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.

The only times I’ve missed or nearly missed a flight has been through no fault of mine. More often than not, it’s due to a prior delayed flight leading to a missed connection. The one that stills rankles me to today is from a few years ago. My SIL left me with my niece and nephew whilst she went off to get something to eat at Barcelona airport. Our gate got called not long after she she walked off with their passports. I thought she’d keep an eye on the boards but she couldn’t be bothered. I must have rang her about 20 times - she didn’t answer her phone (apparently it was on silent). She also missed them final call announcements for all of us as was apparently busy. We missed the flights and I was beyond livid. I went home on my own, whilst I tried to find us an alternative flight, she was busy arguing with the EasyJet ground crew, insisting it was their responsibility to rebook her onto another flight and blaming them for the kids crying and wanting to go home. She finally made it home the day after and STILL thinks it’s EasyJet’s fault.🙄 I’ve never travelled with her again.

My husband has missed two flights like this recently. Both were connections, so checked in for whole journey but was too late landing to make second flight!

We nearly missed a flight earlier this year after getting stuck in a lift.

Checked in and dropped our luggage the night before as the flight was 5am.

stayed in the hotel literally 100 yards from the airport so we could get the kids to sleep for a bit.

Got up, went to go to the airport and 12 of us (5 of my family and 7 others) got stuck in the lift for 90 mins.

Our planned wander over and stroll through security became a mad dash as instead of 2 hours we had 30 mins. Luckily for us our flight was delayed by three hours so we were fine.

That's very common with flights from the US to Schiphol and flights connecting in less than an hour to our UK destination, we got into the habit of one person going to the carousel and the other going to the desk ready to start the paperwork for missing bags, later a queue would develop, the bags were then brought home either later the same day or the next day.

I nearly missed mine in Italy, was at airport plenty of time in advance. Went through security, showed my passport etc. Had something to eat. 400 mins before flight taken off I went to go to gate, there was another passport control except this time it was jam packed with others as a flight had been delayed. I never sweated as much. Luckily our flight waited for passengers. Not sure why we had to show passports a 2nd time especially when we are leaving the country.

It's not always the fault of the missing person, delays with connecting flights, accidents on roads to/from the airport, many reasons one can be delayed.

Which is exactly what this poster said is what happened..

We thought we were going to miss a flight earlier this year - going via Munich and the flight into Munich was delayed...so we legged it through the airport top speed.... to find the next flight was also delayed (thank goodness!).
I can completely see how people miss flights if they're connecting; if they've been at the airport for ages shopping / eating / etc, not so much.

This thread is raising my heart rate!

Years ago when ds was about a year old, we went to Portugal with the ILs. When we got to the airport and checked in, they acted like we had the whole day before we had to board. Then MIL wanted to sit down and have a full breakfast before we went to the gate and even got into the queue at the restaurant. I was starting to get v stressed at this point: WE.HAVE.TO.GO!!

As we got to the gate, our names were being called. I like to be early for things: this was awful!

Various reasons offered which I will not add to.

One thing about flying is it is for many people the only thing where they cannot be late at all. Many people never use trains or buses, so if they are late and walking or travelling by car, they just turn up late and maybe miss a bit of what they are going to do. We all know of people who are late for meetings, miss a few minutes of a film at the cinema, for example.

So the habitual latecomers have no real consequences if late for anything else in their life, and often sadly are too indulged. Work meetings I host, usually now virtual, start on time, none of this 'I'll give it a couple of minutes'. Guess what, hardly anyone is ever late when I host a meeting.

@Gumreduction Yes unfortunately! There were probably other stressful external factors going on in both scenarios (my ex-DH was with me for a start) but the aggressive / threatening attitudes of TSA agents both times tipped me over the edge.

I wouldn't mind so much but I wasn't even trying to enter the US on either occasion, I was trying to leave!

Not a flight but a ferry, in the late 70s we were driving from our house in Germany to get the ferry at Rotterdam, as we appraoched the dock entrance I commented to OH how well we'd timed it, an hjour to sailing. As we presented our documents the man there said Follow that van, and it screeched away across a deserted car park to the ferry, already loaded etc. It was almost a Dukes of Hazard scene, OH drove up the ramp which came up at thesame time! We discovered then that not all countries adjusted their clocks at the same time, something that was sorted a few years later.

I recently missed a domestic flight in the US between Atlanta and Chicago by two minutes, in spite of arriving at the airport with 2.5 hours to spare, because of delays at security. The queue didn't even seem that long, especially compared to what I've seen in Manchester over the last few months, but they were understaffed and the staff who were there had absolutely no sense of urgency and the booth agents would chat to each other idly between checking tickets and passports, completely ignoring the desperation on the faces of the people waiting. My carry-on was selected for additional screening and I have never seen anyone in my life walk so slowly as the man who carried it from the secondary conveyer belt to the table where he opened it to search. They certainly don't have anyone walking through the queuing area to help move people with imminent departures to the front, and anyone who did try to reason with few staff around to let them through were completely ignored.

Anyway, that's why the vast majority of people miss flights- because they are in the security queue. It's not that hard to figure out.

I had a domestic flight booked recently. I needed to move the date to another day. It was cheaper just to get an entire new booking than reschedule the original flight.
So I just left it.
I suspect this is common

You clearly aren’t a seasoned traveller.

You don’t have to be at the airport to check in. You can check in at home up to 24 hours before the flight.

Obviously luggage tags are individual specific. Did you really not know that?

Luggage isn’t scanned as thoroughly. No liquid limit etc. it doesn’t take a genius to work out if you can drop luggage and then not board the flight there would be no need for suicide bombers.

Hopefully the news that you can check in without being at the airport will explain lack of boarding.

@ordinarilyordinary not turning up wouldn’t result in call out unless you checked in.

Also that’s a security flag for your information. Booking flights and not showing. Also flight prices are determined by demand so can you cancel please.

I think some people just have no sense of time - I travelled with two friends once, pre everyone having mobiles, and they just sort of wandered off round the shops just before we had to go to the gates and luckily I found them in time!

This happened to someone I was travelling with this year. We had flown from London to Madrid where we were connecting to another flight. But turns out she’d left her passport on the first flight in the seat pocket. She realised very quickly but they wouldn’t let her back on to get it herself - asked for staff to look and they said they couldn’t find it. She missed the onward flight but worse still, as she had technically arrived in Madrid with no travel document, they held her in an immigration detention centre overnight. Luckily for her her passport was exactly where she said and was found when the plane arrived back in the UK. It was flown back out and arrived the next day so she was released and allowed to continue the journey, arriving 24 hours later than us! Worryingly her luggage was never offloaded and was already waiting at the airport in the final destination.

This DOES happen sometimes but when it does, it's by mistake. The point is that the luggage WILL be on the same plane as you 99% of the time, so if you want to stick a bomb in the front pocket of your case, there is a 99% chance that it's taking you out with it. People are far less likely to bomb a plane as a suicide mission so it's still more than enough as a deterrent.

Many airlines/their subcontractors won't put out PA's for passengers who have checked in on line but haven't had any interaction at the airport....the main reason it's done if at all is simply to avoid a delay due to baggage offload.

As for why it happens, many reasons................

There's usually one on every flight. We've all been there at one point. 😂😂😂

@Casablanca78

Worryingly her luggage was never offloaded and was already waiting at the airport in the final destination.

There's a difference between someone checking bags in and never being seen again and OTOH someone intending to travel but was denied boarding by the authorities...

This thread makes me anxious. I am one of those people who arrive hours and hours before my flight. About 8 hours in the case of my last flight due to being put on an earlier train.

A tip a frequent flier gave me once is to download the airline app and the airport app as they often tell you what gate you are flying from before it goes up on the board and also security times, how far the gate is from security, and gate changes.

@niugboo It was an unexpected bereavement that resulted in the change. I had checked in already. EasyJet wouldn't let me cancel and wanted to charge me a lot extra to change the flight.
Flight prices are determined by demand, and unfortunately there was a significant demand for my second flight.

I'm one of those really early people but I just missed a connecting flight once because our luggage was lost in a massive airport and by the time I gave up and raced to the gate it had just closed.