Hurricane Helene proved to be the deadliest to strike the mainland U.S. since Hurricane Katrina, with over 220 confirmed deaths and an estimated $27.5 billion worth of damage in Florida, Georgia and other states affected. And now, the Southeast is preparing for the impact of Hurricane Milton, a Category 4 storm that’s set to hit the U.S. this week.


Naturally, airlines felt this was the perfect time to make a little extra cash and decided to allegedly gouge prices for desperate passengers trying to flee the area, with some people showing flights out of Tampa or Miami costing thousands of dollars.



Airlines have a long history of being the corporate embodiment of evil, casually ruining vacations and forcing folks to descend into madness with constant delays, terrible service and infinite hidden fees. Here are few of the most monstrous manifestations of malevolence that people have endured due to airlines…


Airline Loses a Dead Body

Losing a loved one is never easy, but it’s especially hard when an airline literally loses their body. That’s exactly what happened to Nagima Alzhan in 2019 after her husband Serik Berlinbayev died. His body was meant to be transported to Kazakhstan for the funeral, but Turkish Airlines reportedly misplaced his body.


Baby Booked on Separate Flight Than Parents

Stephanie and Andrew Braham had spent four weeks galavanting around Europe with their 13-month-old baby and were set to fly from Rome to Bangkok before returning home to Australia. However, it turned out Qantas Airlines had booked their baby onto an entirely separate flight from them. The parents obviously didn’t get on the flight without their child, but when they called the airline to fix it, they were given no explanation and the airline even said it wasn’t their fault. The Braham family ended up stuck in Rome for 12 days longer than intended.


Airline Forgets to Put a Guy’s Wheelchair on the Plane

Luggage not arriving at the intended destination has become the frustrating norm for flyers, but forgetting to put a person’s wheelchair onto the plane is a whole new level of wrong. Tim Kelly was flying to Dublin from New York, and when he arrived in Ireland, the Delta Airlines staff informed him that his wheelchair hadn’t made the journey with him. He was given a temporary replacement wheelchair, but it didn’t have push rims so he couldn’t move himself. Kelly’s wheelchair was supposed to arrive the next morning, yet when the next flight arrived, it once again had been left behind in JFK. It finally arrived two days later.


Passengers Stuck on Grounded Plane for Six Hours

One of the worst feelings you can have while traveling via plane is when everyone is boarded, but for unknown reasons, the plane just sits there for an hour before finally taking off. That terrible feeling was taken to cruel and unusual extremes for a flight going from Charlotte Douglas International Airport to New York City, as American Airlines held passengers on a hot plane with no food or drink service for six hours (which is about three times longer than the entire flight was supposed to take). By the end, people were reportedly “sobbing and having panic attacks.”


Airline Forgets to Tell Parents That Their 10-Year-Old’s Flight Is Canceled

A 10-year-old was flying alone from Virginia to Boston to visit family and was set to briefly stop at New York City’s JFK when the connecting flight was canceled. That’s bad enough, but what really made this a nightmare was that American Airlines didn’t inform her parents about the cancellation, so instead, the young girl called them crying. Eventually, family members drove down from Boston to pick her up.


300 Passengers Stranded at Airport for 50 Hours

Flight delays are an unfortunate reality that often can’t be helped, but what can be helped is how an airline handles the delays and Egyptair’s treatment of passengers during a delayed flight from Washington, D.C. to Cairo was as bad as it gets. The flight was originally delayed 12 hours, but then passengers noticed the flight had entirely disappeared from the departures board and Egyptair’s website. Eventually, the 300 stranded travelers realized that there were no Egyptair staff members at the airport at all. The plane wouldn’t take flight until 50 hours after its originally scheduled departure time.


@injector_sara Welcome to my most unhinged travel story and why i would avoid egypt air at all costs #travel #washingtondc #cairo #egypt #egyptair #travelhorrorstory ##delayedflight ♬ original sound - Injector Sara


History of Hurricane Price Gouging

Unsurprisingly, airlines jacking up prices to fuck over people trying to escape natural disasters is hardly a new phenomenon. When Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico, prices of flights from San Juan to Miami skyrocketed to over $1,000 per person. And it got even worse from there, as flights out of Miami to safer parts of the U.S. reportedly reached up to $3,200.


Employees Are Treated Like Shit

Passengers aren’t the only ones who are made miserable by airlines; the employees are put through hell, too. Of course a large part of this comes from terrible mistreatment from passengers, but it doesn’t help that flight attendants are underpaid and overworked. Airlines have also seemingly put their staff in harm’s way at times, including the “unnecessary and frankly creepy” policy Delta implemented where they would release the names of the flight attendants beforehand. Thankfully, the policy was revoked after it was widely criticized.


Airline Sends Luggage to the Wrong City

Sandra Shuster and her 15-year-old daughter Ruby were flying from Baltimore to Denver but their bags didn’t arrive. United told Sandra their luggage would arrive on the next flight, but when it didn’t, she used the AirTag she had on the bags and found they were at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Sandra asked the airline, but they insisted that was incorrect. After her bags continued to not show up, Sandra decided to travel to the Windy City herself to retrieve them.