James Hoskin's

The following are genuine stories provided by travel agents.

• Someone asked for an aisle seat so that their hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window on their flight.
• A client called enquiring about a package to Hawaii. After informing her of the cost, she asked "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?".
• I received a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Cape Town is in Massachusetts." Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained "Cape cod is in Massachusetts, Cape Town is in Africa." She hung up.
• A man called, furious about a Florida package we had provided. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando and he replied saying he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He then said "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state."
• I received a call from a man who asked "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" When I replied in the negative he said "But they look so close on the map."
• Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he only had a 1-hour lay over in Dallas. I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time."
• A nice lady called asking how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and arrived in Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!
• A woman called and asked "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to who?" I said "No, why do you ask?" She replied "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any connection?" After putting her on hold for a minute while I looked into it (I was actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.
• I received a phone call from a man who asked "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."
• A woman called saying "I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one of those computer planes." I asked if she meant she wanted to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said "Yeah, whatever."
• A businessman called with a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those." I double-checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said "Look, I have been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express."
• A woman called to make reservations; "I want to fly from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York" I was at a loss for words before double checking the destination with her. After some searching I replied "I am sorry madam, I have looked up every airport code in the country and I can not find a Hippopotamus anywhere." The customer demanded I check my map as I must be wrong so I checked again. After scouring the map again something caught my eye "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?" She replied "Yes, thats it! I knew it was a big animal!"