The advent of the crackpot flyer

Cockburn hates to admit it, but whenever he gets on a plane he starts praying. He’s not afraid of flying — so much as his fellow passengers. 

The news cycle over the summer months has done little to rid Cockburn of his prejudices. Just yesterday it was reported that a business class passenger on a transatlantic flight was harassing other passengers because he didn’t receive his preferred meal. The man didn’t stop there. After exiting the plane when he had forced it to land in Chicago, instead of its intended destination Amsterdam, he then harangued the airport staff. 

The videos from the flight show the passenger going on a rant that involved cursing out his fellow travelers and calling flight attendants “douches.” While Cockburn is no stranger to a stern word with a stewardess when she takes too long with his in-flight Bloody Mary, this was too much even for him. After that the man filmed a customer service manager while threatening that he would wind up on Fox News over the incident. Classy!

According to a passenger that posted the altercation on Reddit (thank goodness for the internet), the man was apparently upset that attendants wouldn’t serve him the first course of his meal while the plane was still on the runway, even though he’d paid $1,000 for his ticket. United Airlines previously confirmed that the ten-hour flight from Houston to Amsterdam had been diverted and “landed safely following a passenger disturbance.”

This story comes on the heels of the holy grail of plane dramas earlier this month, when a woman aboard an American Airlines flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Orlando caused a scene before the flight took off. A video showed “Plane Girl” standing up, walking down the aisle and attempting to alight as she announced she’d be leaving the plane. The reason? She claimed that a person at the back of the plane wasn’t “real” and she didn’t want to die.

“Everyone can either believe it or they can not believe it,” said the hysterical woman. “But I am telling you, that motherfucker back there is not real!” In fairness, those Bloody Marys knock Cockburn out too. 

The final, and potentially most upsetting plane story that Cockburn has seen this week was when several airplane passengers who were attempting to leave Colorado were stuck on a plane with a bunch of Swifties who had attended Taylor Swift’s “Eras” Tour on Sunday. The passengers were subjected to an impromptu singalong after their Southwest flight was delayed for several hours.

In the video, fans can be heard belting “Love Story” as crew members played the track over the plane’s speakers. There isn’t enough booze or Xanax on the entire plane to numb you from that.