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.

DH and I still laugh about our flight for our wedding (destination wedding). We were fully packed in advance. At the airport with plenty of time. Did check in, security etc. Had HOURS still to go. Decided to get something to eat.....

.... the next thing we saw we needed to board but hadn't realised that our gate was basically at Gatwick (and we were at Heathrow). We ran the ENTIRE way and were still the last two people on the final bus to the plane. The death glares the woman who had clearly been sitting on the bus for a while gave us.... well, we were in hysterics by then.

I had a similar experience on a work flight. My cab was delayed in some kind of weird traffic but I managed to get to the airport and was rushing through check in and security but the gate was so far away that even though I went straight from check in to the gate, I was the last person. A colleague was standing at the gate on the phone to me and updating the staff on where I was as I charged through the airport!!!

We nearly missed a flight a couple of times. Once as the update screen wasn't functioning and didn't update the flight was boarding. Another because check in was so long, spent over an hour to queue for check in, only to be told our flight check in was closing when we finally got to the front, I nearly lost it with them. Then there was also a line at security, no effort to check flight times. We could literally hear our names being called as we were getting our belongings from security.

To be fair, it was quite nice to just walk straight in and not have any queue. But I would definitely not repeat.

Does anyone bother to read the OP 🤦‍♀️

When we got there the gate staff laughed at our panic and said of course the flight would wait as it was same airline and half the pasengers were doing the same transfer. Well I didn't know that and I don't think you can bank on it!

You can't...

@GerbilsForever24 , your post reminded me of a nail biting transfer in NYC, didn't realise we were flying into and out of different airports for our "connecting" flight. The ticket was sold this way, it wasn't an accident on our part, and it included transfer transport. We thought this was sure to fail, but no, our transport arrived, 'twas a limo no less!

And left children alone by themselves? Seeing as they didn’t have their passports with them.

Everyone stop posting now please @HangerLaneGyratorySystem Doesn’t see the point so we must stop.

I've almost missed flights a couple of times when I've been relaxing/dozing off in the airline lounge - if it's quiet, you're jetlagged and they don't make any announcements it's easily done

Travelled a lot with work, I will arrive early as security is usually the hold up (and usually travel early morning)

never even been near missing a flight as will get through security, grab breakfast head to gate and keep half an eye on the flights board and also work.

only time nearly missed a flight was when a few of us were going with work and control freak booked the flights and send all the tickets to her phone and refused to send them on. Rocked up quite late and security queues were massive and took us ages to get through (even though when I arrived it was clear we got stuck behind the early morning package flight crowd)

she then proceeds to take ages to get through security, didn’t have any of her liquids sorted when she got to the scanner, set the alarm off multiple times and then took an age repacking.

with work I normally go alone but if there are a few of all I always make a fuss of having my boarding pass sent to me, and i say although we are going together I’m only dealing with myself.

This year alone I’ve been to Vietnam, Bali, Singapore, Thailand, Italy, Gibraltar, a work trip the USA and I’ll be celebrating New Years in Sydney.

This thread was merely just me detailing a random thought. Thought people would share their stories. Just lighthearted.

But no, you have to come on here and try and belittle me for absolutely no reason. I didn’t know about luggage tags because I’ve never given it much thought. Big difference is, I encourage people to learn and I don’t sneer at them for it.

There were massive queues through airport security and we were still in queue when the final call was announced so myself and fellow passengers still caught were allowed by other travellers to skip the line.

I missed a Ryanair flight once. I was in the airport. Not sure what happened... I wasn't drinking.

Ryanair staff were as nasty as hell. I didn't ask for a free flight, I asked to buy a ticket on a later flight. They were so foul I went elsewhere, and got a flight about an hour later.

I like Ryanair. I've had many happy, cheap flights with them. But that was an awful experience.

I’m not sure what happens with online check in if you haven’t bag dropped yet but you certainly used to be able to check in the night before including your baggage. I’ve done this several times and presumably then you would be called on the tannoy even if you hadn’t arrived at the airport.
when I’ve been on that late side at the gate it’s been because:
I got lost
the security queue is unexpectedly long or in some places There’s unexpectedly been two different security check points
they’ve changed the gate number at some point after check in

airports in the uk are usually not too bad to
navigate and display walk times to gates etc but some of the ones abroad are total chaos!

@LINABE it must still be lax in US as DH's luggage went without him this week.

@FleetMacWood I'm not sure why you're getting so arsey with people who are talking about checking in online. In your OP you just said when you're already checked in, you didn't say already at the airport.

We always arrive at the airport with plenty of time to spare.

We did, however, once almost miss a flight once already through security and in the departure lounge through no fault of our own. A fire alarm had gone off down the corridor that led to the gate so we and all other passengers were prevented from going down there.

You'd have thought that the airline (Ryanair!!) would have accepted that they would have to wait, but no! They were jumping up and down giving off about how late we all were and how Ryanair would be going anyway in order to stay on schedule, even though no passengers would have been on board! In the end they did back down and we were allowed to board, but they were twatty about it. That flight, along with others departing from neighbouring gates, was delayed by about half an hour.

Regarding the luggage being tagged to the passenger, yes it is, but the system doesn't always work perfectly. We were once already boarded on our flight (Ryanair again!!) and there seemed to be about a 30 minute delay leaving the gate for some reason. We'd gone through all the checkpoints and security with no problems at all and our boarding passes definitely showed what checked hold baggage we were travelling with.

It wasn't until we had landed at our destination airport in Spain and were standing like a pair of lemons at the baggage carousel that we realised our case wasn't coming out. Airline staff there made a call back to Stansted and it turned out that they had been offloading our luggage while we were actually on board. Cabin staff had not put out any calls asking for "passengers by the name of Mr. & Mrs. Topseyt please make yourselves known to cabin staff" as they should have done. That would have answered the question in about 30 seconds, but maybe that is too simple for them. Instead, unknown to us, they offloaded the case, which took quite a while and caused a needless delay.

We did get compensation for that. Ryanair was forced to fly the case out on the very next flight and courier it to us at our hotel.

Only missed one flight...first time the heathrow express was running...it broke down...!!...got a free transfer to next flight a few hours later !!

You get to the airports 5 hours before take off.

Are you on your own? Any children?

It’s wasn’t free. It was the one you paid for but late! Did they reimburse you for missed flight?

And what about the funny when the op asks whether a poster has bothered to read her post but then completely misunderstands the posters very relevant point! 😂

There will always be those that miss flights due to exceptional circumstances, like accidents on M roads, sudden health emergencies or "fault" of the airport/airline (delayed flights or posting the wrong gate) I suppose

But for majority of people who have passed security and are physically in the airport, I suspect they are simply one of those chronically late, disorganised people who have no concept of time and/or seem to think their time is far more valuable and important than everyone else's 🤷‍♀️

Personally I have only ever missed flights due to a connecting flight being delayed, and one time I nearly missed a flight back home from a stay with a relative because I got the day of the flight wrong. However I feel like that one can be excused as I was 13 or 14 at the time, and really it should have been the relatives responsibility to ensure I got to the airport in time ON THE RIGHT DAY and was handed over to the ground staff as an unassisted minor!

I cant remember....it was BA to Munich...many flights on that route...they put us on another flight which left a few hours later....no refund.

But for majority of people who have passed security and are physically in the airport, I suspect they are simply one of those chronically late, disorganised people who have no concept of time and/or seem to think their time is far more valuable and important than everyone else's 🤷‍♀️

But that’s the good things about flights. No one will miss out other than those! They don’t delay departure. So they must be pretty thick to think the flight is actually going to wait for them!

This thread is making my teeth itch!

First, OP and subsequent posts are CLEARLY asking how you miss a flight while you're in the airport. No one cares about your train being canceled or traffic, that's not what was asked!

Second, I am always super early and fly a lot. I can not fathom how you miss a flight from the airport, but that's because I make sure to be at the gate super far in advance of my travel time. I Even use Google for gate numbers as I find it faster to update than the departure boards!

@BosaNova how do you check the other flights? sounds really useful info