Anyone not gone on holiday because of airport caused delays?

[lizha]

It happened to us but if you Google "airport delays" all you get is flight delays. We missed flight because of in-airport delays (technology problem). Are we the only people who ended up going home rather than on holiday?

well surely everyone on your flight experienced the same… so you have encountered all of them at least!

You chose to go home
Others, me included, would have rebooked on another flight

I don't know if I understand your question but one year I was due to fly to Spain for Christmas and couldn't leave Gatwick because the plane I was catching was coming from Ireland, Cork I think and it couldn't take off due to snow. I went home and flew out a few days later for NYE instead.

your flight was cancelled
Hardly a rare occurrence

could you claim that on insurance?

You’re not making sense Op

I just wondered when you see queues of people stuck at security or passports whether they all get on their package holiday. Not everyone can buy new flights on the spot.

So your flight was cancelled.

Correct?

There were presumably many other passengers on your flight that were impacted?

It sounds that OP means that massive queues at security/ check in due to a tech problem meant that they missed their plane. A lot of people said this happened to them on a recent thread.

When I was a kid, we once spent 24 hours in Gatwick due to a French Air traffic controllers' strike. Made the news and everything. We got to Greece in the end though.

Funnily enough, I don't fancy flying much nowadays, certainly not within Europe. Taking the train and sometimes driving seem like far more civilised options.

I think the majority of people transfer onto another flight and go on their trip, but just later than planned. If the delay is due to problems at the airport, the airline will generally move you onto another flight without needing to buy a new ticket. Did you not talk to the airline help desk before going home, OP?

This is what I was thinking.

The airline couldn’t put us on a new flight because we were on a package holiday (CAA rules) and later apologised for the technical fault in our area of departures and refunded flight. But tour operator wouldn’t help with new flights at the time.
I think the thread I need is the one about queues at security. i’ll hunt. I just wondered if we are the only people who didn’t buy new flights when stuck (host of reasons) . Thanks all.

No, it's weather, act of god. Plus the airline booked me on the next available flight

Haven't missed a flight yet, but I have been in security queues for over an hour occasionally and once had to go to the airport six hours early. The last time I flew there was a massive queue at passport control – I made my connection but quite a few people didn't.

Thank you. Glad you made your flight. So interesting that people don’t write about missing their flights. Maybe feel bit ashamed they didn’t “fix it”. I did.

We were abroad when the air traffic control in the uk went down. We booked a new flight for the soonest we could (three days time), an airbnb to stay in and had a great time, courtesy of easyjet who paid us back for both.

Last year our flight was cancelled but Tui re-booked us on a slightly different holiday for the following week. Fortunately, DD could go back to work and change her holiday dates.
This year we were unable to fly home from Gran Canaria because the WWW went down and Tui put us in a hotel for five days. They paid for the accommodation and all food and drink.
On both occasions we also each received a Tui voucher for £200.

But if they refunded your flights, why didn’t you book the next available ones?

Far from it. Gate closed seconds before we arrived having been mis-directed by boards and staff. (Truly and others affected on other flights) Been in departure lounge over 2 hours. Crazy day with no seats and told 2 hour waits at customer services. Ba tried to book us on flight (next one next day) but told us CAA rules meant out tour operator had to make the change and cAA leaflet warned us not to do it ourselves, or rest of package could be forfeit. Tour operator wouldn’t or couldn’t ? Variously said they’d call back. By 6pm no call back (except from rep in Austria to say half our luggage had arrived) but all following day seats gone. By next day Earliest day we could get seats was Weds (from Saturday)two days before coming home. Maybe if I’d ignored cAA rules and accepted Tour operator not interested we’d have gone next day (although offloaded part of luggage in Heathrow didn’t emerge for two days) .
As the insurance company said , you can’t insure for such a bizarre sequence of problems.

Refund cam 4 months later.

Refund came 4 months ater. But on the day I trusted the CAA advice that we should not. Anyway it's water under the bridge, I just thought other people may have lost holidays because of airport delays. And weren't feeling able to share their tale of woe.

We had a long weekend in Paris once that we very nearly cancelled due to delays - quite a few people on the early morning flight missed connections in Paris as a result. And James Galway (concert flautist) cancelled because he had missed the lunchtime concert he was to perform at by the time we were getting ready to go. Combination of fog, tech delay, another tech delay with new plane, and reloading a 3rd time. We missed lost of day 1 of a 2.5 day trip.

We were on that same flight a few months later with a connection at the end of- the prayers we said before it!! Luckily, that was only 35 minutes delayed and I always build in some extra for connections. Even same terminal connections.

Wednesday morning's flight was 10 minutes late leaving, we were 5 minutes early for 1st and 20 minutes delay for 2nd on Thursday and 40 minutes delayed tonight (but I walked very fast and still caught my train!! Will be home shortly). It's been a particularly hectic travel week though...

I've also had trips where security queue has taken over 2 hours and regularly close to an hour. And usually followed by a passport q. You just build it into the plan, think ahead about season, day of the week and time of the day for how busy to expect security to be, and expect delays.

Relaxation comes once you've got into your seat on the plane - not before then.

So you missed your flight Op due to departure technology fail in area of lounge

how many others?