I've flown about 71,xxx miles in the last few years. I've flown different airlines, through different terminals. I've been on domestic and international flights, in private, commercial, and military aircraft, on different types of equipment. I've flown at all hours of day and night. I've flown first class, business class, cargo class, and stow-away. I've been on flights where they rolled out the red carpet for me, to assigned seat, to herded in like cattle, down to flights where I was put in like garbage into a trash compactor.
Until you've flown on non-US airlines, you don't realize just how bad domestic flights really are. Because of laws here, we can't do what other countries do. Before my first international flight, I flew AA from STL to LAX, then MAS to KUL. AA gave me peanuts. I mean, literally. The flight attendants on MAS slowed up on time, together, and I couldn't argue that they were the country's prettiest women. They didn't hurt my eyes. They were single women, aged 24-34, petite, and dressed in ankle-length dresses. They served meals, spoke politely in English, sought to make my flight enjoyable, and were always courteous. When I got back on AA for the return flight, one of the doors kept falling off as we were leaving the gate. I think 3 or 4 times the door fell off, the last time as we were taxiing to the runway. They welded the door on, and said not to worry, the airplane would be pulled out of rotation for maintenance in DCA. Well, we were only taking the plane to STL. In any case, the flight attendants were ugly, rude, wider than the aisle, spoke no telling what language, and didn't seem to care how bad our experience was. To be fair, China Air was terrible. We lost interior lighting and climate control on a 14-hour flight. It was hot, stuffy, dark, and the air quality was very poor. Singapore Airlines landed VERY hard in FRA, and the same plane had the landing gear collapse in SIN, as a result.
Probably my worst flight was an experimental tandem plane that had to be landed on a carrier. No tail hook. The pilot passed out on approach. We landed with the auxiliary tanks. No fuel dump. The plane pretty much fireballed on impact. The flight deck was fully operational within the hour.
