The bottle of wine contest reminds me of the time, riding to La Guardia once aboard the old Trump Shuttle circa 1991, when the captain auctioned off a pair of tickets to a Broadway show. "Do I hear 25? Going once? Going twice." Passengers would chime in their bids using the attendant call button. The performance was later that evening, and the captain had planned on attending himself. He'd just been told by Crew Scheduling that an extra round trip had been tacked on to his rotation.

On Royal Air Maroc, shortly after departure from Kennedy en route to Casablanca, I recall this one: "Your attention please, the captain informs us there will be no sleeping on the floor." Well, I thought, that's good to know, though if he insists on grabbing a nap I'd be happy to sit in his chair for a while.

The annals of flight are full of humorous, if occasionally dubious, accounts of over-the-air insults, malapropisms and bloopers. Among my favorites is the one supposedly made by a flustered British Airways steward just after touchdown in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Assuming this story is true, an act so politically incorrect probably got the hapless steward fired before the doors were opened. As the plane turned clear of the runway, he clicked and spoke: "Ladies and gentlemen welcome to Riyadh. For the correct local time, please set your watch back three-hundred years."

Several years ago, a 37-seat turboprop taxied out for takeoff on a foggy morning at Logan International Airport in Boston. Prior to reaching the runway the airplane stopped, then doubled back and headed for the terminal again. After talking with the captain, the sole flight attendant cleared her throat and announced: "We're sorry, but for your safety we have to return to the gate. The pilot does not have enough experience to take off in the fog."

I was not witness to this event, but I suspect you could have heard a pretzel drop in that suddenly astonished cabin.

As you might expect, the truth of the matter was substantially more complicated than the picture she'd painted: that of some post-pubescent airman with a new pair of wings who hadn't yet learned to fly on instruments. She certainly avoided anything long-winded or confusing. And in doing so she set off a chain of "you're not going to believe this" phone calls that, to this day, are surely remembered by those who made and received them.

Taking it the other way, I suppose she could have said: "Uh, folks, unfortunately the RVR out on 04 Right has dropped to less than a thousand. Our captain today has only 89 hours in type, PIC, and per Op-Spec's requires at least a hundred for anything less than 1,600 RVR ... ."

And so on. Somewhere in these two extremes is the perfectly balanced, accurate-but-not-too-technical explanation the crew should have made. Would you like to hear my version of it? Me either. Let's just wrap this up instead.

That same airline employed another young stewardess who, fresh out of training and new to the area, did not realize that "La Guardia" and "New York" meant the same thing. While in line for takeoff one morning, a passenger asked what time they'd be landing in New York, at which point the girl exclaimed, "Oh my God, you're on the wrong plane!" The captain was informed of a misloaded passenger and, without knowing the details, decided to taxi back in. He instructed the attendant to make an announcement in case other people, too, had been boarded by mistake. "Ladies and gentlemen," she began, "If you are traveling to New York, we regret to inform you this plane is headed to La Guardia ..."

I can vouch for that one since I was the captain.

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