To ask for your holiday airport disasters (lighthearted)

[Snooks1971]

Just that really! Mine isn’t a disaster more of a mishap, but my shoulders definitely hunched up next to my ears at the time due to a combination of stress, late hour, busy airport, after 2 hours on a hot coach transfer on the way back to UK....
Anyway I digress
Older ds 14 announced a headache. Ok, here’s 2 paracetamol says I and you can swallow them with the coke from the very over priced airport Subway, already purchased.
DS puts one paracetamol in his mouth, leans forward and picks up Coke bottle for a swig, accidentally drops paracetamol in bottle of coke from stupid open teenage gurning gob. Can you guess the rest?

At the time my inner voice thought it was funny but my inner voice was also very quiet at that moment. Now I can see the funny side! Please share....

@SimonJT
I’m blonde and white, UK passport held by USA and UK immigration after the US embassy forgot to void a work visa... twice

Another one from me. Flying out of Bristol with DH a few years back after a trip to Cardiff. I've stocked up on Welsh cheese and it's in DH's hand luggage.

Bristol being the nightmare airport that it is, we queue ages for security. I go through first, screens are saying Final Call for our flight, so I indicate to DH that I'll run ahead and get them to wait for him.

Never thought for a moment that the little black cheese wheel would set off the alarm on the security x-ray machines. Never imagined for a second that security would get DH (whose English was not as good then as it is now) to open his case and have to explain the Snowdonia 'Little Black Bomber' cheddar cheese at the bottom of his bag.

We made the flight. DH was NOT impressed** with me. Luckily he's French and the cheese was gooooood.

I do agree with racial profiling....bloody pointless in central London where poor black children keep killing each other to stop and search middle aged white women. I'd much rather keep the children safe.

Anyway, I was with my SriLankan descent fiancé a little after 9/11 going to Florida. For some reason he decided to go to a different passport desk and of course had no idea which hotel we were going, how long we were there for, what we were doing and he didn't have any documentation at all.

Secruity would not let me join him and it took us 4 hours to get out of the airport..

French airport, had just gotten to the front of the ridiculously long queue to check in baggage. DH lifts our case to put it onto the belt and the bloody zip breaks, sending all our clothes into a heap on the floor.

Had to pick it all up and do the shuffle of shame over to one of those cellophane wrapping kiosks. Which incidentally only took cash (euros) that we had run out of..

And queue all over again.

Other personal highlights include numerous delays (12 hours in one case), being bumped at the plane doors (sick cabin crew member) and thinking our flight was boarding at 7:45 not 7:15 so merrily scoffing a Burger King while they were doing the last call... then running though the airport clutching said Burger King when we realised...

Oh the joys.

Not quite airport but close -

We once went with my aunt and uncle on the ferry to France just after they had DD3. As she was quite a bit younger than their older two they weren’t used to remembering 5 passports and so subsequently only brought 4. It took the border force officer reminding them that there were 5 of them for my uncle to realise, cue a lot of faffing about getting his Dbro to let himself into their house, get the forgotten passport, drive towards Calais and meet my uncle halfway with said passport. They had to get the next ferry but could’ve been worse!

@SimonJT i am so sorry that is awful.

Was flying over US airspace when 9/11 happened. We got rerouted to Newfoundland. Everyone on the rerouted flights stayed in a school hall for about 3 nights. Didn't know what was going on for the first few hours, but when security was cleared we could use internet and contact our worried friends and families, and watch coverage of the tragic incident. The Newfoundland locals were very welcoming. We couldn't get our hold luggage so I had to buy (ginormous as no small sizes!) knickers at Wal-mart.

Turned up at Heathrow for a flight to Greece. Had left the kids to pack their bags. Perhaps in hindsight that wasn’t a good idea because my dd (10) decided it was be a great idea to pack her favourite thing of the moment , a replica WW2 bullet, in her backpack. Oh boy, security were NOT happy with us. Understandably it was a very tense few minutes- not unsurprisingly. Got through security eventually but it wasn’t a great start to our holiday in the sun.

Flying back from Copenhagen, DH wasn't feeling great but decided in his wisdom that a sharing bag of M&M's and a can of Coke was the answer. We came in to land and he was feeling worse not better. Ended up being the last ones off the plane as DD(2.5) was being a pain. Made it into the airport and were walking up one of those long corridors to arrivals, not a soul in sight when DH went white, put his hand up to his mouth and vomited everywhere. His hand just amplified the splatter zone; there was chocolate brown sick on the floor, the walls, his shoes and t-shirt. DD was terrified and hid behind my legs refusing to go anywhere. He cleaned himself up as best he could with baby wipes but we couldn't see anyone to tell and there was no way we could clean the rest up ourselves. Luckily they were boarding another flight the other side of a glass wall and one of the staff saw what had happened and opened a door to tell us she had called the cleaners. As we were walking to passport control we saw the poor guy heading the other way to clean it up. We then had to stand in the queue for passport control for about 20mins with DH clearly stinking of vomit and looking slightly green because he was too British to let me queue jump because he was clearly ill. Silly man!

Had a seizure going through the security checking area. At least they knew it was definitely epilepsy medication i’d Brought with me, I don’t generally give practical demonstrations in public 🤦‍♀️

Flying back home from New York with DH and Dd who was only just a year old. Going through security and they literally pull apart DD's change bag. Taking everything out, inspecting every muslin, nappy, pocket etc. Now I know they have a job to do, but they aren't the most charismatic people on security, they never said we're looking for X, Y, Z. After 20 mins they shove everything into a tray and tell us we can go through. We're still none the wiser. So I re-pack the bag and off we go.

Only when I get home and I go to wash the change bag, I realise that the lining has come apart slightly and a giant bottle of sun cream has got stuck under the lining! So security could obviously see it on the x-ray but couldn't find it! I'm sure it was a 500ml bottle or possibly bigger. Luckily it didn't delay us or anything but I'm surprised they let us go through without finding it.

I work in a major U.K. airport and most of these stories aren't exactly disasters, mostly just very routine things that happen pretty much hourly. I'm certainly quite surprised about all the stories about unattended items being a huge issue and having controlled explosions. Usually it's just member of security has a quick check in the bag, says 'oh well' and hands it to lost property!

Airports really do make people lose their minds though. I'd love to write a book about some of the things I've seen or have been asked!

@Ribrabrob , this was at Gatwick and they really did tell me that is what they were about to do. Maybe they were just messing with my head?

Certainly would have been a novel way to scatter the ashes!

Not an airport but a ferry. I was visiting my parents in Scotland and decided to go to Mull for the day. I borrowed my dad's car because mine was only small and my siblings wanted to come to. We arrived at the ferry and were directed to park in the middle lane.
When we arrived in mull we didn't hear the announcement for car passengers to go, so we queued up like a good old Brit not realising we were in the foot passenger queue. After numerous tannoy call outs for the owner of a particular car it suddenly dawned on me that was dad's car and I hadn't registered the number plate. We raved down to the car only to discover the middle lane was also the lane the coaches straddled behind us rendering them stuck until we moved. Apparently we delayed crossings for the rest of the day by 1 hour!!!

My very first flight was at the age of three months old from Aberdeen to Birmingham with good old BEA. Mum had packed all my terry nappies under the carrycot mattress. The flight attendant asked Mum to carry me on her lap and put the carrycot into the hold. Of course, when we got to Birmingham, the carrycot had been carried off to Belfast. In those far away days, there were no disposable nappies, and only emergency chemists open on Bank Holiday weekends. I had to sleep in a drawer and my uncle had to drive all over Birmingham trying to find a place where he could buy nappies for me while Grandma was trying to find stuff to make do for bedding and nappies.

We fly to the ME regularly and never normally have any issues. We went to Abu Dhabi a couple of years ago and then had some random self scan passport thing. The man told me to do mine and DS1’s who was 12 at the time but just waved DS2 (who was 6) through. I did query it but tbh you don’t make a huge fuss with passport control over there so just assumed he knew what he was doing. On the way back me and DS1 were fine but it must have flagged up that DS2 was trying to leave the country that he hadn’t actually entered! We ended up being surrounded by Police and Passport officers and they wanted to take DS2 off for questioning...but they wouldn’t let me go as well. Luckily he is a really confident child so went happily with them and told them in no uncertain terms that the man hadn’t scanned his passport on the way in! Have to say they were brilliant with him...they gave him some sweets and stickers from somewhere as well.

My flight home was delayed by 12 hours- this was after I'd gone through security so was stuck at the air port by myself.

Finally got back to Heathrow and kept waiting on the tarmac for 4 hours as the airport was full - we were sat at a gate but they wouldn't let us off.

Luggage hadn't been unloaded told 'it will be sent to your home address just ring in the morning, no you don't need to fill in this form I'm holding' by airport staff.

Ring in morning 'did you fill in a form? No? Well you should have done there is no guarantee we will get your luggage to you as you didn't fill in the form' I was going away again the next day and needed those clothes. I cried down the phone - was very jet lagged then went to Sainsbury's to buy some cheep summer clothes that I could run around with kids in. I was off to work in a summer camp for the week having just been in Mexico for a month working with kids in Mexico City.

Did finally get my luggage back over a week later.

Running late, we'd been held up by traffic. Got though security OK, dashing through the shopping mall that is Gatwick, I went into Smiths to get a paper and water, over the tannoy, Mr Rannaldini, please return to security. He was standing outside Smiths waving his arms about, Come and take the bags while I return. I looked down, Well, that's not your bag so you'd better take it with you!
He'd picked up another very similar black cabin bag. We only just made the flight in the end.

I have previously done some work as a rep for a company who takes fans to sporting events abroad and have had loads of mid-haps. Mainly because it's men who are on the flights and they are seriously useless. I always have to trawl the bars before a flight to make sure they all get to the gate on time. I've had lost phones, passports, flags and musical instruments being lost before we even board.

Flight to Moscow - arrived at Moscow and had 2 customers in wheelchairs. Got off the plane with assistance no problem, but they then left us at immigration. After that, we couldn't find any lifts to get us out of the airport. After an hour, we finally found someone who spoke English (or didn't just ignore us) and I was told to carry the wheelchairs, with the customers in, down the stairs myself!!! Took 3 hours to get out of the bloody airport after kicking up such a fuss and finally saw the duty manager.

Went on another trip, which meant a 6 hour flight and on the way back, we had to land in Luton to drop passengers and the take off again for Manchester. Arriving in Luton, the M,cr passengers had to get off and go back through security and re-board. The staff on the plane didn't give out the new boarding cards, so I had 40 passengers stuck in security not able to go through. 40 blokes, with hangovers, after being on a 6 hour flight, stuck in security. Got very heated and one knobhead shouting 'I've been in the army and fought for Queen and Country'. Managed to calm it down and sort out new boarding cards.

Another trip where a passenger had fallen over in the airport and cut his head open - flight got delayed for 2 hours.

Going to New York with my son and got told I had been chosen for extra security. Didn't experience anything different and boarded the plane. Everyone is sat down and we are ready to go when security got on and asked me to leave the flight. Son got really upset (he was only 8) as he thought he was going to be left on the flight on his own. Got off to find they had forgotten to do the extra security. Patted down, shoes off and swabbed, lots of questions and then re-boarded, to lots of funny looks off other passengers.

Went to the IOM for the weekend and as my hand luggage is going through security, I get pulled over and held for 30 minutes and asked about the bag. Where is had been stored, where I had used it etc. It was my DS's bag (character bag), so I then get asked to talk them through exactly what me and my DS had done and where we had been over the last 3 days. Had to go back through security, searched and swabbed and they emptied the bag and sent it to be swabbed again. Turns out there were traces of an explosive material on the wheels. It's been all over the world with us and has now been cleaned thoroughly, but I'm not sure we'll use it again if we fly. Had a good laugh about it all after.

Last one - my friends were going away and one got her bag pulled over at security. They held up a hunting knife and asked why she had it in her bag. She was mortified - her DH had left it in a side pocket of the bag after he had been fishing.

Lucy I believe some bleaches can create a similar trace to explosives when you are swabbed......

Interesting to hear the technical stop story - we have it the other way. Only the people leaving the plane need to produce the boarding card to exit the plane. Everyone else sits tight. Cant remember what happened the only time we were the ones staying in the plane - I guess we must have been head counted to make sure the right number were left onboard?

Me and my Oh, then boyfriend, were going to Kiev to watch a European Championship match. On check in it turned out that I forgot my passport
I actually travel quite a lot, but mostly around Europe and use my ID card, not passport, so it totally slipped my mind...
Time was short so we decided that Bf will fly ahead and I will follow him when I sort things out. Not much luck with that though - other flights on the same day were too soon, no time to go home and back, and the next day everything was full as it was the match day.
I ended up crying while dragging my suitcase from check in to the customer services and back begging for help. In the end the Cs lady felt sorry for me and told me to talk to Anatoly the airline representative who was at the gate at the moment.

I called my Bf who just reached the gate, he managed to find said Anatoly and put him on the phone with me. He told me to come back next morning and if there was a cancellation or no show on any of the flights I could have a seat!
This actually happened and I got on the first Kiev flight of the day. They didn't even charge me anything extra although I was ready to pay.
We had great time there, made it to the match and everything.
Thank heavens for Anatoly!

Rainorshine that's interesting about the bleach.

Re: the technical stop. I've done it a few times and never had to get off. We just sit tight, let the others leave and off we go again. The Luton stop that time was a bloody pain.

Nutty - what a nightmare. We regularly accommodate fans on a day trip to games who missed other flights or get a ticket last minute. It's brilliant when we can help.

When I was in my early 20’s, quite immature and not a particularly seasoned traveller, I got selected for extra security checks when flying from New York to London not long after 9/11.

Got taken away from my friends off to the side while scary lady security guard swipes me with the hand scanner thing and it kept bleeping. She was asking me what metal I was carrying. I wasn’t carrying anything metal and I was getting really flustered as she was quite abrupt and said if I couldn’t explain myself I’d have to be strip searched!!

Was a trainee solicitor at the time and visions of my legal career crashing before it had even started flew through my mind and in my panicked state I started worrying that maybe I had accidentally put a machete down my jeans or something! Just as she was swiping me for a final time it suddenly dawned on me that it was the zip on my base fleece that was setting off the alarm (it was December and I had a million layers on and completely forgotten about the bottom one!). Oh my god the relief when I realised was incredible!

However there was then an announcement saying our flight was now boarding from a different gate so had to walk across the massive airport and go through it all again with another guard whilst my friends pissed themselves!

Went to Barcelona in March. On both legs we paid extra for up-front seats, which also means you can take a small bag as well as your carry on case.

On the way out, we arrived to board in plenty of time, but was told overhead lockers were full, so weekend cases had to go in the hold (for free), which was annoying, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Coming back, we are in the queue to board, Spanish easyJet staff going down queue before the gate opens to check tickets. Told us we'd have to pay for our second bags. I told her we'd paid for up front seats and extra bag was included and she said our seats weren't up front seats.

After debate and the last radioing colleagues, turns out the plane had been "reconfigured". Whatever that means, think it was a different model of plane and so our seats were no longer classed as up front.

Staff wouldn't budge still and said we had to pay whatever it was for main bags to go in the hold end of story, which was extortionate. So I said we'd just go to the back of the queue then, so by the time we board, the overhead lockers would be full and they'd put our small cases in the hold for free. She said we couldn't do that.

She leaves us to discuss and moves along behind us up the queue. So I say to DP, right, open your case, get some extra laters on, so we can make space for small bags to got inside our little cases.

Just as we squeeze our bags into our cases, layered up like two fucking Michelin Men, a second staff member comes along queue to say the overhead lockers are full and so our cases will need to go into the hold (for free) again.

Cue us stripping off to put clothes back in cases and getting small bags out again !

Seriously fucking ridiculous!!

A few, actually.

Before my flight back to London after spending Christmas with the family, my sister and I went shopping as it was on the way to the airport. Before check in, I wanted to pack the new dress, trousers and shoes into an already fairly full case and, of course, the zip gave way. Bought a new case at the airport, checked the new case, proceeded to the bakery at arrivals level and filled the old case with bread and freshly baked pretzels.

Flying back from New York to Frankfurt it was an extremely bumpy flight, so much so, that the flight attendants were told to stop service and take their seats.
When we were finally on descend into Frankfurt, I suddenly felt quite queasy, only to lose my meagre breakfast literally as the plane touched down. To this day, my sister doesn't let me live that down.

And finally, the last two times I flew back to London from Germany my hand luggage was swiped for explosives. The second time I asked, what it was. Turns out, it was the Dr Oetker cake mixtures with chocolate glazing. The chocolate looks suspiciously like not so innocent stuff on the x-ray.
When the security guard looked at my case he was a bit baffled, as it was full of food. He then asked, whether I planned to do self catering on my holiday, I had to explain that I live here and had visited Germany as a holiday.

@charley50 was it Gander airbase you were sent to? There is a great book called something like The Day the World Came to Visit which is a compilation of stories about that. Told from the point of view of the locals and the people who were diverted. A tiny town had to deal with a massive influx of people with nowhere else to go and seemed to do a standup job.