Someone once told me "if you've never missed a flight, you're spending too much time in airports". I think about that a lot in a lot of other contexts - sometimes being too safe comes with more of a cost than the risk!
Never missed a flight, but my luggage once went to Manchester and I went to London. We were both supposed to go to London. I had just left my finacee in the US (we're married now), I was jet-lagged, and just wanted to go home and be heartbroken, and Monarch Airlines sucked anyway. Either way, I think me blowing my stack at the baggage rep. was not one of my finer moments.
Got my luggage back a week later with a $25 check to apologize. Hmmph.
Our (almost)entire company missed our flight back home during teambuilding event
That's amazing and embarrassing haha
It really is lol
I hate packing because I have to make many decisions and remember of previous packing experiences where I used less than half of the clothes, so I keep rearranging until last minute.
Anyway, this time I had an intense two weeks at work preparing things before I went on my holiday. I had to wake up at 4:45am to go into the airport but the last time I messed up with the bags was 1:30am on the same day. "No biggie" I thought, and I set the alarm for 4:45 and slept.
When I wake up, the first thing I remember thinking was "damn, that was a nice, deep sleep. I feel good". The sun was shining gently through the curtains and it felt like a great Saturday morning A few seconds later I realize something was off. I reach my phone and look at the time: something past 11am.
Long story short I had to buy an one way ticket and luckily there was another flight on the afternoon.
The aftermath: I don't trust my mobile phone to wake me up. I set two separate alarms to wake me up if I have one of those very early morning flights. If I am in a hotel, I also request two separate wake up calls, just to be sure.
My flight had to turn around because of frost issues. 3h later we left Jersey again for London and obviously I missed my flight. The airport was going to shut down pretty soon and the company only made arrangements at the last minute for a hotel and a taxi. I took the first flight back to my country at like 6am, it was a long day afterwards.
Fell asleep waiting on a delayed red eye flight to LA. No one bothered to wake me for 3 hours... Sitting at the gate for a 5am flight that was delayed 2 hours and change.
It's my fault, but someone could have woken me I feel like when they started calling for the boarding.
Little late to the party, but I was trying to catch a flight to see my long distance boyfriend. I was supposed to leave right after class (I was in college) but decided to take my time and run by my house to pick up a few things and chat with my roommates. Well, there was a ton of traffic and I ended up having to sprint through the airport to my gate. I had a backpack and was sprinting in flip flops, wearing a dress. Didn’t feel my dress riding up, caught in my backpack, as I ran, so I guarantee half that airport saw my bare ass (I now wear shorts under my dresses). Got to the gate as the plane was pulling away from the gate and started SOBBING, knowing my kind of dick boyfriend would yell at me and say I told you so. The gate agents took pity on me, crying with my butt hanging out, and moved me to a next morning flight at no charge.
Not really a missed flight story, because I am flying for free on standby.
Anyway, I am currently stuck at the Denver Airport. So far I have spent 13 hours here and I still have a little over 1 more hour to go before I find out if I get to leave or not. If I get out of DIA on this next flight I will either spend an hour in Miami's Airport, catching my last flight home, or I will spend 12 hours in Miami hoping to catch my last flight home.
At one point I had a boarding pass and was on the plane, but my seat was taken and so I had to get right back off the plane. The agent at the gate who gave me the seat couldn't figure out why it appeared open on the computer, but it wasn't a big deal.
I am staying optimistic, but anything can happen. I haven't had this hard of a time flying standby before, but I have only done it a few times. It is basically the risk I pay for being cheap. I knew what I was getting into and I regret nothing.
I think I'd rather fly spirit, frontier, allegiant, or sun country than spend that much time in the twilight zone. Isn't airport food expensive enough that it's a wash anyway?
Well my trip wasn't planned out. It was a very last minute emergency type of thing. You can definitely make the "time is money" case, but I can work from anywhere as long as I have my laptop. Even with out the laptop my phone will do in a pinch.
As far as food goes I have only spent $20, and I brought a water bottle. I definitely agree that it isn't for everyone, but I did save a lot of money doing this. Plus, I have never had this much trouble getting out of an airport before.
I made it to Miami and I am currently waiting for my last flight to board. Looks like I will make it home soon. The real problem was trying to fly through Dallas/Fort Worth. Each flight was overbooked. I could have tried going through Charlotte but each one of those flights was delayed by several hours. It really was just a bad luck sort of thing, in my opinion.
So this one time Seth MacFarlane...
Not an interesting story but: American Airlines doesn't know how much time it should book for a connection at Dallas between their own flights. Avoid both, the airline and the airport
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