TimeOut

Last Thursday I endured a rather difficult journey from Denver to West Palm Beach FL.  I had a flight from Denver to Dallas at 9am.  It was supposed to have a 50 minute layover and then head to FLA for a 4:30pm or so arrival EST.

Board the plane on time in Denver.  At 8:50am the captain comes on and asks us to "cross our fingers" so they can get the engines to start as a valve is not functioning properly.  About 5 minutes later they do fire up, and the captain thanks us for our efforts.  Very comforting to know that works so well ;-)

Pretty normal flight to Dallas and we hit the point where we start to descend.  A few minutes in our good buddy comes on again and informs us that DFW has closed due to high winds.  We are to circle until we receive an alternate airport, likely San Antonio.  Then we are told we are heading to Austin.  As we continue south, DFW reopens and we turn back to land.  Very choppy descent that seemed to take a long time.  Well over halfway down the engines roar to life and we start climbing.  Captain says it is not going to work.  Land in Austin, sit on the tarmac for 45 minutes.  Get to a gate, can't deplane unless Austin was a final destination (and for a lucky few it was).  Fuel truck comes to fill us up and can't get the fuel door open as an electronic lock has failed.  Finally fill up and after a 3 hour total wait in Austin we make a 40 minute flight back to Dallas.

Needless to say everyone has missed their connections.  I had to make 3 calls to different advisors at the airline to finally squeeze my way on to the lone flight by any airline going out to PBI that night.

So what should have been a simple day turned into 19 hours of time door to door.

Of course it got me thinking, and as many PuristS are frequent travelers, what have your nightmare flights been like?  I'm sure the stories get much worse than this.  At the end of the day at least I arrived safe and sound

PS - the way home was better, but my connection from Dallas to Denver left 1 hour late due to a faulty fuel throttle that needed to be replaced...
This message has been edited by MichaelC on 2012-03-14 08:35:40

That sucks to hear about your flight but fortunately you got home safely.  Yeah, I usually hate flying as you are at the total mercy of the airlines and despite how nice the FA's and check in counter/gate/lounge personnel are and even if you are traveling J or C class, most of the time there is nothing they can do to help.  As the airlines cut more flights and overbook to cut costs, it'll  probably get even worse.

There was a post here a few years back on TimeOut forum about annoying passengers stories, let me search for it.

-MW

Every flight oversold, trouble with the overhead bins and passengers taking way more on board, rude staff... it is a tough business.  I have no problems with flying, but I sure loathe the process.

I must say that despite being a fairly frequent traveller, I have fortunately experienced very few hardships while flying. Of course I have been stranded due to snow, ice, volcanic ash and the like, but it always caught me on land rather than in the air.

I  like the captain's remark about the faulty valve. It kind of reminds me of the time where my flight to Kiev had to return after takeoff since they could not retract the landing gear. The captain just plainly explained not to worry "this is much better than if we had not been able to get them down" - you gotta agree with him on than one, right?

Oh oh, and my plane to Rio in January got hit by lightning... apart from that really bright light and the "BAAANG" there was nothing that you as a passenger could notice to that effect. No shaking or instability afterwards...

Glad to hear that you made it back without too much inconvenience.

Stay safe!

Nikolaj

Thanks for the story!

As we approached Houston the pilot informed us due to weather we could not land.  After about 90 minutes of circling the captain told us we had enough fuel to get to Austin.  Once in Austin we were told we could not leave the plane, after two hours we were told we could leave the plane but could not re-board.  Luckily I was sitting up front and the stewardess kind of whispered to stay on the plane.  Five minutes after 20-25 de-planed we were told we were leaving for Houston.

I could tell as we taxied in I was not going to catch a direct flight from there to Palm Beach!

Unfortunately no APs on this trip.  I usually go through Fort Lauderdale and visit my friends at the Boutique, but not this time.  In fact, I hardly saw a nice watch the whole trip... except when I looked at my own wrist of course ;-)

Hi, Michael,

Sorry you had to endure that.  Over the past several years I've averaged 250k miles a year or more (true airmiles) with generally about 4-6 round trips per month.  I can't say I've seen or experienced everything, but

* we had to make an unscheduled landing where one of the passengers was taken off in handcuffs. He tried to smoke in the lavatory and they were afraid he was trying to set off a bomb. Seriously, they off loaded everyone and couldn't find his check in luggage...yeah, we watched from the plane, then the departure / arrival gate as the guy was hauled away in handcuffs.  This after all scheduled flights had left that airport (Austin?)

* not enough space to list the more-than-3-hours on the tarmac delays due to weather, in many cases BOTH on original flight (London, Geneva) AND JFK or BOS. Total tarmac waiting time? 12 hours. I think there is a FAA rule against this, but how were we going to fight it?

* Flight leaving Budapest late, which made it get to JFK late (if on time, JFK still open) after it was closed due to severe weather. Re-routed to BOS, no accomodations because problem due to weather. Airport hotels full so had to find a taxi to off site hotel; plane full of Hungarian passengers, many of whom did not speak English, and I'm not pushy enough to force my way to front of line or push back when others pushed their way in front of me.

* flight late coming in to Geneva, so obviously my flight out was delayed. Mechanical difficulties. I needed to get to EWR to catch a flight to Mexico City; I asked them if they had a direct or other route to MEX, I didn't really have to go through EWR and I really needed to get to MEX for a meeting (others flying in for an international meeting)  They assured it would be fine, I would have plenty of time for my connection.

* Of course, I landed EWR with 15 minutes for my connection. Did Continental ground crew care? Are you naive enough to think yes?  HOURS later (and they tried to nick me for change fee!!! ended up downgrading me for only seat available) I cancelled my onward trip and just wanted to return to LAX. You'd think that would be easy, right? Since MEX LAX was part of my original itinerary and it was their screw up? NOOOOO...Overnight at my expense in a downtrodden HoJo near EWR for my next morning flight to LAX. And of course, the incidental costs of the missed meeting are my problem...

I could go on and on and on...

There are good experiences too, of course, but most are just bearable...

Glad to have you back and online.

TM

=O



-MW

as a pimple on Kitty's forehead

That photo reminds me of another thread on this forum some years back about being stuck with rental cars that just did not suit you or your image

Nikolaj

-MW


  This message has been edited by DRMW on 2012-03-15 14:04:07

Reminded me too much of this:

 

Nikolaj

No message body

Kind of a side note to this thread topic, but anywhere I go, or when I get real swamped with life, I always feel home when I log back in here   That is a continued testament to you and this incredible Community.

As for flying, yes, I had a feeling you have endured some interesting trips!!  You sure log many miles.  As Ming points out, you are really at the mercy of everyone when you fly.  I think the only good part of the day was that I did not get frustrated a single time.  Nothing I could do so I was not going to stress over it.  Nice to finally be maturing in my late thirties

All of the US airlines suck these days, and the 2 worst (especially out of Denver) are Southwest (they charge for everything and anything), and American Airlines.  Frontier is okay but they have those stupid 'animals on the tail' commercials instead of letting the flying public know what kind of deals they have, so seasoned travelers bypass them sometimes.  The quality of air travel in the USA has dropped in the past couple of years.  Blame it on Obama? (LOL!).  Well, anyway, happy flying, whatever....   ^_^

AA.  I did not mention it earlier because it could happen on any airline.  But I will say, in this limited experience on American, the flight attendants were rather inconsiderate across the board.  I have not encountered that on other airlines.