This was back in line 2009. I was trying to fly cross country back to home (ATL-SFO) right at the end of the holiday break. Like the last day before people had to go back to work, so it was crazy busy. I got a ride to the airport from some friends who had a later flight, but we left early enough that we would have plenty of time for me to be early for mine too. But then there was a massive like 18 car pileup on the freeway and we were stuck in traffic between exits with nowhere to go. We sat there for 2 hours before we got going, and that was enough to eat up my buffer and make me miss my flight.

I got to the airport check in desk and told them what happened, and they said they would try to get me out on standby on one of the other flights. This was at ATL, trying to go back to SFO so plenty of options right? Well it was such a crazy busy travel day that I kept getting put on standby but all the flights were full. I needed someone to no-show for their seat before I could take it, and there were plenty of other people trying to go standby too. At the time I had no airline status so I was at the back of the line for priority to get a seat.

I got so close a few times. By the end of the day I had been issued 8 boarding passes for standby flights. On 6 of them I never got past the gate. On one of them they cleared me in and I was walking down the jet bridge before the original passenger showed up and they ran down to tell me that my spot was no longer available. One of them I made it all the way to a seat before I got yanked back off the plane. The very late original passenger sheepishly passed me in the jet bridge, both of us being escorted by gate agents but in opposite directions.

It was nighttime now. I had told the customer support agents that I would be happy getting to any airport in CA, or even anywhere along the way. Finally they said they had a flight for me to DFW with a confirmed seat on it, and then they could get me a confirmed flight back to CA the following morning. Shit, I’ll take it. Get me out of ATL, and get me out of standby hell.

I made it to DFW and got some shitty hotel near the airport (not comped). I had spent so long in ATL listening hearing the din of an airport and fragments of conversations as people walked by me (I didn’t have good NC headphones back in 09). As I was lying in the hotel trying to sleep I was literally hearing voices in my head, unintelligible pieces of airport conversations that my brain was making up. It felt like I was going crazy. The standby demons had won.

Thankfully I finally fell asleep and got a few hours of zzzs before heading back to the airport and catching the early flight to CA. What a mess. I hope your situation isn’t nearly as painful!

Travelling from Austria to Croatia - got to the airport at 8pm for our 11 o’clock flight. Initially wasn’t concerned when our flight wasn’t showing on the boards. Became increasingly worried as time went on.

Spoke to the desk and were told the only flight to Croatia was 11AM that day… (Not 11pm)

Spent the night sleeping in the airport while waiting to check in to a airport hotel the next day as the next available flight to Croatia was 2 days after our original flight.

Used my bag as a pillow and accidentally broke some souvenirs we had bought. Cost us an extra $500 each in total for new flights and accomm as we had no travel insurance.

Sorry to hear you missed your flight - hope your experience isn’t too rough!

This was 30+ years ago, but I misread my tickets and missed my original flight out of Tampa headed to Chicago with a stop in Atlanta. I rebooked another about 3 hours later, but when I got to Atlanta, I found out my original connecting flight to Chicago crashed in Indiana due to ice on the wings. That could have been me. RIP to those who made that flight.

Thankfully I have never missed a flight, but one time for a moment I thought I had.

When I purchase tickets and get an email from the airline, gmail will summarize the flight details at the top of the mail. So it adds a blurb on top that isn’t part of the actual mail. It usually works but one time it set the departure date as the date I received my email, not the departure date in the contents of the email.

For a moment I thought I had messed up when ordering the tickets, but reading the contents calmed me down.

I’ll NEVER EVER trust that feature again.

When I was in the military I had to fly from Seattle to Wichita Falls, TX for training. With a connecting flight in DFW… I get to the airport Sunday morning and discovered I missed my flight by an hour because of daylight savings time. This was after my ex swore up and down daylight savings was the following week.

So, I call the military travel office and they get me another flight to DFW, but there are no more flights to Wichita Falls. Since I had to be in class the next morning, they told me they’d get a one-way rental. The only catch is they had to call my commander and get authorization. Not my boss, or my bosses boss or anyone even close. The freaking commander.

Luckily for me my older sister lived in Dallas. So, I tell them not to wake up my commander at 7 am on Sunday because my dumbass believed my ex, and that I’d call them right back. I get ahold of my sister, explained the situation and she agreed to drive me 2 1/2 hours to Wichita Falls. I call back the travel office and and they book me a flight that is scheduled to get into DFW at 2pm. Then it gets delayed and delayed and delayed. I land around 10:30pm and my sister drives me to Wichita Falls. We get in around 1am. And she still has to drive back home and go to work the next day. 20+ years later I still feel bad about it, but totally greatful for having an awesome sister.

Fun fact: Saturday morning flights out of New Orleans are the most missed flights in the United States. I was told this by a gate agent when my flight out on a Friday was cancelled due to weather.

“Just come really early tomorrow morning and you’ll get on that flight. They always have room because of that.”

College freshman flying back home for the summer. Not used to flying. Got to my gate about half hour before boarding. Hungry. Went to closest restaurant a couple gates away, got a burrito and ate at a table while listening to music with headphones. Lost track of time. That burrito had my full attention. Missed all the overhead calls for me. Plane had departed by the time I casually walked back to my gate.

Sorry to hear you missed your flight. It sucks but hopefully it won’t ruin your plans.

As for the story:

It was 15 years ago, my parents, my two siblings, and me were about to travel to Canada to visit our aunt. For all of us, it was our first ever transatlantic flight. We were all so excited about it, that none of us could catch a bit of sleep the day before leaving.

It required 5h of travel to catch the plane in the capital, so we had to leave at like 4 am to be on time for it. But somehow we manage to do it and arrive on time at the airport.

Excitation is at its maximum, finally our big trip is around the corner. We go to the check in desk, cue for a good a hour, and once our turn come, get asked for our passport. We all look at my father that start frenetically look in his pockets, then handbags to find our passport. But no sign of them. He start sweating heavily, ask my mother if she kept them. No, not with her neither. Big panic moment, everybody shouting, undoing all the luggages in order to find them. But nothing. We forgot our passport. No way to catch the plane.

Our father go back to our place, 5h away from the airport, while we stayed in a hotel for the night. Turns out the passport were on my parent shelf. Just one story higher than were they always were. My mother being quite short did’t see them and assumed my father had them.

We went back to the airport on the next day to see what we could do to save our trip. We got lucky as we got access to another plane, for free, and got upgraded to first class as a bonus, due to 5 other passengers missing their flight ! But we had 5 mins to catch it. The run though the check-in, security, the terminal gates was quite epic to fathom !

Little late to the party, but I was trying to catch a flight to see my long distance boyfriend. I was supposed to leave right after class (I was in college) but decided to take my time and run by my house to pick up a few things and chat with my roommates. Well, there was a ton of traffic and I ended up having to sprint through the airport to my gate. I had a backpack and was sprinting in flip flops, wearing a dress. Didn’t feel my dress riding up, caught in my backpack, as I ran, so I guarantee half that airport saw my bare ass (I now wear shorts under my dresses). Got to the gate as the plane was pulling away from the gate and started SOBBING, knowing my kind of dick boyfriend would yell at me and say I told you so. The gate agents took pity on me, crying with my butt hanging out, and moved me to a next morning flight at no charge.

Not really missed, but I’m writing this from Taiwan because my original flight to the Philippines was cancelled due to bad weather. So we started looking at weather forecasts at the airport and jumped on the next flight to the country with the best weather!

A bit different one:

The year was 2010, and I was living abroad at the time. I was visiting the old country for a few days to renew my passport, and the day before I was supposed to fly back to where I lived, two things happened:

• Ran into this FWB i knew before moving abroad.
• Eyjafjallajökull had a volcanic eruption, shutting down air traffic in all of northern Europe.

Long story short, my FWB and I reconnected in the extra time I was given, and things developed further than they ever had before. Today we have a house and four kids together. I think it’s getting serious.

Flying back from China 4-5 months ago. Checked in at the airport. Turned out you needed a COVID test to come back into the U.K. So I missed the flight. That sucked but then I had to try getting a rapid COVID test in the middle of the night; ended up at a public Chinese hospital where no one spoke English. Fucking nightmare.

Foreigner flying out of Chicago, and no one explained that the pass I was given at check in wasn’t my boarding pass. My flight is almost boarded before I realised that a seat number wasn’t printed on the pass. I went to the counter to find out what I’m supposed to do, and the flight had been overbooked.

Neither of these are normal where I’m from. You get the boarding pass with your seat when you check in, and flights are never deliberately overbooked.

Another almost-miss. I visited a friend in Germany, and the final leg home was from “Dusseldorf Weser” airport, which I naïvely assumed was like “London Heathrow”, and just the full name of Dusseldorf airport where I’d flown in.

Lucky, I got there 3h in advance, and when I couldn’t find the Ryan Air (yep!) counter, information filled me in. …One mad taxi rush across the city, then a bus I would’ve missed if it wasn’t late, and I got to this little airport way out of town 5min before the gate closed!

10 mins later, a group of guys got on the plane. They’d had a beer waiting for the Ryan Air counter to show up at Dusseldorf, and realised too late - got a taxi all the way to Weser arriving 5 min after gate closing. Luckily they were allowed to board anyway!

I’m a dual national and my name is different in each passport. Bought the plane ticket with the name written in one of the passports but then I forgot it at home 🤦‍♂️

I had the other one on me but since the name in it was different they didn’t let me on the plane…

Ever since then I keep both passports very close to each other with a rubber band!