear if you lose your tooth on a plane, the tooth fairy gives you 50 bucks” to which the dad replied, “hey look sweetie, the tooth fairy decided to sit next to us on the plane!” — monkeysolo69420
- 2 men talking about shooting the pilot while still at the gate, before taxi. Major alarms going off in my head until 12 seconds later when context made it entirely clear they were TV producers. — moppdog
- “They make all the food with stuff that constipates you to cut down on bathroom trips.” — Kraggen
- Once I was flying at night and 90% of passangers were sleeping. Suddenly stewardess with poker face ran down the aisle with small fire extinguisher in her hands. I think almost nobody noticed and that made it kinda funny, but it was still scarry, she was really runnig for her life 🙂 — Sugar_sweet_me
- Lady from Texas stated if Biden was elected, going to church would become against the law. — BlueEyes294
- “I told my wife she can’t breast feed and will get implants if I want her to. Her boobs belong to me now.” — OfficialSkyCat
- Flight from ATL-PBI. New parents with their newborn baby are behind me, it’s the babies first flight and they are nervous and the baby is not having it. Babies fuss, I don’t mind but I could tell they were really stressed about it.
- We land and are at the gate ready to deplane. Woman asks for the hand sanitizer, man says he doesn’t have it and she must. Woman says “yes you do. You parked the car after you dropped us off and the hand sanitizer is attached to the keys.” Man says “no I didn’t park the car you did”. They argue back and forth a few times and then they come to the realization that THEY LEFT THE CAR RUNNING WITH THE KEYS IN IT AT CURBSIDE CHECK-IN. I wish I could have heard the rest of the conversation…they were calling the airport they departed from as I got off the plane. — kwm608
- I was just on an international flight and the dude sitting behind me was talking to another woman. She asked him why he was in Europe and he said it was for a UN summit (or something). Then she asked him if there was any good news that came out of that, he just sighed and said “No”. — Fla5hP0int
- “Guess who else has ringworm? Your brother! I told him sorry about that. It was from me!” — Veritus37
- Guy sitting next to me is frantically texting and then says “f**k, f**k, F****CCK.” He was flying to see his girlfriend, and his wife just found out. I quietly witnessed the dissolution of his marriage. — FancyWindow
- Not overheard because it was to me. but I was flying solo into Orlando. The woman next to me was so excited about her new boyfriends boat and was going on and on about how excited she was for this trip. I nodded and put my headphones in and about 1 minute later, she grabbed the cord on my headphone and pulled it out of my ear so she could blather on about it… — _joeBone_
- Flying domestic US. Two oldish ladies spent the whole flight talking about how ugly my husband is, in French. I guess they assumed no one could speak it. We can. — SlashingSimone
- “If it wasn’t for that horse, I never would have spent that year in college.” — dobrienlx
- Listened to a guy on a three hour flight try to lure an underage girl, headed for LA, to be a singer, into “giving her a ride to her friend’s place,” that he “definitely knew what part of town it was in.” I listened to him talk about all his music connections and how he could help her career, and then slowly transition into how he and his wife had an open relationship and how everyone in LA was “totally cool with multiple partners.” Anyways, long story short, I waited at the end of jetway when we landed, they walked out, he went to make a phone call and I walked up to her and said “Hey, I know this is none of my business but I have a very bad feeling about the man you’ve been sitting next to and I think you should call an Uber. Do not get in his car with him, you don’t know him.” She looked at me terrified and said “what do I do?” We called her an Uber, he looked over and gave me an extremely dirty, super creepy look, and walked away. I waited until he exited the airport and made sure she got an Uber. — schrotestthehero
- A 5 year old boy once said “Dad, can you ask them to pull over so I can go to the toilet?”. — RonnyLuvsU
- Flight between Poland and Ukraine. Old ladies behind me were talking about how they would cast a spell on someone but if the spirits were too strong they would have to call a preist because her freind once tried to do a spell on someone but was unprepared with how strongly they resisted. — Newgripper1221
- I was on a flight from Phoenix back home to Miami. I noticed the woman sitting next to me had nothing on her. Just clutching a very small bag. No luggage. No phone. Nothing to read or watch. She just sat there looking straight ahead. When the drink cart passed, she had no idea what the flight attendants were asking. That’s when I realized she did not speak English. I started chatting her up in Spanish. Turns out she had just spent the last 3 weeks escaping Cuba. She got in a boat in the dead of night to Guatemala and then had a series of coyotes smuggle her across Central America until she crossed the border Mexico into the US. She spent most days on foot, some in vehicles, with only two opportunities to shower/clean herself, and barely any meals. She was going to meet up with her boyfriend who had already escaped to Miami years before. Successfully getting on the plane was the culmination of the journey for her. By the end of her story she was in tears. And when we landed I gave her a hug and wished her the best of luck. I hope she found here what she was looking for. — FlashingKing
- A mom threatening her kid with “Am I going to have to give you Benadryl like the dog!?” — stereocup
- Delayed for some issue. I hear banging on what I assume is a luggage door underneath. After several minutes I hear “f**k it we’ll fix it in Pittsburgh” 😳 — Dugsage
- An older white women speaking jive to a couple of black dudes. — Sammy_Dog
- Business flight across the US, so 5ish hour long flight. Man and woman sitting behind me, based on their conversation also a business flight. Conversation started off benign enough, talking about their weekend plans with spouses and kids. Mid-way through the flight became flirtatious, by the end of the flight they had mapped out every detail as to how they were going to cheat with each other regularly and keep it from their families. Definitely lost a part of my soul hearing that. — calapity
- “I’m really into this guy. He’s hot, he plays the violin, and he’s great in the bedroom. But he spits in my mouth.” — terradakful
- I once overheard this dude tell this lady he was sitting next to, that car companies do an investigation when a catastrophic error in one of their products occurs and results in death, and that he was such an adjuster. He said they take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, they don’t do one. She asked what car company he worked for and he said “a major one.” — Lone_Wandlerer
- Some guy told his partner that she didn’t need more yarn and every woman in earshot promptly told him how wrong he was. — KittikatB
- Flight from Mumbai to Moscow. Flight attendant gets into an verbal brawl with this older Indian man.
The conflict? He is loudly and angrily damn sure insistent that he paid for the plane ticket and will put his gnarly ass feet on the back of the seat in front of him and clip his ghastly toe claws if he damn well pleases. While the flight was serving food.
Then the British lady got involved. Because a toe claw landed in her whatever the hell that mush was they were serving.
Winston Churchill’s name was used in vain. So was Ghandi’s and it was on. The copilot had to get involved. It was entertainment. — SpiceyMugwumpMomma - Not that interesting but I was going through security and the guy in front of me had this really fancy looking box that got taken to look at, it went missing at some point and As I was putting my shoes on I heard him very stressedly scream “WHERE DID YOU PUT MY FATHERS ASHES?!” — kinfloppers
- “And I said Dusty, I am NOT squeezing the dogs nipples!” No idea why she was so loud about that specific part of the conversation. — HyperComa
- Two women in front of me discussing their niece, who had flown out to Paris to find a dress for her school formal (prom). From Australia. Then apparently the designer would be flying out to Australia for fittings and adjustments. Then proceeded to complain about “kids these days” being so wasteful with money, and spending so much on a simple dress. Can confidently say that kids these day do not routinely fly halfway across the world for a couture dress, then fly the designer halfway across the world, for a school dance. — Frozen_Feet
- This was pre 9-11.
Older Southwest planes used to have lounge seating up front where first class would normally be, two rows of seating that faced each other.
Staring directly at a stranger for four hours, awesome.
The plane was full and pre 9-11 you could bring a ton of shit on board -two good sized bags, food, a huge purse etc.
The flight attendant went through the aisles trying to get everyone to put their stuff in the overhead because the floor was filled with everyone’s crap.
The woman in front of me had a lunch cooler type bag. The attendant asked if there was any liquid in it and the woman said no, so the attendant put it above -over my seat.
The lady across from lunch cooler lady had a massive floor length fox fur coat on her lap (and she was a big big woman-going on six feet and very large), so this coat was HUGE.
The flight attendant tells her it has to go above in the compartment. The woman sort of flips out and goes on and on; arguing loudly about how this coat costs as much as a car and stuffing it into a small space will ruin it. The flight attendant was on the verge of calling dad over to settle it (the pilot) when fur woman gives in reluctantly.
The attendant assures her she will be very very careful not to compress it too much. And again it goes in the compartment over my seat.
Thirty minutes into the flight the guy next to me perks up suddenly and asked me, “Did you feel something?”
And a second later I did.
Something was dripping on us.
Looking up there were lines of fluid all over the button area and what started as an occasionally drip was now like a drip a second in several places.
The attendant came over and searched through the overhead. Lunch cooler lady was the culprit. The bag contained a huge thermos of chicken soup. Lunch cooler woman declared she didn’t count it as a liquid earlier because it was in a sealed container.
Then out came the coat, completely soaked in chicken soup.
And thus began the great stare down of 1999. The two women across form each other, on a flight from Maryland to Vegas that had just finished with take off.
I have never had such a case of the giggles along with a complete stranger in my life. Every time another drip came down it would start again.
TLDR; wore chicken soup for a cross country flight, was worth it for the entertainment value. — ThatGirl_Tasha
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