Ridiculous air travel delays

[MissCrabette]

We should totally have a rant forum over here. I'd probably spend half my time in there.

We were supposed to leave here at 11:00 AM to pick up some friends from JFK. They're travelling all the way from Romania so it's a really long flight for them. I woke up early this morning, only to find that their flight is delayed over SEVEN hours. I've heard of flights being delayed an hour or two, maybe a little more, but not over seven hours. And that's still only an estimate, who knows how long it will really be? So now I have to sit here, tapping my foot and watching the clock. Tick tock.

What's the longest your plane has been delayed?

my longest flight delay was 5 hours going from dublin to paris to pick up a connecting flight, we missed the connecting flight but they put us up in the Hyatt for the night! it was fantastic! it didn't bother me i was only 17 at the time

Another flight was when i flew dublin to newark to pick up a connecting flight to boston in June, baggage was delayed by 1 1/2 hours in newark and then my flight was delayed a further 3 hours in the terminal and then another 2 hours in the plane. I ws exhausted i'd just finished 4 nights, I went straight from my last night to the airport, didn't sleep the whole flight, it was 10pm american time and 3am irish time. I cried so hard when I actually got to Boston and into SO's arms, I really believed I wasn't going to get there, and i was only there for 2 1/2 days!

[DCJenn]

I can't tell you how many flights I've had that were cancelled- especially through O'Hare in the summer time. (remember, I use to fly weekly). All of my overseas travel has gone relatively flawlessly. (although Hurricane Isabel cancelled our flight to Italy so we got a flight out of Philly and had to rent a car and drive from DC to Philly.)

Jenn

I was delayed overnight (something like 10 hours) trying to get to Ecuador. It was New Years Eve, and we spent it in the airport until they decided to give us a hotel room.

DH's origin flight was delayed about 7 hours coming home from Alaska recently, which would have caused him to miss each of the connecting flights, and getting him home a full 36 hours late. However, he complained long and loud enough that they put him on another airline, and he ended up getting home only 6 hours later than he would have if all the original flights went as planned.

[MissCrabette]

Yikes! Now those are some horror stories! I've been lucky to never be delayed more than a couple of hours. The reason I'm worried for our friends is because they speak very, very little English and they've never flown before. I sent them a super detailed email explaining how to do everything. I even translated the customs and the arrival and departure forms for them. The airline tracker and the origin airport tracker both show that the flight finally departed 7 and a half hours late. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they make it to JFK "on time". That way maybe we can go to sleep at 4 AM.

[Meenah]

Too bad you didn't know ahead of time you could have stopped at my house, it is on the way!!!!!!! If you took 95 north you were about three miles from me!

[MissCrabette]

We're on the NJ turnpike right now! I gotta say my bluetooth connection isn't the fastest in the world but it sure comes in handy. Luanne, I had no idea you lived up this way. I need to pay more attention.

Shella, I forgot to ask you if you were travelling to Ecuador for fun or if you were visiting friends or family over there. I have yet to see the country, but I hear it's beautiful.

[Meenah]

Princeton.

I went in college to study geography (and have fun). You've heard right, it is beautiful, from the rain forests, to the 'deserts' at 14,000 feet in the Andes. It was incredible.

[Vishenka69]

We had canceled flights, delayed flights, rerouted flights and everything in between. Luckily there are 3 major aiports in NY and most of the time we can still get a flight to one of them. For some reason I've had the worst experience getting in and out of Chicago.

[Tenacious_D]

We once had a flight to Kentucky (flight time ~2.5 hours). We sat in the plane on the tarmac for a total of 7 hours!!!! we kept getting told that we were about to take off sp please remain in your seats etc... Then after 1.5 hours I had to use the bathroom and got up and other people started milling about.

At hour 4 I realized that we might run out of fuel because the engine was on and it was a rather small plane. guess what! We had to refeul and as we refeuled the weather turned ugly and we had to wait for another 2 hours for the storm to pass. Once the storm passed we had to wait in a long queue to take off and all the bigger planes had priority over our little plane to Kentucky. In a nutshell it was truly the longest time I sat on a plane going nowhere. DH and I also didn't have cellphones so couldn't call his uncle to say what was going on.

DH had used that trip to propose to me and I wonder what he would have done if we didn't get there!