Not sure if you’ve been keeping up with the latest spate of weird news stories concerning the airline industry, but it does seem like this past week has produced a bumper crop of strange ones.

First, there was the Northwest Airlines’ off-duy employee who is accused of masturbating on the back of a semi-sleeping female passenger on a Northwest flight.

Lovely.

Then there was the story in the Manchester Evening News about the German banker who was flying Delta Saturday between Berlin and New York. Bert Niepel apparently decided he didn’t like sitting in coach. So he got up and plopped himself into an empty seat in first class.

After refusing to go back to his seat, after flight attendants repeatedly asked him to do so — it appears there was some type of altercation between him and a flight attendant that ended up with the flight attendant being pushed to the floor.

Not smart.

The Captain diverted the flight to Manchester, where the man was arrested.

In reading over the notes from the court hearing, Delta first officer Douglas Smith is quoted as saying, “Niepel had responded that he would pay for an upgrade and would “die” if he returned to economy class.”

Ah. Haven’t we all felt that way at times?

If that wasn’t enough Tuesday it was reported that a woman came screaming out of a restroom at the Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport after she said a man had stuck his head under the stall as she was using the toilet.

But it gets better. Or worse, depending upon your viewpoint.

The guy she accused of looking at her while peeing?

He was a rather old man, and was using …..a walker.

Roger Escobedo told officials, “I was released from the VA, and I’m taking so much medication that I fall asleep.”

Yeah. Right. Whatever.

I guess maybe he just fell under the stall and couldn’t get up?

Okay, I’ll stop with this nonsense. Still, it is kind of hard — not to chuckle, that is.