Stranded in Germany!

[Lovethetimeyouhave]

Well, first time to Austria and we ended up with the connecting flight back into London being cancelled due to thunderstorms. Thousands of people were stranded, we spent hours in the queue to be rebooked and given a hotel room, we then spent hours waiting for the shuttle bus to the hotel as people swarmed them as soon as they arrived, then spent ages in another queue to be booked into the hotel room. I know it's not an aibu, but would love to hear others stories of airport failures as I have to wait until 3pm to go home. My friend has my little boy and I miss him terribly

because there were gates for the 23:00 from the 31 Feb to London, and flights for the 30 Feb to London an hour earlier

That’s your problem right there.

Yes Austria and Germany are two different places 😂, we flew London- Germany - Austria.

Return- Austria - Germany - London (hopefully) sat in the airport now and have absolutely loved reading the stories, makes me feel less alone and killed some time!

Flying into Orlando 2005. Electrical storm caused Orlando Airports scanners to fail. We had to wait in the (freezing) Airport for 3 hours and no one knew what was happening. We got blankets and water. They finally let us through and stamped our passports manually.. Apparently the airline had to contact the White House for permissions to let a load of Brits in without the passport scanners

You really think I'm going to put my birthday on here???
31 Feb it is. I'm 0

Yeah I got stuck in the Bahamas for three days once due to plane malfunction.

It was HELL I tell you, HELL

Well 30 mins until departure, waiting to board (yes almost 3pm here, one hour ahead of UK) and... I think I may be pregnant... good trip so far 😂😁

I’ve spent the last 6 days on phone calls amounting to over 12 hours (according to my phone records) trying to avert a potential disaster for my teenage DS flying alone on a route we had no idea had been cancelled. It’s been somewhat stressful and will breathe a huge sigh of relief once he’s actually flown. Dread to think what would have happened when he turned up at the airport on his own and how long they would have pushed him from pillar to post. Hope you get home soon OP.

Another delay!!!

We spotted a dodgy looking chap at security getting a thorough search. A hour later we're sat on our flight which is already about 30 minutes late waiting for one last passenger. Guess who? Dodgy chap gets on, sits on row behind us, then suddenly the air stewards and ground crew are going through the lockers asking everyone to identify their hand luggage. Get to dodgy man, guess what? They need to check his bag so both taken off the flight. Then there's an announcement that they need to remove a bag from the hold. Suddenly the cabin manager is back asking the people on the row behind to move and he removes all the seat covers from the seats to check them. Dodgy man never returns.

Went to Morocco in January. Checked in for flight home. Boarded plane. All of a sudden pilot gets off and starts inspecting something on outside of plane. Ground crew join in. Lots of head scratching. An hour later we are deplaned and put back in departure lounge as they have to wait for an engineer. Free wiki at airport had run out (only allowed 2 hours) so nobody could contact home except one or 2 of us that had bought Moroccan SIM cards.

A couple of hours later we are boarded again. Taci to runway. And then sit there. Panic amongst crew. Eventually they say the numbers dont add up and they think an extra passenger is on board. We sit in the runway for an hour before turning round and sitting outside terminal for another hour. At which piingvthey announce the plane hasnt enough fuel for the trip.now and the crew are over hours. Disembarked again. Several hours spent waiting before finally its announced we are going to hotel. No food or drink or vouchers were given out and we had been stuck in the terminal for almost 11 hours by now and everything was shut (Agadir is a tiny airport anyway).

Arrive at hotel at gone 11pm, absolute chaos. Get sent to dining room. Food has run out. No rep no nothing. Some people were made to share rooms with strangers.

We were told everyone would get a phone call in the morning to advise of coach timings as nobody, including.hotel knew what was happening. This didn't happen and we went down to breakfast only to be turned away and told to board the coach that had just arrived. Nobody was counted onto the coach and still no reps so suspect some were left behind tbh.

Finally board plane again and start taxiing, only to be told that they had had to throw away all the perishable food as it had been left on the plane overnight. Only crisps nuts etc available. So no dinner no breakfast and the snacks ran out pretty quickly, there were alot of angry passengers on that flight and upset young children. Didn't even offer a drink or snack complimentary just to add insult to injury. Still battling for compensation although I've been told.minenis due to be approved.today.

It was HELL I tell you, HELL

Careful cuppycakey, someone will be along to tell you off and say ”HELL! HELL! Unless you’ve actually been in the fiery pits of hell, with the devil prodding your ass with his trident, then you have NO IDEA!” 😡

😁

We spent the night stranded in Pittsburgh in an ice storm once. We were in our way to Denver for 10 days skiing in the Rockies.

We (DH and I) were young and no dc, and we’re preparing for a night sleeping on the terminal floor. The terminal was packed, 100s of planes had been grounded due to the storm and Pittsburgh was hosting the NFL superleague playoffs. The airline had sent families to hotels then said there were no hotel rooms left. Anyway, a lady from one of the little kiosks in the terminal beckoned us over and said “there is one room left at the Holiday Inn downtown, do you want it”. We wanted it! We had nothing with us, our luggage stayed on the plane and I ended up buying an enormous Pittsburgh Steelers t shirt to sleep in. Funnily enough, 12 years later we go and see our local ice hockey team play from time to time - also Steelers.

Noted S1

^What happens if you miss a connecting flight? What do you do?

If you are flying with a reputable airline the airline will sort out accommodation and new flights, even if the connecting flight is with another airline. This has happened to us twice now.

You are stuffed if you are flying with Ryanair or Easyjet though^

It's important to realise that Ryanair etc don't sell 'connecting flights' (Easyjet might do now in certain circumstances). You are literally buying a flight from A to B and then a completely separate unrelated flight from B to C.

I would think very carefully about joining up two Ryanair (or other low cost airline where it isn't listed as a connecting flight) flights in this way, because if the first flight is cancelled or delayed and that causes you to miss your second flight, apart from the possibility of EU261 compensation, you aren't entitled to help with the second flight. They don't care that you missing the second flight was caused by the lateness/cancellation of the first.

It is correct that BA/Air France/KLM etc do sell connecting flights, I have taken several myself, and in one instance I had 4 flights booked in a 36 hour period and one of the middle ones was cancelled due to a strike and the whole lot was rebooked via a different return route.

The disadvantage of the connecting flights and also that these types of flights are actually return flights whereas Ryanair sell two unconnected singles, is that if you don't travel on all the flights, later ones are likely to be cancelled. But with Ryanair, if you don't travel out for whatever reason, you can still use your return flight - maybe you want to travel out on a different day or start from somewhere els.

Using an example from my experience, it is much cheaper to travel to Berlin via Brussels than it is to just go to Brussels. People who want to go to Brussels might be tempted to book a flight to Berlin via Brussels, go to Brussels, but then find their Brussels to UK flight has been cancelled because they didn't travel to Berlin, and the cheper price was only valid if they actually went to Berlin - it was literally something like £150 return to Berlin via Brussels but £400 to only do the UK to Brussels return on exactly the same UK to Brussels flights .

We flew out to Prague and the returning flight was cancelled due to snow. We returned to the airport next day and there was no room on the flight, eventually we had a chartered flight to Gatwick and a coach back home. We were lucky to get a taxi back as some at the airport had the foresight to warn the taxi company we were coming.

Flying Nassau-Miami-London 20 odd years ago, when in Nassau at about 3pm a tropical storm (which was forecast to become a hurricane) started kicking off. All flights delayed then cancelled and they told us all hotels on the Island full (pre-internet so don't think this was necessarily true). Airport closed at 9pm so we were herded into a hangar- no seats or anything! Hundreds of people wondering wtf to do. Everyone sat down on the concrete watching the palm trees swaying around in the wind thinking wtf. Flight and cabin crew were there too. No food or drink or anything!!

Fast forward to about 1am wind had dropped a bit. American Airlines pilot stood up and said "I've had enough we're going to fuel up and get outta here to Miami, got space for 50 folks if you're feelin' brave".
My df and I got up , loaded our own bags on the plane in the howling wind and the plane took off, very hairy.

Got to Miami 2.30ish am. Didn't get very far because immigration booths all shut for the night so we slept on the floor in front of them for an hour or two.

Eventually walked into the holiday inn at 6.30am and demanded a room. No idea where our luggage was. Later that day went back into airport to try and arrange new flights to London as had obviously missed ours, sorted that out and by completely coincidence spotted our luggage literally piled up at the kerbside. Flew home that night utterly exhausted. Despite finding our luggage American Airlines promptly lost it again and we had to fly from lhr to Manchester without it. It did turn up a few days later.

Me and DP got Airside in Paris during beast from the east snow last Feb before flight was cancelled. Ended up staying in 'budget' CDG airport hotel which was more expensive than lovely Latin Quarter hotel and full of stranded families returning from Disneyland with pre schoolers as no flights into anywhere UK. We did have random good time tho and DP got the Pizza hed been pining for the whole time in Paris... we then flew back to Doncaster (not original airport we flew from) to be stranded there as no trains/buses...

20 hour delay in Humberside Airport back in 2004. Given 1 £4 food voucher at dinner time that barely covered the cost of a sandwich and a £6 meal voucher at teatime that just about covered the cost of a meal. Almost Fell out with the friend I was travelling with. Apparently it was my fault we were delayed because we hadn't gone to a bigger Airport! Bored stupid think I walked round and round that Airport countless times. Forgot my cigs so had to spend a fortune in duty free buying some more was that stressed I think I smoked most of them before we'd even left England. Had the migraine from hell sat knocking painkillers back like they were going out of fashion. Desperately wanted a strong drink but daren't in case it affected me and they wouldn't let me back on the Plane. Non of this was anywhere near as bad as having the Plane you are originally on abort take off due to an engine fire!! There really isn't anything more scarier than hurtling down the runway ready to take off then suddenly the Plane makes an horrendous noise and screeches to a stop. Thick acrid smoke filling the cabin as you are met by fire engines hurtling towards you down the runway. I was a nervous wreck by the time it came to getting back on again. Thankfully all my painkillers knocked me out so I slept for the majority of the Flight and the return Flight home some lovely woman noticed I was in a state and pretty much sat and cuddled me right through take off and until the seat belt sign had switched off.

I have had various delays (including the Gatwick drone) but my “favourite” was being part of a low key terrorist incident on the Eurostar.

One hour outside Brussels, debris suddenly started bouncing off the windows & the internal air con filled with dust, and the train ground to a stop. Someone had put pallets and iron reinforcing on the tracks for us to crash into. Not enough clearly.

The next 8 hours were near comical. We were stuck in the middle of a field. We had left London at 7.30am. Eurostar refused to give or sell you food or drink unless you had Euros, and we had left from London. Even if you had Euros, they totally ran out of food and drink at midday. Eventually about 3pm we were given two mini Twix and a cup of water. We had left London at 7.30am...

No staff on the train would say why we were stationary, even as we saw them carting away damaged train panels. Finally we limped into Brussels at 5.30pm & they greeted us with an apple and a pastry (wtf?) as we left the train. As I was on a day trip for work, I turned around & went home.

The best bit was when someone called an Uber around lunch time, and the Uber miraculously found us down a dirt track in the field. The spoilsports wouldn’t let the entrepreneurial Uber passenger off the train so Mr. Uber left empty handed.

Stranded for about 22 hours in the canary islands last year. The airport was shut due to heavy rain. I was flying alone. All incoming flights were diverted to other canary islands, madeira or Mainland Portugal. I'd had a bad time whilst away so had treated myself to a lounge. I was getting regular text updates from DH so was pretty relaxed, despite the fact that other airlines were rushing to offer food vouchers to their customers and there was not a single peep out of Thomas Cook whom I was flying with.

Hours passed and the lounge kindly allowed me to stay there. The airport reopened and planes started landing, and passengers started leaving. So all looked good. Until the moment I got a text from DH saying that the website he was looking at showed my flight had been cancelled. There was no mention of that on the board in the lounge, so I girded my loins and went out to find out what was happening.

Well my goodness. The first thing that hit me outside the air conditioned lounge was the heat, no doubt added to by the hundreds and hundreds of people. Trying to get through to the thomas cook desk was like a rugby scrum. I'm only short and felt like I was drowning in a sea of people.

I fought for hours to get to that desk, through the throng of people. The nearer I got to the front the more I could hear. The staff at the desk were airport staff and couldn't give much help. It turned out there were NO Thomas Cook staff in the airside of the airport. Not a single one. The Spanish airport staff had been instructed to tell us we weren't entitled to food or drink as the delay was weather related. Everyone knew this wasn't the case and people were showing them the EU legislation on phones, but to no avail.

Eventually the Spanish staff were breaking down in tears, people were yelling and screaming and one woman had a baby who she had stripped down to a nappy as it had a high fever but the airport staff refused medical attention.

Eventually I got to the front, was told that yes our plane was coming and if for any reason we couldn't get out that night that I, as a lone female traveller would definitely get a hotel room.

Whilst all this was going on every other airline were flying their passengers out. Easyjet couldn't get theirs out and bussed all their passengers off to hotels. I ran from gate to gate to gate asking if there were any spare seats that I could buy a ticket for but there weren't.

Eventually Thomas Cook staff arrived airside at about 11pm to very sarcastic cheers and applause from the hundreds of very fed up passengers. they immediately issued food vouchers just as the last food outlet shut.

They said the plane was still coming but would fly us to alicante and we would stay in a hotel there until morning and would carry on to the UK. I knew they were lying. With the Internet these days it's pretty easy to find out what's coming in and out of an airport. So did everyone else and tensions were running really high.

The ruse that they were flying us out continued until 4am. At which point they admitted the flight was not coming in but it was too late to get us into hotels. Until a member of staff admitted they hadn't put us in hotels because it had been deemed to be too expensive.

Hundreds of people were left unable to get food or water, no bedding was provided. The staff all left so the toilets ran out of loo roll. It was hot, smelly and uncomfortable. All the floors were tiled. Not even a carpet to sit on.

All of that would have been livable with but the thomas Cook staff were obstructive, arrogant and seemed to enjoy keeping everyone in the dark.

In the end I told their staff that as the flight was cancelled that I would be claiming a full refund as was my legal right and flying with someone else. I was told I couldn't do that, despite me showing the rep the legislation that showed I could. She assured me that if I didn't wait until the plane the next day I wouldn't see a penny back.

I booked onto the earliest flight out, it was Ryanair to an airport at the far end of the UK and cost a fortune. I did not care. I skipped onto that flight like I was turning left into first class on Emirates. I hate flying but I have never been happier to get on a plane.

If I has waited until thomas cook got a plane there, I would have been delayed for 28 hours.

Of course they did try to refuse the refund for weeks, but when I posted the circumstances and a copy of lthe relevant legislation of their Facebook page the refund arrived within 24 hours.

Ive had loads of delays and bad travel experiences but have forgiven and forgotten them all! Except thomas cook. The sheer disregard they showed for all those stranded people was horrendous. I wouldn't even accept a free flight with them.

19 hours at Crete airport. Ugh. Still have nightmares about camping out on a hard tiled floor

My DH (and a female colleague) was stuck in Athens Airport as a teacher in loco parentis to 4 teenage girls all night after the connecting flight was grounded by thunderstorms: he swears he didn't sleep a wink out of worry someone would molest his protegées.

I was once flying Las Vegas to Denver on Southwest, and the cheapest flight connected in Oklahoma City (if you know US geography you'll know this involves flying right over Denver, but it really was so much cheaper). Well, I got to the airport and about half an hour before the flight it was delayed again and again and finally cancelled. When it was cancelled everyone ran to the ticket counters to rebook and I called Southwest's customer service and got the last seat, which was 9 hours later but actually a direct flight. So it ended up okay for me. I always bring a book or two so I spent the wait sitting at the bar and reading. It was rather pleasant actually.

Another time, about ten years ago, and this is kind of outing but I really doubt my mother is on here, my mom and I were flying from Heathrow to New York and decided to stop at Waterstones before getting the tube to the airport so we would have plenty of books. Well, this came in handy, because we missed the bag drop by 12 seconds (it closed in front of us) and we got put on standby. The first night we stayed with a friend of mine in London and came back to the airport to try for seats on any plane going anywhere in the northeastern US--it was the first day of school holidays and things were completely booked. We ended up sleeping in the airport on the second night to try for seats on a really early flight, which we got, but when you sleep at Heathrow they don't let you stay in the terminal, so we were just on the floor near the bag drop.

oh gosh this I can totally empathise with this thread

Partner lives in Greece and went to visit him when the direct flights stopped out of season. I had to travel from Newcastle to Luton, Luton to Dublin, Dublin to Heraklion going over, everything fine.

Coming home I was flying from Heraklion to Hamburg, Hamburg to Heathrow. Then last leg of the journey was London Kings Cross to Central Station Newcastle.

Everything went well until Hamburg - everyone sitting waiting to board at the gate and lots of security staff pull a man and his wife out of the passenger lounge - It was only a day or two after the Paris terrorist alert, they'd got through security but apparently their visa was in doubt.

Four hours later our Eurowings flight was allowed to leave. I arrived in London too late for the Kings Cross last train (huge thanks to the Londoner that piped up there was no hope I would catch the train when the taxi guy said 'sure'. Bearing in mind I'm a total country bumkin and was totally out of my comfort zone I will always thank him ha! So took at taxi to London Victoria to get the night bus home - thankfully there was a seat left and a lovely man showed me how to book my ticket as I was past myself. Got the bus and arrived in Newcastle one hour before my shift - burst into teats when I finally turned the key in the door