Flying First Class Doesn’t Guarantee Class

We’re heading out for a family vacation, flying first class for the first time. Our group has seven of the eight seats adjacent to the cockpit, with one stranger seated amongst us. And boy, did we find a doozy.

Right from the get-go, [Stranger] makes her presence known. We board with my father-in-law, who is in a wheelchair, to find that, for some reason, this lady boards the plane along with the “passengers that need additional time to board,” but she seems to be moving around just fine. It seems her motivation to do so was to pack her overhead compartment with her multitude of carry-on items. She also needs to use all of my compartment and half of someone else’s, too.

Okay, fine. Whatever. We can deal with it.

Then, the flight gets delayed for being short crew, and [Stranger] immediately starts demanding wine before we even leave the ground. As soon as the stewardess tells her no and walks off, she starts complaining to us.

Stranger: “First class is so s***ty with this airline!”

I’m already thinking, “Can you shut up already?” Then comes the inevitable:

Stranger: “We can just leave without the crew member, right?”

Apparently, she wasn’t paying attention because the missing crew IS THE FREAKING PILOT.

We are released back out to the terminal for a bit to stretch because the delay is so long, and we return to our seats to find my daughter’s seat occupied by [Stranger]’s friend who is flying economy. After we stand around and clear our throats several times to try to get their attention, it is obvious they have no awareness of anyone outside their bubble. After my daughter, my mother-in-law, and I all ask them to clear out, they FINALLY acknowledge that they’re in someone else’s seat.

After all this, we eventually get up in the air. Cue [Stranger] slamming glasses of wine. After the third glass, she’s obviously already drunk, because she then dumps the entire fourth glass of wine on my teenage daughter. SHE DOESN’T EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE THAT SHE DID IT. No sorry, no “here’s a napkin”. She just immediately starts demanding another drink from the flight attendant.

All the while, she’s keeping her mask down while she is drinking, but the second I take mine off to drink some water, this lady grabs my arm.

Stranger: “Put your mask back on!”

Are you serious? You’ll complain about a mask but you’re totally okay touching strangers? Okay, lady.

At that point, I finally told the stewardess about everything, and they stopped serving her, but she still spent the rest of the trip complaining about how s***ty this airline is and trying to talk to my daughter, who was legitimately worried this moron was going to puke on her. Poor kid.