No, I didn’t overdose on Fanta. No, we didn’t divert to North Korea. Yes, Abduction was playing (and yes, I watched it again due to lack of other alternatives).
Sorry for the teaser post earlier. I needed at least a couple of hours of sleep before I could function again, given that I only got about 90 minutes of sleep in the past 48 hours.
My Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Singapore started like any other. I was driven to the plane, and when I got to my seat, 1K, the cabin was already full, including a lady across from me in 1G. One of the unique features about Lufthansa’s first class cabin on the Airbus 380 is that each passenger has an individual locker, so I placed my bag in my locker. As I closed the door the lady seated across from me said “wait, I want to put my stuff in there too.” I explained to her that she had her own locker that she could even lock if she wanted, and showed her where it is.
We started talking, and she said “boy, you must fly this plane a lot.” She told me she lives in Washington DC and flies Lufthansa all the time to Germany, and that at check-in the agent told her she had an upgrade voucher that was expiring, so asked if she wanted to upgrade, which she did. She then asked what I did, and I asked what she did. She responded with “what do you think?” I said “well, you live in Washington but don’t fly a US carrier between the US and Europe, so you don’t work for the government.” She said “good thinking, I do what everyone else in Washington does.” I said “so you’re a lobbyist?” She said “no, I’m a foreign corruption lawyer.” Okay, I didn’t realize everyone else in Washington did that, but I wasn’t about to argue.
She then asked me what the best strategy was for sleeping between Frankfurt and Singapore. I explained that like most redeyes to Asia departing from Europe, I stay up for two hours and enjoy the meal, sleep for eight hours, and then wake up 90 minutes before landing. She said “I don’t usually sleep well on planes,” and said she might just stay up. I said the bedding is so comfortable that I’m sure she’d sleep really well.
Fast forward two hours. Dinner finishes up, and I’m listening to some music on the Lufthansa in-flight entertainment system with Lufthansa’s Bose noise canceling headphones. All I hear, though, is someone snoring. And I don’t mean the occasional snore or the quiet snore, but I’m talking about the loudest snoring I’ve heard in my life. If there were an international snoring championship this person would definitely be a grand prize contender.
I walk around the cabin because it’s not apparent to me who’s snoring. As it turns out it was actually the lady right across from me in 1G (despite no outside appearance of the snoring).
I figured it was no big deal, so I went to the galley and asked the flight attendant for some ear plugs. She responded with (in German), “I’m so sorry, we hear the snoring from the galley as well.” Mind you, the galley is separated from the cabin by two sets of thick curtains.
Okay, I figure this wouldn’t go on forever, so decide to get some work done, despite being dead tired. But nope, it doesn’t stop.
So after a couple of hours I decide to sleep with noise canceling headphones on while listening to music. It didn’t work.
In the end I just stayed up. I don’t think I can properly articulate just how loud her snoring was, because it was unlike anything I’ve ever heard before, and oh-so-consistent. She didn’t miss a beat for about eight hours straight.
90 minutes before landing she woke up and said “you were right, I did sleep really well. I’ve never gotten this much sleep on an airplane before. How did you sleep?” Oh no she didn’t…
I’m actually kind of surprised the snoring situation doesn’t happen more often, but I’m curious, is there anything that can be done? Would you tell the passenger? Would you hope the crew does something? Or is it something that sucks but nothing can be done about?
So while every other aspect of the flight was amazing, that lady sure ruined it for me. Has anyone been in a similar situation?
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