Taking Off Into the Frightening Skies of Air Travel

The most harrowing story from the final hours of the 20th century came late last week, when a guy described in print as “a crazed Kenyan passenger” did his best/worst to personally detour a British Airways jumbo jet bound for Nairobi.

Frankly, this was an end-of-an-era story we could have done without. Our century was scary enough without crazy people in our cockpits.

A 27-year-old man flying home to Kenya suddenly bolted up the aisle, grabbed the controls and attacked the pilot, even biting him, according to the news accounts. He (the passenger) had to be overcome not only by members of the flight crew, but by other passengers, several of whom sat on top of him.

(Remember this, next time you’re sorry to see a fat person sitting beside you on a plane. The fatter the better, when it comes to sitting on crazed passengers.)

When 379 people boarded that jet in London, they were given the usual instructions: Put up your tray table, buckle your belt, stuff your stuff beneath the seat. But nobody said a word about sitting on any crazed passengers.

That’s because nobody expected to hear: “This is your captain speaking. A chap is up here biting me. HELP!”

From now on, subduing-a-passenger instructions should be mandatory.

And any airline passenger who sits on a crazed passenger should be given 10,000 extra frequent-flier miles, or at least a free headset.

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I discovered as 2001 began that everybody who traveled for the holidays seemed to come home with a new hobby: telling stories about how terrible the flight was.

“My plane was 12 days late. We sat on a runway at O’Hare for 48 straight hours and they kept the restrooms locked.”

“Oh, yeah? My flight to LaGuardia got diverted to Guam. We circled the United States for six weeks.”

“You call that bad? We were supposed to fly to Hawaii, but our flight in Los Angeles got canceled 52 times because they couldn’t get the plane out of a hangar in Philadelphia because the guy with the only key was stuck in Pittsburgh.”

I wondered after a while if anybody got anywhere. One family interviewed on TV made it sound as if they’d been camped out in an airport terminal since 1994. I don’t want to say their flight was late, but I did notice that some of the Christmas toys they were carrying were Cabbage Patch Dolls.

And then there was that other scene on the TV news--the one showing an airline’s baggage handlers “handling” holiday packages.

Did you catch that one?

“Catch” is the key word here, because these plane unloaders were caught on camera having a high old time playing catch, tossing holiday packages from a cargo hold into a bin. They were seen throwing boxes overhand, underhand, behind-the-back, under-the-leg and over-the-shoulder. Kobe Bryant should have so many moves.

I’m not sure if these dudes were drunk, or just a little too merry for Christmas, or if they thought these parcels were addressed to a Mister Fragile. All I know for sure is that somebody out there mailed Grandma a brand new 16-piece punch bowl that is now a brand new 128-piece punch bowl.

Oh, the horrors of holiday travel.

Isn’t it bad enough that the hottest movie of the holidays is one that features Tom Hanks on a plane, getting batted around like a pinata? No wonder poor Tom ends up talking to a volleyball. I’ll spend a few years babbling to volleyballs myself if I ever have a flight like his.

“Cast Away” is a very well-made movie, one that for commercial flights will probably be edited to make it appear Hanks swam to an island after a South Seas train mishap.

Hanks plays a Federal Express exec who’s washed up in his prime. He ends up having plenty of time to think up a new company motto: “When Your Package Absolutely, Positively Has to Be There Within Five Years.”

In the movie, Hanks’ flight ends up with him in a bad way. He’s cold, he’s hungry, his possessions are lost--in short, it’s your typical airline trip.

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The interesting thing--and I’m not really giving anything away here--is that after Hanks gets off the island, he immediately takes a flight back home.

Me, I’d have gone by bus or by burro before I got on another jet that soon.

My air travel needs are fairly simple. Leave on time, arrive safely and try not to sit on any crazed passengers during the flight.

Trust me, though, I will if I have to.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to: Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com