To wonder how this happens so often

[Fluffyears]

Inspired by the allocated seat thread, my DP and I fly at least once a year to foreign climes. On every occasion we have heard a final call for passengers then a warning that luggage will be offloaded. Every time we have been in airport (so far not our flights) this happens. I'm one of those first at gate folks desperate to get on plane and get myself settled (have issues with them locking us in so need to relax properly).How do these people not realise 'oh it's close to take off time maybe we should try to find our gate' they must hear the announcements where they are called by name too.

Anyone ever been one of these people, how did it happen did you regularly check to see when gate was displayed?

Wish there was a like button

MIL nearly missed the flight to OUR WEDDING because she was having her nails painted in the airport and had lost track of time. According to DH being the last people on board and enduring the dirty looks/tutting was a feature of all his childhood holidays. She is one of the nicest people I've ever met but incredibly ditzy.

I've done it once - they had to put a call out for me but not a final warning. Basically I had travelled through so many time zones I'd got myself confused. Well that's the only reason I could come up with. I'd travelled all the way around the world perfectly and almost cocked up flying from Heathrow to Manchester!

aunty you weren't in Paris were you? My flight was delayed and I noticed a couple having a lovely time spraying scents and trying on sunglasses with much laughter. Meanwhile lots of bing-bongs on the tannoy. 30 mins later I watched them stroll up to the gate to find furious ground staff with their bags as the plane taxied away. Their shock was hilarious. I always wondered whether they had gone into a time wharp or just assumed everyone would wait.

I have been one of those people! We were travelling in a large group so BA designated us a 'large group person' however she was in charge of another large group too.

She gathered in our passports and tickets so we could have a hassle free experience and board the plane quickly. Then gave them to her other group by mistake and they boarded another plane to another destination.

They had to hold up both planes to get our stuff back then we had caused a delay on our own plane we had to get on really late to a plane full of pissed of passengers who all obviously assumed we were just a big disorganised group of idiots! Wasn't the best experience!

Opal no that wasn't us. We went to the boarding gate and had been told our bags were already offloaded.

I've been there. Connecting flight landed late, then had problem offloading. I felt terrible but I wasn't the only one.

DP and I unintentionally were the subject of a 'Last Call for passengers Mr & Mrs WorktoLive' last time we flew back from Lanzarote.

In our defence, we were travelling on a different airline to the one we usually use and instead of the usual procedure on our normal airline, where they don't even think about actually boarding any passengers until about 5 minutes before the departure time, they started boarding an hour before, did the last call over half an hour before the scheduled time and about 2 minutes after we had just got food and drinks and we had to package up the food and drink as much as we could of the drink so we could get on the plane as it was a longish flight and we were starving .

It was only about a third full, everyone else was already on and sat down and the plane actually took off 20 minutes early. I put it down to it being the last flight before the afternoon siesta and everyone at the airport wanted to go for lunch and a kip (this is true - no flights were scheduled to leave the airport that day between 2 and 5 pm .

i nearly missed a flight during a stop over at Barbados because a thoughtful fellow passenger rounded up all the people that were travelling alone and organised a party - after many a rum and coke we stopped checking the departure board!!

My friend and I were the subject of a "last call for passengers..." call at Frankfurt airport once, but our bags weren't unloaded. We had had a crap night's sleep in an insect-infested hovel of a "hotel", wanted a decent breakfast and many many cups of tea, and we just lost track of time. Legged it to the gate as soon as we heard our names being called and were subjected to a fair bit of tutting as we boarded, which we accepted with good grace

Did this in Geneva with DC3. Sat waiting and looking at the board. When we were called to a gate in B, I looked around and could only see A and C. I then realised we'd gone through the wrong security gate and had to go through all the process again to get to EasyJet's own part of the airport. Did it just in time.

i nearly missed a flight going on holiday to benidorm. Kept checking the board to see it wasn't up yet. Was only when the call came over that my brain figured out you don't fly into benidorm, you fly to alicante doh...

We had a close call on a connecting flight from Chicago to L.A. Anyone who's been to O'Hare will know it's like a city. I knew this, I'd been before. Why I didn't stand over DH when he booked the connecting flight so soon after I don't know but safe to say when we got on the plane we all collapsed into our seats whilst several Americans looked on probably thinking 'bloody English'.

DH and pal were going skiing flying stansted milan about four winters ago and the weather was horrendous, heavy snow the night before the flight, they had to get to Stansted at 5.3O am,(muggins drove them with snow chains on the tyres at 20mph, v. hairy but got them there in plenty of time.)

Unfortunately almost none of the security staff had bothered managed to get to work and the queue at security was horrendous, airport police had to be called to keep order and it took 2-1/2 hours to get through. They then sprinted all the way to the gate to see their bags unloaded onto the tarmac but the plane was still there. They were the last passngers to board. Plane was held up about 45 minutes ( other people were late too). And they had allowed loads of time so that they could have breakfast at the airport!