My Smelly Seatmate On Delta Air Lines…

My trip to Hong Kong commenced with a red eye flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta on Delta Air Lines. Unfortunately, I had a smelly seatmate who had horrific body odor…

Soap Was A Foreign Object To My Smelly Seatmate On Delta…

Living in Los Angeles, I’ve had a lot of seatmates over the years that have smelled like skunks….marijuana use is widespread in the City of Angeles…

But it has been many years since I’ve had a seatmate with very bad body odor (the last instance I can recall was on Ukraine Airlines from Kyiv to New York many, many years ago).

I boarded my Delta flight and took my assigned seat; a window seat in economy class. Toward the end of the boarding process, an older couple in their 60s boarded and took their seats next to me; the husband in the middle seat and the wife on the aisle.

Immediately, I got a whiff of the husband…soap was clearly a foreign concept to him. I reached up and turned on the air vent and then turned toward the window.

By this time, the aircraft door had closed and we were pushing back. Sadly, fumes were still wafting over to me…it was really disgusting.

But, I was not going to delay the flight (and jeopardize my onward connection to Seoul) over a smelly seatmate. The flight was packed…every seat was taken…so it’s not like I could have even taken a middle seat further back (I don’t fly Delta often but was not surprised that about 40 standbys were cleared onto this flight…I guess a lot of employees have to commute to Atlanta).

While I cannot sleep in economy class, I had a productive flight working thanks to free high-speed wi-fi and Fever Tree club soda (very premium, Delta!).

I’ll have more details about the flight in my full review…today I just wanted to focus on my seatmate.

Oh, and I got a trading card!

Hey folks, it’s really courteous to bathe before you travel, especially in economy class. Thankfully I can count on one hand the number of incidents I’ve had like this over my two decades of flying, but that did not make my redeye to Atlanta any more bearable…