What was your Strangest Airport Delay?

One of our strange delays was waiting for our flight in Dublin. There was some kind of ground person strike going on at that airport. After waiting over an hour in our terminal some official announced that they thought they had enough fuel to fly to Shannon so they would be boarding shortly to fly to Shannon to refuel for our transatlantic flight in Shannon. Needless to say I was a bit concerned about the announcement saying that they "thought" they had enough fuel. I got out a map and tried to figure out the distance and the small amount of fuel that remained in our plane. Before this happened though they announced that they would be able to refuel at Dublin so after a further delay, we boarded, whew.

Another time the power went out at LAX so we had to sit in the plane on the tarmac for ~2 hours.

Another time flying home with a connection to a smaller plane in Salt Lake City they announced (as we were sitting in the plane) that our plane was over weight and some people would need to get off and/or luggage would need to be moved from the cabin to under the plane. I didn't understand the logic of the second idea they had. Something about amount of fuel, extreme cold, runway length and weight. At first a few people gave them their bags to put underneath. Then a flight attendant asked for 4-5 volunteers to leave the plane-- it was the last flight of the night to California -- and a couple of people got off. After about 5 minutes they brought those people back on and said we were ok and the plane got ready to take off. As a teacher, I was flabbergasted that they could get their calculations so screwed up to put us through that drama for about 1/2 hour in that small plane. I think when the plane taxied down the runway everyone was lifting up on their armrests!

You say there can be unexpected delays? Yes and I could go on...

The water holding tank on a 747 was punctured while being prepared for flight. It started just as we arrived at the gate. A huge stream of water shooting out from the belly of the 747. Looked like an elephant urinating. The flight was cancelled.

When my wife walked through a door and returned through that door going to/from the restroom at CDG Airport in Paris. A security guard told her to go that way.
Everyone in the airport terminal, including all security personnel, were sent outside. They also offloaded two airplanes with about 700 passengers and all their luggage. Everyone, including security, had to go back through security scanning.
Many people missed their transferring flights home when they got back to the U.S. But we made our transferring flight out of Detroit just fine.

@Frank: at least it was a water tank and not a fuel tank!

@David: OMG I cannot even imagine that scene, how horrible to know you kick started that!

David, what was the connection between your wife going to the restroom and everything else that happened? My brain isn't making the connection this morning (probably up too late celebrating the Cubs' win).

On our first trip to Ireland, we arrived to a one-day baggage handlers strike at Shannon. We had to wait while the airplane personal unloaded the luggage. They served us drinks and snacks while we watched flight attendants and pilots unloading.

Our Emirates flight from Sydney to New Zealand was delayed on departure by an hour because the catering truck broke down under the wing so we could not back away from the gate. They could not locate the airport manager (apparently it was his day off) and it took some time to call a tow truck. Everyone on the plane was very good-natured about it, thanks to the humorous spin the pilot gave his announcements.

On a flight back from Alaska we were delayed in landing at Seattle because a passenger went into the toilet at the back of the plane and refused to return to her seat. After arguing with her for some time the crew went ahead and landed, but had to ask for an "exception" which meant we were not allowed to deplane until they opened the bathroom door and extricated the passenger. She insisted she was ill so paramedics came on board and took her off in a stretcher. Fortunately none of us had to make a connecting flight.

Not a strange delay - but a really long one - our flight to Toronto was cancelled because of a mechanical problem and we had to hang around little ole Stanfield International in Halifax for 8 HOURS before we could get on another flight. Of course, they had a plane load of people to try and get on other flights. We had a checked bag, and couldn't leave the airport as we weren't exactly sure if they would put us on an earlier flight. (Flight was about 8am, we didn't get on another until 3pm) And our car was at the long term parking at the airport hotel. And let's just say, after about 45 min, Hali is really boring. Luckily I had my ipad so we watched a few TV shows, read a little, facebooked, wandered, tried to snooze...ugh.

And even more fun, we of course missed our connection to San Fran and had to take the red eye - arriving in San Fran at about midnight, which is about 4 am home time, got to our room an hour later...and we had been up at 6am to go over to the airport, so we were running on zero sleep for 24 hrs - it was horrible.

When my wife came back through the door, she came from an unsecured portion of the airport into a secured area. CDG carefully monitors every inch on video. The security guard should have told her to go to the restroom and go back through the rather long security line to get into the gate.
I'm just glad no one really knew who caused the 2 hour delay. Standing in the long lines, people were talking about "some stupid woman" that caused the problem. What made it more ridiculous was my wife joined right in talking about that "stupid woman" while she knew it was her.

Another delay was our coming out of London Gatwick on the day that Braniff Airlines went bankrupt and all planes were grounded.
Thousands of people were at Gatwick trying to figure out how to get back to the U.S. British Calidonian and some other airlines were trying to sell stranded travelers completely new tickets. Gatwick was chaos for two days while we had to stay in a local B&B.
In such circumstances, the other airlines will eventually fly you home free and get in line as an unsecured creditor for the cost of getting you home.
Pan American was great getting us home, but we had to fly into Houston instead of Dallas.

We were flying Marseilles to CDG to Boston on Air France. Just after I went through security at MRS but before my wife did, the French security people called a strike. They let me go back and join my wife, then dozens of irate French travelers stormed through security and went to the gate. But the police shortly arrived and made everyone go back behind security. Eventually additional personnel arrived (maybe supervisors), opened one security line, and it took forever to process all the passengers. The flight waited for everyone, but by then we were very late getting going. We had no chance to make the scheduled Paris flight, except that flight turned out to also be several hours late, and we made the connection.

The airport caught fire (FCO).

One of our flights did not take off on time as we had to wait for one of the pilots who was caught in a massive traffic jam caused by an accident on the interstate in Atlanta. We also had an occasion when we couldn't get off the plane because the jet way wouldn't line up with the door.

Upon return to Frankfurt from a German tour to Moscow and Leningrad, we landed and our Aeroflot plane was parked out on the tarmac a considerable distance from the terminal.

We were surrounded by heavily armed soldiers in SWAT type gear. They put stairs up to the doors and loaded us on buses for the trip to the terminal. This was around September 2, 1983 and I don't remember any particularly special security measures being taken when we got to the terminal, although the usual arrival tasks did seem to take a long time.

We'd been in the USSR for about a week without any world news available to us. Only after being in the terminal for a few minutes did we learn about KAL 007 being shot down on September 1st by the USSR. All the special measures were taken by the Germans to protect us because we were on that Aeroflot plane.

A few years ago, I was making my first trip to Utah, for a few days in the National Parks, followed by a conference in Salt Lake City. Delta had a short flight offered from Monterey, CA to Salt Lake City at 6:00 AM, Delta's only flight out of Monterey, and the only flight from Monterey to Salt Lake City. After early morning arrival and check-in, the plane boarded full, about 150 passengers, a few minutes before 6. Everything was cool and the pre-take-off routine began. The flight attendant slammed the cabin door. Then the flight attendant slammed the cabin door again. Then, again. Then the captain came into the main cabin, and he slammed the door, and then again, and again, and he disappeared back into the cockpit. A few minutes later, the captain announced: "We seem to have a problem. When we latch the cabin door, there is a light on a panel that should go out. The light is not going out, but we cannot determine if the problem is with the door latch or with the light. In any event, we cannot take off until the door is latched and the light goes out. So, we are calling a mechanic to look at and fix this problem, but it is so early that the mechanic is at home asleep. He is coming now, but lives 45 minutes away. So please stay aboard and relax while we address this problem, so we can take off." So we sat. About 45 minutes later a van drove up, evidentially the mechanic, who came in and slammed the door a few times, and messed with the light panel a while. Then the captain announced that while they worked on the problem we would need to de-plane. So by now it was probably 8 or 8:30 or so, and by the time I got in line at the counter, there must have been 100 people ahead of me. With only a single flight out of Monterey, Delta only had one person at the counter. SLC was a Delta hub, so almost everyone was missing connections through SLC to Detroit, Jacksonville, Baltimore and points everywhere else. Which meant that every person had a complicated transaction to find another path to their ultimate destination, maybe on other airlines through SFO, LAX or whatever. The line was very slow. I happened to be standing next to another fellow who was just headed to SLC on business, and he had his secretary on the phone trying to figure out what he should do. So, we shared the priority of just getting to SLC ASAP. After about an hour of the line hardly moving, I went to the counter and said "I'm not trying to cut in, but back in the line we know nothing. For those of us just going to SLC, will the flight be leaving later, or has it been cancelled, or what? Could you make some announcement?" Oh, she said, "the plane will be flying empty to SLC for repair, and the flight is cancelled. We are trying to re-schedule each passenger, which sometimes means sending people to SFO or San Jose by taxi. This will take a while." So, we stayed in line another couple of hours, wondering how many taxis there were in Monterey. Finally, we got to the counter, and were re-ticketed to fly from San Jose to SLC at 2:20 pm, and were given a $135 taxi voucher. But, we were told, it might take a while to locate our checked baggage. Once that happened, we did arrive at San Jose in time for the new flight and to arrive in SLC at about 4:00 PM instead of 7:30 AM, and I had to pick up a rental car and drive 300 miles to my B & B before it closed down at 9. Quite a day.

Last week in Reykjavic. We were bussed out to our plane for the flight. When we got there the doors of the bus were open but we weren't allowed to get off. It was snowing and windy. We waited and waited. Mechanics kept getting on and off the plane. It's early morning and still dark out. It's also getting very cold on the bus.

Forty five minutes went by. We were standing fairly packed on the bus when someone came over and told one of the passengers that the toilets on the plane weren't working and they had to fix them before we could board.

A few minutes later we were allowed to board and were asked to quickly take our seats since we were nearly an hour late. As I looked out the window, I see an airline van pull up in front of the port wing. He gets out with some type of tube and walks to the area around the landing gear. The pilot increases the engines. I'm wondering if he knows the car is there. The engines get louder but we don't move. Eventually the driver gets and in pulls away from the plane. We then began our long, long, long taxi to the active runway.

Last September we had a very short connection time (about 45 minutes) in Reykjavik. This was our 3rd trip through the airport, we knew distances were short, and we were prepared to walk quickly to our next gate. There is a place where there are escalators up to a higher floor where you go through passport control. The escalators were not working. One was closed completely, the other was reserved for employees (pilots, etc) and everyone else had to go up the stairs. At the bottom of those stairs was a mass of humanity all trying to funnel down and get up them. It took us 55 minutes to get to the stairs, get up the stairs and then wait in the crowd (shoulder to shoulder, one giant room stuffed wall to wall with people) to get to passport control. Our departure time came and went. However, this is Iceland. Most people are just transferring to a different flight, not staying in Iceland. The whole system is designed to deplane us, move us to our gate quickly, and have us on our next plane quickly. They did not want to deal with hundreds of tourists all demanding a new flight. Our plane (and many others) waited. (I still think there was a bigger problem than just the escalator) We had a similar problem with SAS when our flight from London to Copenhagen was delayed. After hearing the 20th person complain about having to make a connection to Seattle, I relaxed. I doubted SAS wanted to deal with all of us. Sure enough, we got in, were deplaned out the back and directly onto a bus, zipped across the tarmac, and boarded our waiting (and delayed) plane. We got a few dirty looks from passengers already on the plane who had to wait..but not my problem.

I had a flight in January from Eagle/Vail to Philly but connecting in Minneaopolis. It was something like 20 below in Minneapolis. The plane had a flat tire and because of the cold everything was frozen and they were having difficulty removing the tire. Took them about 2 hours to use torches to warm it up and change the tire. I felt bad for the mechanics having to work in that cold. But the flight was a priority as the next day was a Vikings playoff game in Philly and almost everyone aboard was going to the game.

Airplane parked at the gate at Appleton airport overnight in January when the temperature dropped to -10 deg F. The potable water tank burst, flooding the lower fuselage which promptly refroze. United provided a bus to Chicago so we could make our connections. And we got our frequent flyer miles.

I have lots of stories. A few of my favorites:

Flying Seattle to Copenhagen via Reykjavik on Icelandair. Flight pulls away from the gate right on schedule and begins taxing to the runway, then turns around and goes back to the gate. An ill passenger is removed from the plane. Then they tell us we must all deplane with our carry-on baggage so they can do a security check, and they we all board again. I missed my connection to CPH, and ended up flying via Oslo, arriving about 3 hours behind schedule.

On a puddle-jumper from St. Louis to Paducah, Kentucky. Everyone's on board the little plane (maybe 15 or 20 passengers). Then someone comes to the door of the plane and says "Is everyone here going to Paducah?" Everyone says yes. Ten minutes later we still haven't moved. They come back. "Is anyone here supposed to go to _____?" (naming some other destination I can't recall). No one answers. So finally we start taxing to the runway, and then we turn around and go back, and they open the door again and ask again, by name this time, and finally this guy who is supposed to be going to the other destination gets off the plane.

Flying on American Airlines to LaGuardia, where I have a rental car waiting. There's a traffic delay preventing us from landing, so we circle for an hour waiting for a window. Finally, we land at JFK. I go to the desk to find out about getting to LGA. "Why would you want to go to LaGuardia?" they ask me and about six other passengers (most of who had their personal cars parked there.) They were making no provision for us to get to LGA. I called the rental car company, and they had no cars available at JFK, so I had no option. Finally we convinced the airline to give us a voucher for a car service to get us to LGA. We waited an hour and the car never arrived, so finally I and two other passengers agreed to share a taxi.

Flying home from LaGuardia to Atlanta years ago on December 23, after a quick trip to see NYC decorated for Christmas. Plane had mechanical problems, so they brought in a new one from Boston. Finally, after long delay, we're loaded on the replacement plane and backing away from the gate...and smack into another plane sitting behind us! Back to the gate, unloaded again, waiting for third plane. It was well into Christmas Eve before we eventually got home. Last trip that close to Christmas!

Flying from Anchorage to Houston, I was going through security and all the alarms went off. I had been to a gold mine earlier that day where they were actively blasting and apparently got some sort of explosive residue on my hands which I transferred to my suitcase. After going through a complete strip search (yes, really) I was sure I missed my plane. But no, the plane was still there.

The flaps had broken on landing and they were attempting to fix them. So, five hours later we finally boarded. What had been an oversold flight ended up half empty because there were a lot of people who didn't want to fly on a "broken" plane. I got a whole row of seats to myself to stretch out in for the overnight flight.

When we got close to Houston, there was a sense of urgency to get the plane on the ground. I thought it was more problems with the flaps. But no, it was just the morning of 9/11 and they were hurrying to get to Houston before being forced to land at another airport. I was met by police and had to reexplain the explosive reside.

Flying out of CDG on EasyJet, we were shuttled from the terminal to an awaiting plane out on the tarmac. After a short ride, our 3 transports arrived with the approx. 100 passengers and crew. The doors didn't open for any of the shuttles. 5 min. more - nothing. 10 min. more - no announcement and lot's of grumbling. Finally, it was announced that the incoming flight had transported a prisoner to CDG and the airline was awaiting police officers to accompany the prisoner off the plane. At 15 min. the doors were opened for fresh air but passengers were instructed to remain in the vehicle. Within 5 minutes of that announcement, the three shuttles were empty of their passengers - everyone had walked outside for air; the gate agents had lost all control. In fact, some folks were sitting on top of baggage transports and other misc. vehicles used to service the planes. With great effort, all of the grumbling passengers were herded back onto the shuttles. Finally at the 1 hour mark, three "guys" come strolling off the plane; no one was wearing a uniform; no handcuffs were visible; they all were wearing sunglasses and sporty clothing (jeans, track suit, etc.). Oh, did I mentioned that the threesome were chit-chatting together and smoking? I'm not certain how they exited the tarmac (i.e., a police vehicle) but as soon as they were off the ramp we were boarded and on our way - only an hour behind schedule. I don't know exactly what I was expected - a SWAT team perhaps.

Well fortunately for me my stories do not involve missed connections.

Flying Southwest from Las Vegas, we boarded and were ready when pilot comes on the PA and announces that there is a crease in the plane's body. If memory serves me right, they thought the crease was caused by turbulence on the prior flight. Mechanics need to inspect. It shouldn't be too long. About 30 minutes later pilot announced that the mechanics need to consult with the technical staff at Boeing to see if this crease was an issue. 15 minutes after that they are still consulting with Boeing but the front door is opened to allow us access to the terminal, but we are encouraged to stay onboard to facilitate departure. About 2 hours after this all began we finally depart. I did complain to SW about the way this was handled, that the plane should not have boarded when it did. I was given a SW credit of about $70.

Flying United 747 from SFO to LHR. The plane departed about 30 to 40 minutes late. Pilot comes on after the climb out and apologizes for the delay. Apparently there was a passenger who would not get off their phone call. After multiple attempts they got him(?) off the aircraft. I was seated in the front of the economy plus section and did not see anyone deplane. I'm guessing it was a business person in the premium cabin on a very important (to him or her) call.

Flying a charter flight from Vancouver to Sandspit British Columbia to get to a fishing lodge in coastal BC. Pilot has to do a go around when attempting to land in Sandspit. Pilot announces that he needed to abort the landing as a bald eagle took off from the side of the runway and flew across the runway.

Edit to add:

Flying United from FRA to SFO last year. Flight was delayed 2 - 3 hours. An earlier flight on the same route was missing a first officer because theirs fell ill. So they poached ours. We had to wait for a crew member to be flown in.

Boarding of a New York Air flight (yes, this was a long time ago) at the Long Island MacArthur airport was delayed about an hour because the crew was stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway.

Landing of an otherwise normal flight to Farmington, New Mexico, was delayed while we circled and circled as folks on the ground tried to catch and get a horse off of the runway.

May I add a "non-delay"? OK, I will. A few years ago I was flying from Monterey CA through SFO to LaGuardia for a brief business stay in NYC. I had a short connection at SFO, and as I made my way through the airport the departure boards showed my flight to LGA already boarding. Rushing, I arrived at the gate only to see the waiting area over-packed with people, passengers leaving the plane, and the flight listed as cancelled. I made my way to the counter, asked what happened, and was told that while the flight was boarding, the pilot stood up in the cockpit and hit his head. Pilots are not allowed to fly after hitting their head, and no other pilot was available. "How can I get to NYC for my meetings?" I asked. "Do you have checked baggage?" No, I said, just a carry-on. I was told if I didn't especially care about LGA, there was a flight to Newark now boarding at the next gate. I stepped over about 30 feet, and was off to Newark and NYC, without any delay at all. Let's hear it for carry-on baggage!

To add to Larry's what can go right.

Our this past February HEL-CPH-SFO connection at CPH was a scheduled 0:50. Our incoming aircraft to HEL was 5 or 10 minutes late and we were further delayed by the need to de-ice. Arrived CPH behind schedule having lost about 20 minutes of the scheduled 50. Made it to our flight to SFO with time to spare. On top of that, one of our traveling companions on visiting a washroom before passport control realized at our gate that she left a bag in the washroom. She retrieved the bag and went through passport control again and still got to the gate before our turn to board.

We were flying Newark or JFK in the early 80s to LAX. A few hours into the flight I told me aeronautical engineer husband that something was wrong because the airplane seemed to suddenly appear to be heading downward. He said I was nuts. Seconds later the captain came on and said we would be landing in Denver because there was a bomb threat called in for the flight. We left that early afternoon and did not get home until 10 AM the next morning. Our two little kids slept the night away in Denver under our airport chairs and woke up when we landed in LA. I was a mess with no sleep until 10 that night. The worst flight layover ever.

Last year, I missed my connection because United was using a "replacement" airplane for my initial flight that was not compatible with the fuel truck at the gate. The airplane in question had arrived from O'Hare. It was one of those flights that goes back and forth all day between the hub airport and a smaller airport. It was ridiculous. But at least we were at the gate and not on the airplane and so could walk around.

Another time on a flight in 2011 to Europe from Newark, after we were all passengers were on the plane, they announced that the pilot was not there. He was flying in as a passenger from elsewhere in the US and his flight was running late. Why they waited until the flight was boarded is beyond me because he arrived almost three hours after the scheduled departure time so it's not like he was nearby when they loaded us on to the plane. Then we had delays at landing getting a gate at CDG (probably because we were 1.5 hours late) so all connections were pretty much lost on that flight.

In 2006, I was making a connection through Cincinnati: one engine failed on takeoff and the pilot did an emergency landing at a nearby airport. Then we had to wait until they found a replacement airplane but by the time they found a replacement airplane, the crew was timed out so we had to wait for them to find a replacement crew (and we all wanted that crew because the pilot was excellent). We missed our connecting flight in Cincinnati because we arrived after 11 PM for a flight scheduled to arrive at 2 PM. No food on the flights and no open restaurants in the airport and then Delta put us up for the night in a hotel that did not have room service or a restaurant.

December 23, 1986, flying from Dulles/Washington DC to San Francisco via Denver, landed in Denver, but snow shut down the Denver to SFO flight that night. Airline handed everyone a Hotel voucher. Next morning, Christmas Eve, we bused to Denver Airport, and boarded for SFO. Before we landed, the Pilot made this announcement: "Ladies and Gentlemen, when we land in San Francisco, please stay seated until our VIP Passenger, John Smith, gathers his carry-ons, and let's let him exit first. He is getting married today, and has already missed his rehearsal dinner last night, and his bride is wondering if he got cold feet! " The passengers all grinned and clapped for him, and when we landed, we all stayed seated. The fight attendant held his tuxedo garment bag, and he got his carry ons out, and they let him out first.

This is a long ago story. It's 1961 and I am 6 years old visiting relatives in Cincinnati with my grandmother. She has decided that we will fly to Columbus as she wanted to make sure that I would get to fly in a plane. She had also never flown before. Right before boarding, there is a bomb threat. We are all given vouchers for free hot dogs and cokes while we wait a few hours for the threat to be checked out and the plane cleared to fly. She is pretty shaky about really wanting to fly now, but goes ahead with it. I am only excited! So, we flew to Columbus. A few months later, she passed away.

I often think about her being able to fly that one time and how much she wanted me to have that experience. She was a depression era mother, raising 4 kids alone, doing laundry and sewing. What a grand experience that must have been for her, and then to have a bomb threat to add to the excitement.

I guess bomb threats have always been with us and probably always will.

Oh my Ms. Jo. I see where you get your adventurious travel spirit from. You must think of her often in tough spots. I have some WWGD, what would grandma do, moments in some areas of my life too.

After reading this thread I am determined to go by train rather than by plane whenever possible, and if it has to be by plane, then with hand luggage only.

I don't know if any of these are "strange" but they are the memorable ones among numerous delays.

June 2004 - U.K. air traffic control system crashed and flights across U.K. grounded until system restored. Fortunately, I was flying out of LCY, a relatively small airport, so I was only delayed a few hours.

July 2010 - Seven inches of rain in two hours in Milwaukee on a Thursday night. Runways under water and airport did not even reopen until Friday afternoon. I got out on flight late Friday night but several of my colleagues had to drive to Chicago to get a flight out.

June 1985 - Flying out of Athens about a week after hijacking of TWA flight. Was on a cheap student flight routed Athens - Barcelona - Madrid (overnight) - NY JFK - Washington National. First delay at Athens while all luggage hand searched due to heightened security. Second delay when weather closed JFK and flight was diverted to Montreal for refueling. Flew back to JFK where my flight to National was also delayed. Ultimately flight was rerouted to Dulles (National Airport closes around 10 pm due to noise restrictions), arriving sometime after midnight.

January 1999 - Scheduled to fly IAD - ZUR - ARN with a long layover in ZUR following Christmas holidays. Flight to Zurich was cancelled due to equipment problem. Was put on standby on United flight via LHR. That flight was also delayed due to a late inbound flight. Ended up in middle seat in row of 5. Arrived at Heathrow and had missed my connecting flight. Was put on next flight to Stockholm. I ended up arriving in Stockholm 20 minutes earlier than I would have arrived had I been on the original flight. I complained about my experience to one of my work colleagues; it turned out my delay story was nothing compared to hers. Her Lufthansa flight skidded off the runway in Toronto. She then sat on the plane for 8 hours while they waited for weather to improve. Flight crew timed out and she stayed overnight at airport hotel before a new crew arrived and they departed the next day.

Hmmm MrsEB, I certainly remember that experience as having involved LGA, but from the article you cited, the first flight must have been scheduled for JFK. (Or else involved a connection, but I doubt that.) Easy to mix up that detail, as I didn't actually get on the plane or reach that airport. I did fly to Newark though, and the story is as I described it.

Cgichard wrote After reading this thread I am determined to go by train rather than by plane whenever possible, and if it has to be by plane, then with hand luggage only.

That is likely to be a good plan in other countries, but let me tell you my Amtrak story before you plan on taking any trains in the U.S. I was returning from St. Louis to Chicago. At some point about 100 miles or so from our destination, the train just stopped in the middle of nowhere. After about 2 hours, I stopped one of the conductors who was wandering through the cars for the umpteenth time to ask what was going on. In the U.S. freight trains and passenger trains use the same single tracks and freight trains have priority. The train had stopped to allow a freight train to pass us, but somehow the freight train was stuck behind us and couldn't get to the short stretch of double tracks to overtake us. It was Sunday afternoon in October 1995 and communications were slow on Amtrak (and remember, most people didn't have cell phones back then). It took an hour or more until they figured out why the freight train hadn't passed us, then another hour or more until they found someone who had the required level of authority to issue the order to allow our train to proceed (I guess they had to go through layers of orders to get the signals or switches or whatever changed) and that was what we were waiting for. The conductor said he'd been with Amtrak for nearly 25 years and had never seen this situation before. We were some 3-4 hours late getting into Chicago - Amtrak is typically late anyway, it seems. I did ask the conductor why the train went so slowly (maybe 15-20 mph) for the first many miles out of Chicago and he said it was simply that the tracks were so old that it wasn't safe for the train to travel any faster.

No one ever made an announcement on the train about the delay. In fact, the reason I know there was a speaker system on board is because the OJ verdict was given a few days earlier when I took the train from Chicago to St. Louis - and they used the system to announce the verdict to the entire train!

A couple of times I've told this story to friends who've taken Amtrak and heard their stories - one included an overnight delay between New York and Florida.

Chani made the first move in Amtrak Horror Stories, so I'll play mine. About 20 years ago, with 2 little kids, we were scheduled to leave Chicago on a train that originated there. The train was there, but delayed. And delayed. We were in the terminal, and Amtrak employees kept telling us to stand somewhere, then another employee would tell all of us to stand somewhere else. Finally we boarded and the train left. But at this time of night, the freight trains had priority, so we had to keep pulling over for them.

Our destination was Waterloo, IN. In Nappanee, the train stopped and stayed stopped. We kept waiting for it to start again. We asked a train attendant and he started yelling at the whole car. He was about three feet from me and my little kids. It turns out that the engineers had reached their time limit, and new ones had to be brought to the train. The attendant's rant was that he was expected to work 14 hours, but not them, oh no, not them. He was a little scary.

We knew the Waterloo stop was where the engineers were coming from-there's a house there for them. They had to drive in a car to the train in Nappanee so they could then drive the train to Waterloo. Our train sat for at least an hour and a half, and then we still had another hour to our stop. I still don't understand why, when they knew the first engineers would be timing out, that they didn't have the second batch meet us at Nappanee. I've taken Amtrak since then, but I've been wary.

And to add to the train delays, trains in Europe are also not immune. I've had two major delays on the Eurostar. One time the train was stuck in the channel tunnel due to a power outage on the French side. Another time, a train ahead of mine derailed and the train I was on was delayed as they had to single track trains through the area of the derailment.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/778669.stm

In 2007 I booked a flight to Munich on USAir through PHL. After I booked the flight, I started tracking it. In the next week, it was 9 and 10 hours late into Munich on two separate days. YIkes.

I quickly noticed that although on every day, the same flights to European cities left from the same gates, whenever a flight was late, it seemed to be assigned to the Munich flight, regardless of the gate.

I called the airlines and asked for an explanation, and I got passed around from one representative to another until I finally talked to someone in operations (to whom I don't think I was supposed to get). It seemed that on those days when the "flight to Munich" was late they had to replace important equipment on the plane.

Well, at least the day I flew, everything was on time.

And to add to the trains aren't the be all end all (tho I to would rather train than plane in a lot of cases).

We took the TGV last year from Paris to Avignon (you know...the 'fast' train) - we had almost a 3 hour delay because someone decided to commit suicide by train. Was super worried about our car reservation, but it wasn't a big deal - Europcar was well aware of the issue.

And our first trip to Italy where we used the regional trains - which are a bit slow - missed our connection in Milan - the other train was leaving as we were jumping off our late train, had to wait an hour, were told to get on the wrong train (comedy of errors, I won't go into it), ended up in Verona instead of Bologna, missed our connection there to get back to Bologna by 5 min, another hour wait - arrive in Bologna about 3-4 hrs after we should have.

MrsEb - Oh - I understand totally. (suicide by train). I'm just commenting more as a - trains can have issues as well - thing.

Almost all of my delays have been weather related - lightning in Atlanta, de-icing in Denver, snow and ice on the runway in Cleveland, but maybe my most frustrating delay was when my plane from the east to DIA was diverted to Colorado Springs because of lightning at DIA. As we sat on the tarmac in COS (there were no gates available), they discovered that the flight crew could not fly back to Denver because they would have exceeded their hours, so we had to wait on the tarmac for them to find another flight crew.

It was doubly frustrating for some passengers who lived in Co. Springs and could have just gotten off and been home, but had to fly back to Denver to catch a flight back to COS.

It was doubly frustrating for some passengers who lived in Co. Springs and could have just gotten off and been home, but had to fly back to Denver to catch a flight back to COS.

Now that would be frustrating

I'll add a happy story that's about luck and not a delay.

We flew to Scotland in 2002. A travel agency booked our flights, which took us from ATL to Toronto to Glasgow. Our flight was to leave ATL at 4:30 and leave Toronto at 8:05. We had an early lunch with the in-laws. Although it was way early, we decided to go ahead to the airport. We arrived at the terminal at 1:00. I decided to go ahead and check in with Air Canada. I presented my tickets to the desk attendant. Her eyes got huge! She explained that with having to change terminals and with the Toronto airport construction, there'd be no way we could make our connection. There was a 2:00 flight with two seats left and she changed us to it. We went through security at the "T" gate because it was faster. We only had carryon luggage, but I put my table top tripod in my main bag. When folded up, it looked like a gun to the x-ray scanner and they had to search my bag!

I crammed everything back in the bag and once getting to the terminal, we literally ran to the gate. When we were 100 feet away, someone yelled from the gate asking us if we were the MacMillans. We answered yes. They held the plane 5 minutes for us to make it. We got a lot of dirty looks when we boarded.

We made Toronto fine and checked in to get our seat assignment. It turned out the flight was overbooked and they said we'd get our assignment at the gate. I was very nice when we got to the gate and they said they still didn't have an assignment and asked us to be patient. They finally called us back to the counter and handed us our boarding pass. We were assigned 3A and 3B! They thanked us for our patience and pointed out the gentleman who came up behind us earlier wasn't nearly as polite. He flew to Scotland at the back of the plane, next to the lavatory!

The suicide by train seems to be a weekly occurrence in many cities in Germany. Perhaps part of the Werther Effect? (thank Goethe for this phrase and phenomen) Either that, or drunks falling onto the tracks at the stations. It will make train delays for hours as trains get backed up.

Surprised no one has mentioned being stuck in Europe because of the volcano in Iceland a few years ago. 1000's were stranded, many of them sleeping airside in the airports for at least 5 days because of not having visas for the country where they were stuck. Frankfurt airport had about 800 px stuck here. Would be interested to hear stories about that.