To wonder how people miss their flights?

[FleetMacWood]

I had a domestic flight today, at check in they repeatedly called out 6 names for final call. About 3 showed.

I get missing the flight in general, but how do you miss it when you’ve checked in? Or not even being at the gate?

I also couldn’t be bothered with the hassle/stress of having to get luggage back from another city/country.

I missed a transfer at Frankfurt once, very tired, just managed to sit at wrong gate! Had to buy another ticket to get home.

JFK - desk had just closed as I arrived (train delay), very grumpy French man (Air France) sent me round corner to rebook for next days flight, was a bit stressed at this point and cried when the very nice booking lady asked what had happened, she got me on that original flight and ran with me to the gate.

I missed a connecting flight because the first was delayed and I couldn’t get across the terminal in time. It wasn’t my fault though so sorting it wasn’t at my expense

Long haul flight? How did you cope without your luggage?

Yeah I had to run through the airport once due to a late connecting flight, then calling my name across the airport really added to the adrenaline.

What happened? Were you still allowed to board?

Well, yes - after all there were a huge number of people who'd also trusted what the original board said and they couldn't very well leave them all behind, to say nothing of all the luggage they'd have had to offload

It just meant the flight left horribly late, but I definitely learned that day not to just assume the displays would be correct!!

I used to work as a corporate travel agent, the amount of people who missed their flight as they were in the airport lounge was incredible…. One specific company didn’t blink and just booked new flights

My favourite was a corporate traveler trying to tell me their Uber arrived well before cut off check in times (I know not what you are talking about) and the airline staff were wrong to deny her checking in so the airline should have bought her new flights, when I asked to see the Uber receipts to confirm airport drop off times , she suddenly stopped replying 🤔

It can be down to transport to the airport. Cancelled or delayed trains, a problem with the car, road closures meaning a much longer journey.

We nearly missed a flight due to check in staff not understanding covid regulations for our destination and requiring documents that were impossible to acquire (like adult documents for a child). We were referred to 3 managers and they took our passports while they ‘sorted it out’. It wasn’t resolved but they relented and I spent the flight worrying in case they were right and I was wrong. You do expect check in staff to know what they are doing. It was pretty stressful.

I nearly missed a Ryanair flight once. The gate was posted really late, and was miles away (like a 15 min walk). I literally ran, and only just made it.

A few weeks later a friend was in a similar situation but walked. He wasn't allowed on the flight. I actually think the airline was very unreasonable, and lots of people missed it.

Another I know missed their flight because they arrived at the airport late (but could have still made it) but then had to open all their luggage going through the x-ray machines. Large queues for that. Lots of luggage too as travelling hand luggage only with children.

I nearly missed a flight on my first flight alone. I was at the gate really early but dozed off and when I woke up the gate was closing!

I missed a flight once because of an accident on the M25, we were just stuck going nowhere for hours. I imagine this happening quite a lot

It happened only a couple of weeks ago, with the Just Stop Oil idiots on the M25, and doubtless there'll be more

I'd flown in that morning and it meant hanging around for my taxi home, but at least I'd had my holiday and I really felt it for all those whose own were thrown into chaos

Because DH can't bear to waste any time. Getting early to an airport is a waste of time, being constantly optimistic about how long things take, how fast a toddler will walk.
Because DH will use that spare 3.5minutes to log on to his laptop with his headphones on, not waste time queuing like the less efficient people.
DH basically thinks the world will wait for him.
I love travelling by myself.

I missed a flight to Italy

the computers kept going down they finally checked us in (about 20 of us we were not together) we had been queuing for two hours we ran to the gate and they stopped us boarding

Ryan Air did take responsibility and paid for us to be on the next available flight or to receive a refund plus a voucher (I used this voucher for the taxi in Italy as able to book a later flight but on a different airline) I wasn’t expecting that from Ryan Air but my later flight was more expensive

I could easily do this in an airport. I'm autistic and suspect ADHD, very easily distracted, usually wearing noise cancelling headphones and a high stress situation is likely to lead me to fucking up.

Thankfully I don't fly alone, or at all really

ExH once managed to miss a flight because he was too busy chatting up a shop assistant in a duty-free shop, while young son kept saying ‘Dad, Dad, they’re calling our name.’

At LBA there are often no announcements full stop. I was in the queue for boarding a domestic flight and a woman pitched up in a panic. She had been booked on a different airline to the same airport about 2 hours earlier. She somehow had completely missed it. She asked the crew to transfer to my flight but from what I heard it wasn't possible because the manifest/ list was closed (and well she hadn't paid that company). It was the last flight of the day as well. Felt really bad for her.

I did similar once. One of the most stressful moments of my life! I was running really late for the flight home from a work trip, due to a whole perfect storm of reasons (important final client meeting overran, horrible manager wouldn’t let me get a taxi to the airport, train was late, etc) so I got rushed through security and made it to the gate to see the last few people queuing for boarding… then couldn’t find my passport. I had to sprint back to security, where I had left it, but I was so stressed I just couldn’t think straight and couldn’t find where security was even though there was a big sign for it right in front of me. Eventually I got it and made it to the gate just as the final passengers were disappearing through the airbridge. After that I vowed never to be judgy about people being late or missing their flights again! If I’d missed it I was going to have to spend the night at the airport and fly in the morning instead and I was so unbelievably relieved that I didn’t have to do that in the end.

I got to the airport once to fly home after a short European trip.. my flight wasn't on the board - turned out I had booked it for the next day. Nightmare.

Luckily there was another flight that day so I booked on that one but there was no way of cancelling my other one on the easyJet app as it was less than 24 hours away and I'd already checked in...

Sometimes security goes into meltdown - we recently flew back from Germany; we were on the plane in time, though I thought we'd left lots of time and it felt a bit rushed, and the queue for security had been epic - we were pulled forward due to DC. At the gate closure time (after we were seated on the aircraft) the pilot made an announcement that we would be waiting a little longer as we were missing 45 people - these are people who'd swiped into security, but, presumably hadn't got through it. We knew when staff were handling a queue that included an escalator that something wasn't right....

This happened to my son but his passport wasn’t found 🤦‍♀️He checked in and passport missing by time we got to security!! He had to stay in Majorca and didn’t get home for 2days….bloody stressful,expensive…still trying to get insurance to pay up !

How do you cope with connecting flights??
Like you can arrive as early as you want for your first flight, but after that you are at the mercy of the flight gods!

I'm always ridiculously early for flights (absolutely love flying) but through no fault of my own have cut it very fine twice - both when I've been in transit and the incoming flights were late. And both (oddly) in the US - once a flight from San Francisco to LA and onward to London, and the other from Orlando to Atlanta and then Manchester. Both LA and Atlanta are enormous (Atlanta's insanely huge) and DH and I had to run across both airports. In LA I had bronchitis too (diagnosed when I got home) and I actually collapsed near the departure gate as I couldn't breathe; I told DH to go ahead and get the flight without me but to his credit he wouldn't leave me.

The thought of those occasions still makes me shiver.

We came really close to this the first time we flew with my baby. My brain was all over the place, for example Id flown dozens of times but forgot to even remove my keys from my pocket before going through the metal detectors.

Anyway, checked in, and we went to get some food. Somehow we mixed the flight time with the time to go to the gate. Then they called our gate. Panicked, paid, baby needed changing so I went to do that while DH went into mens, was rushing, couldn't get baby back into the sling (just panic I think, I just suddenly couldn't tie it right), so then rushed out with baby on one arm half in sling and change bag hand luggage in other arm and started trying to run to gate (which of course was the furthest one). Some lovely person saw me, grabbed my hand luggage and said 'what gate love?' and literally ran it there for me so I had two hands for the baby and unraveling sling (she then had to rush off to her own plane so I barely got to thank her). We got there just in time, but DH wasn't there! Turns out he'd misunderstood and had waited for me at the toilets for a bit before realising I had gone. Anyway the staff were literally telling me they couldn't hold it any longer as he appeared.

We then had to get on the plane with everyone staring and tutting at us for being those people who held up the plane but frankly I was so fucking relieved to be on the plane at that point.

Many reasons as listed above. It is people who "hate wasting time" that I do judge though :)

Like you can arrive as early as you want for your first flight, but after that you are at the mercy of the flight gods

You can arrange connecting flights with a longer gap if you are unhappy with the time available for transferring.

Connecting flight is late
Delayed at security
Checked in at home and traffic delays arrival at airport

are 3 reasons I can think of off the top of my head.