Whoa! It seems a guy in first class on American Airlines asked for a glass of orange juice.

And with that, the flight attendant began screaming at him.

And she went on and on. Fortunately for this fellow, everyone around him saw what was happening and couldn’t believe it – and acting as a group, met with an airline rep to defend this guy, once their Sacramento to Dallas flight landed. Meanwhile, the flight attendant tried to get the O.J. fellow in big trouble, but the other passengers were having none of that.

Funny how some of the comments I’ve seen say, oh, don’t pick on flight attendants – maybe this woman was just having a very bad day. Well, apparently. But I don’t think anyone is picking on any group – including flight attendants – it just sounds like this woman is nuts.

Plenty of people out there are having bad days – plenty of people out there have seen their salaries chopped – their jobs disappear – plenty. But they don’t behave like this. This — this is inexcusable.

Weird doings down in W. Palm Beach…

A Princess gambling “cruise to nowhere” is in port because its new captain doesn’t have a license.

The old captain was fired yesterday, which “set off a near-riot on the deck” according to the Palm Beach Post. In fact, the situation got so bad that Customs and Border folks called in extra security to make sure that the rioters – foreign nationals who live and work on the ship – didn’t get off the vessel, since they are not legally allowed on U.S. soil.

What prompted the pandemonium? According to the workers, pay cuts and poor working conditions – some said their checks have been late and bouncing, though the company denies that. Meanwhile, the company claims the old captain allegedly attempted to organize a strike, which is why a new one was brought in – though you might have thought they’d at least ask him if he was carrying his license with him. Hey, these days we all have to be concerned with our licenses.

Still with me? Well, yesterday’s cruise was cancelled for reasons of rioting; today’s was cancelled for lack of license.

This is sad.

A fellow had a ticket to fly Southwest for his uncle’s funeral.

Fellow weighs 400 pounds. He said he could fit in the seat, that he flies “all the time” and said he’d even sit with his arms crossed over his chest to avoid bothering anyone.

Southwest said no, that he was just too big, and said he’d have to buy a second seat. The guy says, fine. Problem: there is no second seat. The flight is booked. Man misses funeral.

A lot of flights are booked solid these days, particularly during holiday periods. Here’s what the man should have done, according to Southwest’s “guidelines for customers of size“: he should have pro-actively booked two seats in advance. Guess he’ll know next time.

The guy says Southwest is giving him a refund. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, I guess.

Just read a killer article by Brendan Ross for Wired.

For those that don’t know, Brian is on assignment for Wired, flying all over on his JetBlue “All You Can Jet” pass and blogging about it. He seems to be having a pretty good time – or was.

Then sat next to “Shauna”.

Clearly, Shauna (fake name) was full of surprises. One of the first things she did was, inquire if Brendan was allegoric to dogs, as she proceeded to pull a pop-eyed little mutt out of her purse.

Then she insisted that Brendan entertain her for the whole trip (the TV wasn’t working); she also announced her bathroom visits to one and all (“I have to PEE!”); she also discussed her former career as a Hooters waitress.

My only objection to the article is that Brendan never asked me if I required an alias.

Saw this on Channel 2 out of Chicago…

A 6 foot, 350 pound man is not happy with Southwest Airlines. Apparently the airline allowed Emery Orto to fly from Midway to Las Vegas, no problem, but stopped him as he was boarding the flight home and asked, “Can you put the armrests down when seated?”

He said he could, but Southwest ultimately grounded him anyway. Orto called this “humiliating” (but apparently it was not so humiliating that he passed up a chance to go on TV).

His main complaint: Southwest never “tested” him on the “putting-the-armrests-down” trick, but there’s more to the “passenger of size” rule at Southwest and other airlines – a policy that’s been around for years. Orto seemed to suggest that he wasn’t familiar with it – and in his defense, he was allowed to fly to Las Vegas.

Southwest told Ch. 2 that was a “mistake”. But they also said, the real issue with Orto was “anger” – that he was arguing with an “elevated voice” in a belligerent tone, and that other passengers weren’t comfortable flying with Orto after watching him lose his temper.

Orto meanwhile is talking about his “pain and suffering” and we all know where that’s going. Meanwhile, maybe the airlines better just suck it up and come out with specific height/weight/size charts – and no more guessing games.

Fish, fowl or fun-loving humans, we are all Somebody’s creatures – so the death of 4,000 tropical fish is not to be taken lightly (especially since they were worth about half a million dollars).

Cause of death: unclear. But the 15 hours it took to clear customs in brutal summer heat at the Black Sea resort of Sochi ought to tell you something, I suppose.

The picturesque piscinies (what — you never made up a word?) were heading toward Sochi Discovery World — Russia’s largest oceanarium – when tragedy struck. And it was a tragedy to the oceanarium’s director who called it an “atrocity unseen anywhere else in the world.”

Think I’ll beg to differ on that one…

In September, the skies will be filled with cats and dogs – so says USA Today.

It’s not a bizarre weather forecast – it’s an effort by private pilots to remove some 5,000 dogs and cats (and other creatures) from overcrowded shelters and bring them to other parts of the country where there is “space and demand for them.” In other words, they’re being removed from facilities where euthanasia is the answer to overcrowding, in favor of “no kill” shelters.

Nice. Don’t know if you know this, but about 6 million shelter animals are put to death each year.

I don’t want to sound like Bob Barker or anything, but you can blame all these deaths on stupid pet owners. Anyone who refuses to have their animal spayed/neutered shouldn’t have a pet. Can’t afford the procedure? Then you can’t afford a pet.

“A complete lack of common sense here.”

Those are the words of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, commenting on the recent “trapped on the tarmac” ordeal of nearly 50 passengers in Rochester, Minnesota.

You may recall that the passengers were heading to Minneapolis on a Continental flight – operated by ExpressJet – when they diverted to Rochester due to storms. But no one let them off the plane.

Meanwhile, the ExpressJet crew has been more or less cast as the bad guys in this saga, for supposedly forcing their passengers to sit on that plane, for nine hours – but, according to LaHood, they were actually very good guys. In fact, they pleaded with people in the airport to let the passengers come in, but – nothin’ doin’. ExpressJet executives also got into the act, with the same result.

The problem, apparently, is that ExpressJet was talking to people from Mesabe Airlines – the only carrier with a staff left in the airport at that late hour – and maybe they’d been appointed official-phone-answerers, I don’t know – but the Mesabe-ites kept saying, the passengers couldn’t come in.

Sounds nuts to me. Where were the airport people? If they weren’t around, why didn’t anyone know how to get hold of them?

How about some new procedures – like, “every airport must have a hotline for after-hours problems” – and every crew member should have that hotline number.

Since I’m no genius, I have to believe someone else has thought of this before, so – why hasn’t it been done?

Okay, I hated it.

And I may well be in the minority on this, but I found North Carolina’s Charlotte Douglas International to be insanely spread out – with nary a tram in sight.

“Oh, you poor pathetic little thing,” you may be thinking. Okay, you try to get from Terminal E to Terminal A or B in the 45 minutes allotted between your flights as I did last weekend. All I can say is, forget the kitten heels and stilettos and pull out your grandma sneakers cuz you are going to need ‘em.

It truly is a hike, with only moving sidewalks between you and utter despair – and naturally, no one obeys the stand-on-the-right-walk-on-the-left rules – no one.

I know, I know, they have a lot of cute shops and all – Simply Books, Rocky Mountain Chocolate, Time to Write, and, yeah, even a NASCAR shop (?) – and the people seem very nice there, but the only shopping experience I got was seeing a blur of storefronts as I sweatily streaked by (mind out of the gutter, please – I was decently covered).

Later I looked up some reviews of the airport, and was frankly shocked to see how many people really like Charlotte. I, however, did not. Where are the Els, the Trams, the Movers of People?

Anyone with me?

Sad and creepy story from the Washington Post, which points out that half of all scheduled flights in the U.S. today are operated by regional airlines. Piloted by people who make oh, maybe $20,000 to start -because the number of people flying has tanked and fares are cheap and pay has been cut.

How do you live on that? Crash pads.

Crash pads are temporary residences — like the suburban split level described in the Post that is the sometime home of 30 pilots, flight attendants, and other crew members. They’re packed into bunk beds – the basement sleeps 16, for example – and that’s how they live. A number of these guys describe themselves as “somewhat homeless”.

This is what happens when salaries are cut -or you’re transferred across the country from your “real home” – where the wife and kiddies live — and you don’t want to uproot them in case you’re transferred again. You do what you have to, to survive.

But hey, it’s not all doom and gloom – as a spokesman for one regional carrier says, the company supports “the right of our pilots to live where they choose…”