Worst flying case was my 14-hour flight from Tampa, FL to New York. I could have used Southwest Airlines, which would have offered me a direct flight to Long Island. But NO, my company wanted me to save money, so I had to take a US Air flight, with a stop over in Atlanta. Tampa to Atlanta was no problem, but due to fog/rain in the NY area, we were delayed in Atlanta.
Three hours later, when the plane finally took off and I thought nothing more could happen, they rerouted our flight from Islip McArthur airport to NEWBURGH! Anyone know anything about Newburgh? I sure didn’t! It’s a hole-in-the-wall location, with an airport that shuts down at 7PM. They had to wake people up to bring them back to the airport so they could provide us with bus service. You’ve got somewhere near 75-100 people looking to get home, and the aforementioned buses nowhere to be found. When it turned out there wouldn’t be enough buses to accommodate everyone, they decided to bring in as many taxis as they could round up. Suffice it to say there weren’t too many to be found.
After another three hours of waiting, I finally got into a cab that I shared with another couple. Newburgh to Long Island is about a two-hour drive, and the driver would ONLY take us to the airport. The couple were able to get someone to pick them up, but my husband wasn’t getting out of bed to pick me up. For an additional few dollars, I was able to convince the driver to take me directly home.
All told, from the time I reached the airport to the time I reached home, it was 14 hours later. I could have been in EUROPE in that amount of time!!!
Tagged as:
airport,
delay,
US airways
As a student, I tend to travel as cheaply as possible, but my frequent trips also necessitate air travel. Spring break my senior year found me traveling from my hometown of Sioux Falls, SD, to Waco, TX, to interview for a graduate school. Timing was tight, and I was due to return on the Sunday before classes began again on Monday.
My flight was on United, which has a large hub in the Denver airport. I’d flown through Denver before and was confident I would know precisely where to go in the terminal – the United terminal in Denver Int’l is massive, a long hallway of gates and moving walkways, so knowing where you’re going is a priority. I knew I could find my gate, though how long it would take me to walk there was questionable.
My flight from DFW took off without a hitch, and when I landed, I found my gate easily enough – B17. I sat down and pulled out my laptop to watch a movie. About 1/2 hour into the movie, I realized that we hadn’t boarded yet, and checked the board – sure enough, we were delayed because of an oil leak on the plane. Okay, not a problem. My flights are frequently delayed, so I’m used to it. However, it’s never been this bad. After the new delayed boarding time had come and gone, it was announced that our flight would be canceled, and we all needed to go to the United Airlines service desk at gate B45 (or something similar) to reschedule.
The entire group of passengers gets up and hurries our way down to the customer service desk. Just as I arrived, another United Airlines representative yells, “Are y’all from the Sioux Falls flight? It’s not canceled. Go back to your gate.” All right, that’s a fine bit of miscommunication right there. By this time, I’ve become acquainted with several of my fellow passengers, and we walk as a group all the way back to our gate. On the way, we hear some sort of garbled PA announcement about the Sioux Falls flight and something that sounds like “gate 53.” Having no idea whether or not we’re just hearing things or what, my fellow passengers and I continue on to our original gate as we were only two gates away anyway.
We get to our original gate to find it deserted. Not even a gate agent, and the board is blank. I checked the computer screens nearby the gate, and sure enough, our flight has been moved all the way to gate 53 – almost the entire way in the other direction down the terminal. Luckily, it’s been delayed enough that we have time to make it there.
At the new gate, we were delayed even more, but most of my fellow passengers and I were happy enough to just sit down somewhere. Plenty of us were hungry, but none of us wanted to venture very far. Soon, however, we were boarding the plane – at this point, it is about 2 hours after our original departure time. In fact, it’s such a short flight that we’re actually past the time when we should have landed in Sioux Falls in the first place. We found our seats, sat down and most of us were settling in for a quick flight home.
No such luck. We had been on the plane no less than five minutes – but long enough for me to call my parents in Sioux Falls and let them know I was finally on my way home – when the flight attendant came over the intercom to tell us, regrettably, that *this* plane had a mechanical problem with it, too, and we would all have to deplane while the problem was fixed.
We all disembarked, some of us more than grumpy by this point. After another 45 minutes of delays, we were finally allowed to reboard the plane. It was now more than 4 hours past the time we had originally been scheduled to take off. A mere hour long flight later, and we’d touched down in Sioux Falls, only to discover that they had lost my luggage – the perfect cap to the worst airport experience ever.
Tagged as:
airport,
baggage,
delay,
united airlines
In July of 2005, I was on an Air France flight from Charles de Gaulle, or however it’s spelled. Anyway, I was 17 and coming home from a wonderful 3 week tour of France, Germany, and Austria. Unfortunately, the return home was muddled up a bit, as the London tube bombings occurred two days before we were supposed to fly home. Needless to say, security at the airport was heightened, which I appreciate.
When we got onto the tarmac, another delay occurred due to mechanical problems with the aircraft. It was a relatively short delay, only about an hour. After that we were able to take off. I rarely sleep on flights, but I was exhausted and fell asleep.
I woke up to one of the college chaperons tapping me on the shoulder. He asked “Have you ever been to the British Isles, cause that’s where we’re going.” I looked on the LCD screen in front of me and changed it to the map (A360’s are sweet). Sure enough, the red line following the aircraft had quite the sheppard’s hook, and the aircraft was facing Ireland. Just then, an announcement came over the intercom, but was in French (I only spoke English, German, and a touch of Russian). After the announcement finished, there was much excited talking amongst the French passengers, which understandably made myself and the 19 other Americans I was traveling with wary. Thankfully, one of a group of French students we had befriended during the tarmac delay promptly explained to me that there were four men on the flight that were on the no-fly list, and we had to return to Paris to kick ‘em off.
Now, I have never been fearful of a Frenchman, but after landing in Paris, four agents of the French GIGN (hardcore government police, think US Marshalls mixed with Delta Force) came onto the aircraft. All were over 6 feet tall, wearing tactical fatigues that were all black save the GIGN insignia. All I could see on their belts were their sidearms. I could see no cuffs, batons, OC spray, flashlights, gloves, or other equipment. They might have been on their other hips, but all I could see were the firearms. These guys were serious. I had an aisle seat and they walked right by me. They escorted four men off.
We all had to disembark, and we had to wait in the terminal for all luggage to be taken off, the plane to be restocked and refueled. We had to go outside, visually ID our luggage, and then get back on the aircraft. Over 13 hours of delay, without weather being a factor.
Tagged as:
air france,
delay,
police,
security
July 2007. My mother and I flew down to Georgia for my cousin’s wedding. The wedding was lovely and everything was great until we attempted to return home (our flight was scheduled for 6pm Sunday). First off there was a 20 minute delay boarding the plane for unknown reasons; once all passengers were boarded there was another 20 minute delay before we began taxiing. After taxiing for several minutes our plane lost power and everything went dark. We were uncontrollably skidding down the runway. After what seemed like an eternity, the lights flickered and power returned, the pilot came over the loud speaker announcing we had experienced unexpected power failure and would have to return to our gate for further instructions.
After several hours of waiting, the flight attendant announces that the next flight out would be arriving in 3 hours and we were more than welcome to stay the night and fly out in the morning. Of course, the airline was not offering to pay for anything other than an exchange flight so we chose to wait it out for the next flight.
We didn’t arrive home until 6am the following morning, which gave just enough time to shower and drive to work. Sleep? What sleep?
