by Noah Rozzell

Many people get nervous when traveling. The feeling of impending doom starts to bubble up, and images of lost bags, missed connections, and crashed planes start lodging in one's mind. Fear not, though, there…

by Gina Forberg

The tray table is in its upright position and the seat belt light screams red and I would like nothing more than to go to the bathroom, but the flight attendant has not given…

by Alex Ehrenzeller

Despite my advice, Captain Juanito felt prepared to take a midnight flight. It was dangerous enough just standing in the stockroom. Why my cousin decided to fly his plane in the shelving fortress of…

by Sandra A. Miller

I boarded the plane and settled into 26A, a window seat next to an empty one. And that’s the first time I felt it in my gut—the uncoupling—even more pronounced than at 4:00 that…

by Stirling Noh

I've given up trying to sleep on airplanes. A cat nap here and there? Sure, and they come easily if you drink the way I do. But the whole theatre of pillows and blankets…

by James Moran

Of the throngs of humanity sleeping on cots by the heat-blasted roadside our flashing honking careening bus disturbed not a soul. We had witnessed this Indian ability to sleep through anything before. We were…

by Neal Pollack

I’m betraying my age by revealing this, but I’ve always loved the Saturday Night Live film from the early 80s where Eddie Murphy goes undercover as a white person. He discovers that being white…

by Nathan C. Martin

I remember passing a Nalgene bottle—a popular outdoor accoutrement in the West—full of Red Bull and vodka around the car on the way to Salt Lake City International Airport. My 19-year-old girlfriend and I…

by Jeff Hawthorne

Passing through TSA security checkpoints has become like a Stanley Kubrick film, with partially clothed adults meeting randomly for moody conversation and dark rituals. People under the age of 18 really should have their

by Maria Cruz

We were on our night flight back home when I noticed that after the fasten seat belt sign went off and the stewardess started to serve drinks, this really old couple seated next to…

by Eileen Brunetto

Sprawled out in coach, I settled next to my husband as he rooted through his stack of unread New Yorkers. Contemplating the tiny bottles of chardonnay coming my way, I had just been assured…

by Tarn Wilson

He sat in the window seat, immersed in a magazine. I registered little about him other than he’d crossed his legs, he wore cuffed business slacks, and his thick hair was graying at the…

by Sara Elle

My name is Sara and I’m an alcoholic; I did some of my best drinking on airplanes. By the time I was eighteen, I had a fake ID, a rich boyfriend who lived on…

by Pearu Unga

I hate flying. My two-hour and ten-minute flight to Prague seemed to last for at least half a day. But then I had been awake all night and your brain tends to hit the…

by Jess Stoner

It was 2000, and I had arrived at Reagan National Airport with enough time to have a beer before my flight. It was only a few months after the Music City Miracle had yet…

by Kelly Bergin

The first hour is anxiety. The pot she smoked in short-term parking is wearing off and the panic becomes physical when she realizes that her medicine is packed in cargo, somewhere below her seat.…

by Marisa Mangani

It’s August and I’ll be fifty in nine days. We’re at the Tampa Airport, checked in and sitting at the bar for a breakfast rum drink because my redneck, sharkman, lover-husband is afraid to…

by Alex Pruteanu

I took Hemingway and Bukowski and Palahniuk and F. Scott and Hitchens with me, and we crossed the border into Canada like the hooligans that we are (F. Scott would object to that, but…

by Christopher Schaberg

It was warm coming down the concourse even in the late evening. The moon lit up the taxiway around the blinking lights and illuminated the planes. It was winter around the airport but the…

by Bryan Batt

Over the past several years, I have become quite the frequent flyer, more so than I ever would have thought given the history of my fear of flying. Last year I clocked over 50…

by Ian Ferguson

I had a great job that involved visiting our offices in Asia on a frequent basis so I became very familiar with the Trans-Pacific Business and occasionally First Class routine. Others in my office…

by Chella Courington

I take another half an Ativan, finishing my second cranberry and vodka with soda. The steward comes to the back row (it is a Monday), takes my glass as I nod yes, and asks…

by Len Kuntz

Seated next to him, the girl keeps herself busy drawing pictures of dismembered pets—dogs, cats, rodents with collars. He pretends not to notice, looking instead out his window at a bright white heaven under…

by Sandra Vallie

I could fall the distance between the plane and the ground in a bit more than two minutes. I have no wish to do this, but it’s good to know I can still figure…

by Edward Pinnegar

The sun struggled through the patchy grey sky to glint off the yellow tail fin, on which the logo of a puffin in flight seemed strangely motionless. A bracing wind blew; after three weeks…

by Thomas Gibbs, MD

I was flying back from my mother-in-law’s funeral. My wife had stayed behind. Finishing a Heineken and ready to order another, I noticed the man in front of me jerk his right arm out…

by Susan Perl

There was this one time I flew from Detroit to Miami and back to Detroit in one day. I won't say what I was doing. It wasn't exactly illicit, but don't tell my husband.…

by Tony D'Souza

My mother worked reservations at United Airlines in Chicago before all those jobs were sent to India, and not having any clue how fortunate I was, I grew up on planes. I have no…