Comments on: Rarefied Air

By: Sheila

Sheila — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 21:44:42 +0000

Many years I go I flew from Hilo, Hawaii, to Los Angeles. I think it was on United. I was an airline agent at the time, and so usually flew in first class, as I was this time. Anyway, Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, and their two year old son Max were on the flight. Along with the nanny. I like to tell people I got to change Max Brooks’ diaper way back when.

As a ticket agent at National Airport for 10 years I got to meet a fair number of celebrities. The absolute nicest was Helen Hayes. The very best politician was Jay Rockefeller, then Governor of West Virginia.

By: Matthieu

Matthieu — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 23:31:03 +0000

When I was ten, I flew from Paris-CDG to NY-JFK and was waiting in line to board behind an enormous man. He ended up sitting a few rows up (we were lucky enough to be in business), and I noticed he needed to seats to himself. I found out years later it was Andre the Giant!

By: Clark

Clark — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 05:30:27 +0000

After 35 years and 4 million miles of mostly business travel, I’ve got a bunch of celeb sightings:
– early 1990s, LHR-LIS, BA Club class, sat behind Glenn Close. Chatted briefly as we deplaned, she was friendly but with a bit of that east-coast haughtiness you would expect from her.
– roughly same time, LHR-BUD, deplaned behind the great Michael Palin of Monty Python. While waiting in the customs line I was able to tell him that nothing made me laugh harder than the Biggus Dickus scene in Life of Brian; he seemed to enjoy that.
– mid-2010s, MIA-ATL in DL first class, was seated next to Pittsburgh Steelers legend Lynn Swann. Friendliest guy you could imagine, we talked sports the whole flight.
– just a few years ago, DEN-LAX UA first class, Sean Penn across the aisle from me, on the bulkhead. Dressed exactly like a trucker, complete with baseball/trucker hat. Took off his boots and planted his feet (with socks on) against the bulkhead at eye level – WTF? As we deplaned we made brief eye contact and I said “I’m a big fan of your work”, and he grunted “thanks, man”. And if anyone doubts my comment, watch Carlito’s Way or Falcon and the Snowman, or, of course, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
– Richard Branson on a VA short haul flight in my row in COACH! Gotta admire that from the Boss.
– William Shatner in first on MIA-LAX. I would have happily brought up his Twilight Zone work (not a Trekkie at all), but he cranked his seat back and slept the whole way.

By: Prasad K

Prasad K — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 14:06:04 +0000

It was in May 2016 when we took a JetBlue flight out of LAX to JFK, and as I was boarding – right near the front seats the stewardess was very chatty with a familiar looking young lady who presumably was in First row seats. Later at JFK as we exited, this young lady looked more familiar and was with her kids – and just as we walked out, one of the tabloid websites flashed news that Olivia Wilde had taken an LAX to JFK flight, and her photos were displayed – this being our exact flight! This was such a facepalm moment for me and my teenage boys who were with me.

By: Jeffrey Latten

Jeffrey Latten — Sat, 11 Jun 2022 17:15:17 +0000

RE: Thurman Munson and his Cessna Citation. I’m not 100% sure of this but from what I’ve read, Thurman had no business piloting that kite. It appears he was fresh out of training in a 152 or 172, something in that class, and a high performance twin jet like the Cessna was just way over his head. Do you have some input on this? I don’t doubt this has happened before…lots of people have more money than brains.

By: Garry Margolis

Garry Margolis — Wed, 18 May 2022 17:37:44 +0000

Many years ago, we weborded an LAX-SFO SSouthwest flight with our 2-year-old son and sat behind an older gentleman who scowled at him — George Jessel (if anyone remembers him). Shortly afterwards, Milton Berle boarded and received a round of applause from the passengers, except for Jessel, who scowled more. Berle acknowledged the applause with a big smile. Jessel appeared even more grumpy. 🙂

Ray Manzarek (Doors keyboard) and I were college classmates. Years late, wre were on the same Pan Am JFK-LAX flight and chatted in the aisle for a few minutes, earning the envy of my colleagues.

By: Alan

Alan — Tue, 10 May 2022 01:51:08 +0000

In 2004 I attended as a delegate my first and only Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004 was giddy from a week of literally bumping into famous people and having a chance to briefly chat with some of them like Jerry Springer (nice guy by the way). On my Northwest flight from Boston to Minneapolis I noticed that some older gentleman got up right after the seatbelt sign went off and spent over half an hour standing in the aisle taking to someone. It took me a while to recognize him and the FA confirmed to me when I asked that it really was former VP Walter Mondale! And it turned out that the person he was talking to was George McGovern! This made an already amazing week even more amazing…

By: Charles Lief

Charles Lief — Tue, 03 May 2022 00:14:45 +0000

Very cool mini-memoir, Patrick! Thank you for sharing it!

By: Marc Friedman

Marc Friedman — Sun, 01 May 2022 19:13:09 +0000

Clearly I haven’t flown as often as you, but I have at least crossed paths with a few interesting folks, including Kevin McHale! He was en route to IAH from MSP when he was the coach of the Houston Rockets. Totally agree that he wasn’t the friendliest guy, but I’m sure at 6’11” he was recognized by lots of people.

A couple other fun people. I sat across the aisle in F class from Walter and Eleanor Mondale from DCA to MSP. They were cordial and conversational. That’s a trip I’ll never forget.

But my favorite was with Lou Holtz, the nutjob football coach. At the time he was the U of Minnesota coach, and for some reason he was flying MSP to SNA on Republic Airlines, MD-80 in coach, way in the back on a half empty aircraft. He was the row behind me and very animated and kind of weird. In the middle of several minutes long conversation he decided he had to floss his teeth He had 3 seats to himself so plenty of room to stretch out, floss, and carry on a conversation.

Did I mention weird?

Happy trails!

Oh, and I forgot the dead guy on a Korean Air flight from JFK to SEL. He died a couple of hours into the trip somewhere over Canada, but we continued onward since he was already gone, in his sleep. They covered him with a couple of blankets and everything else in F class continued as usual. Double weird.

By: Nathan Carruth

Nathan Carruth — Sat, 30 Apr 2022 11:53:49 +0000

I realize this is not a true celebrity sighting, but I have to record this here. I took a UA flight from DEN to DFW last night, and would you believe it – but when the captain came on the PA he introduced himself as Charles Lindbergh. I did a double take, looked around at my fellow passengers as if to say, “Did you hear that? Charles Lindbergh is flying our plane!” But as usual they were engrossed in any number of things; no one else seemed to notice.

When I got off the plane, it appeared he was standing at the front chatting with a flight attendant. I greeted him and expressed my good natured disbelief that Charles Lindbergh had just been our captain. Both he and the flight attendant laughed,, and he made the comment that he really didn’t have a choice of profession, with a name like that. Indeed.