What's your wildest FLIGHT DELAY story?

[ErVikingo]

9 hour delay in EL Salvador trying to leave to MIA.

Actually it was multiple 15 and 20 minute delays that added up to 9 hours. The clear sign of trouble was when it was time to leave and one of my associates calls me from MIA to tell me that his flight (inbound to EL Salvador) had not taken off yet....

Yep, that was the plane that was to take me back home.......

AA responded to me (un-prompted) by crediting me with 1000 Advantage miles per hour of delay. That's very nice but since I have a total of more than 4 million miles with them I would have preferred to get home on time....

[Kevin G.]

A few years back I was attending a conference in New Orleans with about 5 others.

Conference was over on Friday, we stayed for another night for some reason I can't remember. There were a few of those that week. Anyway, Saturday morning late. Get on our plane on time, taxi out to runway, engines spool up and off we go. We're moving along pretty good when...

Everyone should experience an aborted takeoff at least once just for the adrenaline rush. Wow. I am really amazed that a plane as big as an A320 can stop so quickly. Pilot doesn't say much except I'm sorry but we are heading back to the terminal to correct what appears to be a computer problem.

We are stuck on the freaking plane for 3 hours while they try to fix the problem. Then they say a replacement part is on the way and we can go into the terminal for an hour, but don't stray too far.

We check for another flight while we are out of the plane, but the Jazz festival ended Friday and there are no open seats to ANYWHERE until Tuesday (this was Saturday).

We get called back to the plane about 4:30PM (original flight was for 10:00 AM) - problem solved. Taxi out to the runway, spool up engines, and away we go!

Well - part of the way. Another aborted take off. Pilot was seriously incensed!! Tell us that no matter what the airline folks tell us, this $%**$ plane wasn't going anywhere with him in it.

Back to the terminal once again. Airline desperately wants us to stay in the plane again but we aren't having any part of it. Out to the terminal gate, told to stay close. Finally about 7:30 a rep tells us that we are all going to be spending the night at the airport hilton courtesy of the airline. We manage to coax them into letting us go to the Hilton in the Quarter if we covered transportation. We were instructed to be back by 6:00AM, as they were diverting another plane down early in the morning to take us.

Arrive at 6:00 as promised. Plane not here yet. 10:00 rolls around and we are instructed to go to the gate. The same gate we left the night before. We ask if this is the same plane that we were on yesterday, and were informed that no, it was flown in from Chicago this morning. We get on, taxi out and away we go.

Sort of. Part way. Another screeching halt halfway down the track. Same freaking plane with the same freaking problem. Back to the terminal. Life is getting fuzzy - we are all thoroughly exhausted. About 4:00 they announce that we will not be going that day, and bus us to the Airport Hilton. Too tired to try the quarter one more night so we march out like lemmings. Hilton staff were great, they saw this massive influx of people and busted their tails keeping us happy while we tried to check in.

Back to the airport at 6:00 am, they managed to get us out this time on a partially full widebody that had the room. Got to LAX in time to pick up my luggage and check in for my flight to Providence and no weekend with the family.

[MRM]

My longest delay was my favorite and the best. Going home from vacation with the wife and kids we arrived at the airport bright and early for a 9 am flight. As I got the the gate area I heard someone say something about the flight being overbooked. I jockeyed over to the flight attendant and asked if they were looking for people to bump. She gave me kind of a harassed look at said not really, they thought they had it taken care of. I responded quickly that I had four people traveling together who would be happy to stay back if the price was right. She just looked at me and said "Stand over there for a minute. Don't go away." She came back a few minutes later and said the deal was a $400 flight credit per person plus a voucher for lunch. The next flight was that evening. Was I interested? For a free $1,600 I can wait around a little when I was planning to lose the day anyway.

The wife and I decided that since we were getting a tax free windfall we would do what we could to make the day pleasant. We made plans to treat ourselves to a nice lunch, stroll through the airport and shop, buy some magazines, and relax. So we pulled the kids aside, told them that we were going to stay at the airport for the day. They were about 5 and 7, so to keep them occupied we told them we were going to give them each a few dollars and they could spend any way they wanted, we were going to go to lunch in a bit where they could have some treats, and afterword we were going to explore the airport and see all the different airplanes.

One lunch, a couple of snacks, several magazines and a couple of toy airplanes later, the evening flight came around. We boarded and got home late that night, no worse for the wear. We took a second vacation that year with the free tickets. We spent probably a hundred bucks on food and toys at the airport but we made the time pass nicely and had a good time despite the circumstances.