OT: Can’t Get Home Travel Stories

Back in the late summer of 2000, my flight from LGA to DTW was delayed, and then cancelled, due to t-storms that came through in the late afternoon into the evening. It was supposed to be a day trip (I'd flown in on an early AM flight), so I didn't have so much as a toothbrush with me.

Standing in line at the ticket counter, the agent told a few other passengers that flights were so full it might be 2 days before everyone could get out. It was already about 7:30 PM, so I made the decision to rent a car and drive the 12 hrs back to Michigan. Another passenger in line at the counter was also headed to Detroit, so we went together.

We drove all night, lived on caffeine, and got to DTW around 7:30 AM. I was so exhausted by the time I got to my house, that I was hallucinating. I think I slept for 12 continuous hours that day.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xaBE_Yw5tlo

Some Winwood & Clapton for you to help pass the time.  
 

I was stuck in the Portland Airport, returning from Vancouver, during the Great Atlanta Ice Storm several years ago.  Having grown up in Michigan, we got a the equivalent of a minor March snow.  Got to drink some Aviator Gin before it got famous during my “layover”. 

On September 10, 2001, I flew from my home in Huntsville, Alabama to Seattle for a one day meeting.  It took a few days to get home after that; I was on the second flight out of Seattle after that happened.  I was lucky that I had Platinum status on Delta as I didn't have to stand in the line that was a 1/4 mile long to get to the ticket counter.

To get away from the reality that was happening at the time, I spent a day at the Experience Music Project and saw some of the most famous guitars in the world (including Brownie, the guitar used by Clapton on Layla).  I also spent a day driving up to the Paradise Lodge on the south side of Mt Rainier.

A couple years ago I taught at a summer school in Siberia. My last Tuesday of the trip was ending I was in Lithuania and our hostile screwed us so we stayed at a bar until our 8am flight. I flew to Belarussia and had a 5 hour tour of Minsk then to Kazakhstan and Finland with lengthy layovers. I landed in New York on Friday and my connection to Detroit got cancelled until Sunday so I live in the New York Airport until then.

TLDR: From a Tuesday-Sunday I didn't get to sleep in a bed or shower. Horrible.

My wife and I took our honeymoon to Costa Rica in February of 2019.  Everything was good going down and we had an outstanding time, but the traveling home got interesting very quickly...

We were leaving out of the Liberia airport on a Saturday, early afternoon. We had the same flight plan going as we did coming down, which was Liberia to Houston to Grand Rapids.  When we arrive at the airport, we discover the line for the United counter is out the door (using United was our first mistake).  There are no other airlines with a long line, so this struck us as odd.  After standing in line for 30 minutes with no movement, a United rep that spoke English approached us and said their computer system in Central America was down.  Therefore, the poor United rep had to check everyone in with his own personal cell phone.  This whole thing was so silly we were then printed a boarding pass on the printer that normally prints off baggage tickets.

The fun continues after security. We are on the plane finally, 90 minutes late.  We're down to a small chance of making our connection.  It seems like we are ready to push back from the gate when the pilot comes on and tell us that because we have had some delays and  the computer issue our flight plan has been cancelled.  Therefore, until they could get ahold of the flight plan people in Chicago and get a new one we could not leave.  We then sit on the runaway with limited Air Conditioning when it is 90 plus outside and there is now a 0% chance we can make our connection.  

Finally, after another 30 minutes, we leave.  When we make it to Houston a United Rep greets us after customs with the usual vouchers and such.  The fun continues: Bush airport has a very nice Marriot in it, however, United had so many F ups that day they had completely filled every room.  Since we were the last flight in for the night that was screwed up we are sent to a Holiday Inn near the airport that looked like it had been built in 1950 and not renovated since 1980.  Also, it is now 10 PM by this point so the only restaurant that will take our vouchers is the one at the hotel.  The food should not have been fed to a dog.  

As a final disaster, we are walking to our room after dinner when we came upon a wing of the hotel with plastic hanging up at the hallway entrance with a large sign that says, "DO NOT ENTER: MOLD BEHIND THIS BARRIER."  This was the tipping point of my wife flipping out. Not only did United get us stranded they put is in a hotel with mold. Luckily we made it home okay the next day and my recap of the events to a United Rep got me $400 in vouchers but still, what a disaster.  

In around 2006 i was in transit grom Dubai to DTW in Amsterdam and my plane was struck by lightening just before we boarded. Got a free pass for a night in Amsterdam and went out with some equally stranded marines. Good times (though not really what you are thinking because no one in the party could partake in any Amsterdam special at the time). 

You sound like you are doing alright with things, but sometimes these situations are a great reminder that you don’t need to delay your happiness. You can be happy right now. Often in travel when facing delays and postponements we reach for the “when I get home…” thought instead of the “right here right now” thought. This has been your moment of zen.

also sorry that sucks, and I hope you get home soon!

Coming back from somewhere a couple years ago, had about a 6 hour layover in Chicago before 25 minute flight to Champaign. So I bought a day pass for the American Airlines lounge and got to watch MMB beat OSU, which was good. Went to my gate, but the weather was getting worse with snow starting. Flew to Champaign, but ceilings were too low, so missed approach and back to Chicago. Got on my phone and made a reservation for a rental car with Hertz. Several other passengers at the gate were also trying to get home, so I offered to share my prospective rental. We walked to the Hertz desk, where I was told that, despite my confirmed reservation, they didn’t have a car for me. Went upstairs to Avis, where the nice lady said her manager had authorized one-way rentals for that night. I paid a ridiculous amount for this rental, drove south, dropped everyone off, and got home about 2 am.

Because of the timing and the event at the center of the travel, more than a few people here might relate to this story.

I went to the Michigan-Georgia game this year. My party and I were thankful to successfully reach Punta Gorda, FL from Traverse City on an Allegiant flight that landed a few hours before gametime. We all know how the game went. Still happy to have been there. Interesting side note: Our free parking lot was two rows wide by a mile long. (I'm not kidding.)

We spent a pleasant couple of days in South Florida and dined at the Punta Gorda Waffle House just prior to boarding our return flight which ... didn't happen. (Got the e-mail while waiting for the food.)

It was about 5 in the morning so we started driving north and checking flights. There wasn't anything for Tampa and Orlando that day and we planned to drive to Atlanta. It sounds crazy, but flights were being cancelled at multiple airports due to COVID, etc. We considered the remote possibility that we'd have to drive the whole way and wanted to get a good start. En route a family member found flights to Detroit from Jacksonville, so we angled up that way.

We ultimately arrived in TC around 1 A.M. Tuesday. (We'd expected to be home before the start of the workday on Monday.)

Got email last night (2am!) from Jet Blue saying our flight to Milwaukee was cancelled. The next flight available: Tuesday. Ugh!

Have I got a story for you....

- Neal Page

My wife and daughter came back from Orlando Friday night.  The flight was supposed to leave at 9 pm but was 3 hours late.  The path for the plane for the day was JFK - PBI - LGA - MCO -DTW.  The first flight of the day was 9 hours late.  Fortunately for my family they cancelled the flight to LGA and the flight to MCO and took the plane empty to Orlando so they could get home.  I suspect people in Palm Beach were stranded.  We know others who have been stranded.  The flights are so full there is nowhere for them to rebook people.

We got stranded a few years before in Orlando thanks to Frontier but only for a night  If you're stranded on Frontier you are on your own.

We escaped Miami yesterday with only an hour or so delay and feel very fortunate.  

The gates to the left (Pittsburgh) and right (Columbus) had cancellation announcements while we were waiting to board.  

Reduced flights due to staffing issues makes any weather delay or IT problems (Southwest had both) a nightmare during a peak travel season like Spring Break 

I honestly cannot remember all the trips/details, but I have had to spend the night at both the PHX and MDW airports. 

Worst travel story was when the engine on our plane started spitting fire due to a compressor failure on takeoff from ATL to LAX. Pilot cut the fuel to that engine while barreling down the runway and we were still able to barely takeoff before running out of runway. Circled for 2 hours then "crash landed" back at ATL. We then boarded another plane and made it safely to LA.

Interesting fact: sitting in 1st class was Tony Gonzalez, his wife, and two kids.

Scary time.

So, I was in NYC on a business trip around Thanksgiving. At the time we were living in Chicago, and I was trying desperately to get back in time for family and turkey on Thanksgiving. It's Tuesday, I've got two days. Should be easy right?  No. Starting from jump there's some nonsense with getting a cab and some guy stealing my cab. But inevitably, I make it to JFK and on my flight. That said, as expected, a massive storm comes blowing through while we're on our way to ORD and we're diverted... to Wichita!

Wichita, if you've ever been there, is teeny tiny. And since what felt like half the country was diverted to other destinations, by the time I got into town there were literally no rooms. None. Things were so desperate, I ended up trying to room with this guy I met on the plane. Mistake, I know. To make it worse, it's one single double bed. To make it even worse, we're robbed in Wichita over night.

So, Wichita is grounded. The storm, if you remember, was a disaster. So, I get the bright idea to buy us train tickets. I say us, because out of the goodness of my heart, and somewhat to thank my new travel companion for letting me crash with him, I bought both tickets. 

Anyways, the train gets snowed-in? ouside of Jeff City, Missouri. Yeah, I didn't know that was a thing either. But there we were. Stuck in the middle of nowhere Missourah. Eventually we get on a bus to St Louis. Where I get the bright idea to rent a car.

Come to find out, there are no cars in St Louis. And by the way, the people working at the car rental are morons. I try to get a Cab to drive me the 5ish hours from STL to Chicago. That's not happening. 

My "buddy" somehow gets a rental. He invites me to ride with him. He's a certifiable lunatic. Somehow the car catches on fire, the roof comes off, and come to find out, somehow this identity thief used MY credit card to pay for the rental in the first place. How? I have NO IDEA.

In the end, we ride in the back of a semi  to get to Chicago, before one last ride on the L. 

Thankfully though, I made it back just in time for Thanksgiving.

Crazy right?

Well the timing of this....

About 10 days ago we were in Juliaca Peru, and this was starting our trip home. We had a 1 PM flight home and 15 minutes before boarding we were told the flight was delayed. 20 minutes later the president of Peru was announced he would be landing and we would fly out after. 5 hours later we were told he was shutting down the airport because he wasn't leaving that night. Wow the riots that happened that night. They dislike their president like we like ours...lmao. 

We then had to fly the next day to Lima, get tested to come back home which still pisses me off, and then fly the next day home. The hilarious part of the trip was that we had to wear a mask on the plane considering EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE PLANE had to test negative to fly home. 

The part that sucks is that I have never had a flight cancelled before and didn't realize when this happens that you have to buy a new plane ticket to come home. What a scam.

Go Blue!!!!

I was in Barcelona and went to the airport to catch my flight to Prague. I carried my big bag around all day because it was a pain to have to go back to the hotel later and then back out again. I got to the airport and couldn't find my flight. I started freaking out. I looked at my papers again and the flight was for the following day. I have no idea how I did that. Better than going a day late though!

Other bad travel story. I packed everything and I went over things a couple times like usual but had this feeling like I was forgetting something. Thought about it over and over and figured I was probably fine. My dad was giving me a ride to the airport. As we're getting off the highway he asks if I have everything and lists a couple things. The second he said "passport" I was like "OH FUCK!" and immediately knew I didn't have it. Missed my flight. It's basically the only thing I HAD to have to get on the flight. When I have an upcoming international flight I put my passport on top of my wallet for a week or so beforehand as a constant reminder to bring it.

Flying from NRT -> LAX... get diverted to IAH.  Another 2.5 hours in the air; yay!  After starting out the day in SIN. Which was kinda cool because the flight took off late on my birthday; crossed the dateline, got to celebrate my birthday twice in the same year. 

According to the moving map display, fly right over my house.

The wx that diverted us starts approaching TX so they shut down for the night.  Ended up sleeping in the airport to catch a flight the next day. <-- which gets cancelled because the network is a mess and planes aren't where they are supposed to be.

Finally get out of IAH at 5 PM.  Middle seat, last row, and I'm 1K on United.  60 hour travel 'day'.

I spent the night in the Charlotte airport once and got to stay at a crappy hotel in Tokyo also.  But those are mild stories compared to some here.  

My best one came my senior year at Michigan.  I had a job interview at Caterpillar in Peoria, IL along with my girlfriend (now wife) and one other guy from Michigan.  They flew us to  St. Louis and then we were going to connect on a tiny plane to Peoria.  Weather caused a long delay to our first flight and when we finally landed in St. Louis there were no more connections.  Until the next day.  

But this was a job interview for after graduation and none of us wanted to miss it.  So we went to rent a car....but most places wouldnt rent to us because we were too young.  We finally found one and drove in the middle of the night thru cornfields until getting to our hotel about 2am.  We overslept and scrambled to make the interview, but got there in time.  

After a long day of interviews we learned that we couldn't leave the rental in Peoria because that agency didn't have a hub there, so we had to drive back to StL and fly home from there.  To top it all off....they only made me an offer and not my wife.  Thankfully we got better jobs in Chicago instead of having to live in Peoria anyway.

March 2016: Had the last flight out of St Thomas thinking my wife and I were getting another day at the beach/pool. 

Heading to Atlanta to connect to DTW. Gigantic storm has Atlanta closed so we circle around and around then sent to Spartanburg/Greenville to land. Finally Atlanta reopens but our flight crew is out of time. Wait for new crew then back to Atlanta. Obviously miss connection to DTW. Wife gets on the phone with Delta and gets us on first flight out next morning. Now it's nearly midnight so we sleep on the floor in the terminal and fly out at 7am. Man those floors were hard 😂

This just happened a few weeks ago….

I wanted to see David Byrne’s American Utopia and discovered the show was closing on April 3, so the wife and I booked a trip to NYC to see that show and her choice, Six.  We booked a Thursday morning flight with plenty of time to get ready for dinner and the show that night.  We’d see Six on Friday night and head home on Sat morning.

Mother Nature had other plans.  We check in for the flight to LaGuardia and 30 minutes later we get a delay notification of 1 hour.  We boarded after 2 hours of delays.  We get everyone on the plane and further delays are announced.  Another hour and 15 minutes and we finally learn that the problem is fog.  There’s still enough cushion that we came make the show.  We take off and things are going well until I notice we are in a holding pattern somewhere over eastern PA.  Pilot comes on indicating we can stay in the pattern for about 15 minutes, then we’ll need to gas up somewhere.

Fifteen minutes pass and we get diverted to Pittsburgh.  We land there, get off the plane and are told the flight will depart Pittsburgh at 7pm the following morning to continue to LaGuardia.  I find out that Newark and JFK don’t have fog problems, but it’s now too late to get on a flight to get there.  I’ve got a pair of expensive show tickets in my phone, it’s now less than an hour to show time, so I end up eating the tickets and the cost of a hotel room in NYC.  The cherry on top was that our bag was not on the plane.  It looked like it was somehow still at O’Hare.  At least we did get a decent hotel room and there was Mexican restaurant down the street that was still open.

We changed our return flight to Sunday morning, added a night at our hotel, and I purchased another expensive pair of tickets to see American Utopia on Saturday night.

When we got to LaGuardia on Friday morning, our bag was there.  It arrived on an earlier flight on Thursday that got in before LaGuardia closed due to fog.

And….American Utopia did not disappoint.  It made up for all the extra $$ and travel frustrations.

does anyone remember that huge volcanic eruption in the spring of 2010?  Over 95,000 flights had been cancelled all across Europe during the six-day airspace ban, with later figures suggesting 107,000 flights cancelled during an 8-day period, accounting for 48% of total air traffic and roughly 10 million passengers.  here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_travel_disruption_after_the_2010_Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull_eruption

anyway, i had to get to africa and was connecting through amsterdam.  northwest kept telling me that the flight would be fine, no problem, no need to rebook, but i'm getting antsy.  2 days before scheduled flight i make a change, leave a day early, go 'under' the ash cloud by using rome as the stop and a different airline.  a buddy of mine was joining me on the trip and he was coming out of seattle, so i had to change his flights, too. 

long-story-short, they ultimately cancelled that original flight at the last minute, but by changing arrangements we made it without a problem.  and i had bought travel insurance when booking, so the increased cost was compensated.  a near-miss.  

Enough horror stories, here's the opposite. This is from the early 80s when I was still married to number 1 (aka, The Mistake) and a pampered high tech exec.

Had a series of meetings in Geneva, flight from "Bahstan to Geneve" is as flawless and timeless as a Swiss timepiece. Meetings go perfectly for several days, yay! Exceed all goals! Success! 

Fly into Nice to take a personal weekend in Cannes before heading back home to The Mistake. A brief phone call home that morning from the airport confirms just how seriously mistaken my judgment was in this marriage; decide to pull the rip cord; phone my admin after hanging up and have her book meetings in Nice the next two Fridays (only) while extending my car and my Cannes hotel stay for two weeks, this being over the July 4th period.

I spend the next two weeks in Cannes (with day trips to St. Tropez and Monaco), all on company dime. US Navy frigate shoots off fireworks in the harbor to celebrate the 4th, viewed from roof top pool. Meet a lovely ex pat American setting up early and scouting for the Cannes Film Festival. Emphasis on lovely. Life was, indeed, *very good* for those two weeks. 

Met wife number 2 (aka, The Keeper) about 18 months later. Left the pampered high tech life 5 years later. Life is still *very good*.

A number of years ago, we flew home from Tel Aviv to Chicago via Istanbul.  Our flight to Istanbul was delayed an hour, so we missed our flight to Chicago and had to spend the night in Istanbul.  Turkish airlines put us up in a nice hotel.  Since we were stuck there, we took a cab to the Hagia Sophia and explored different parts of the city.   Contacted Turkish Airlines to have visa fees reimbursed and they actually reimbursed that whole leg for both my wife and I.  $700 each.   Couldn't believe it.   That was one flight I didn't mind things going wrong. 

Flying from Detroit into one of the NYC airports. One airport didn't want anymore planes because of a t-storm, the other one did. We had to change planes and basically re-check-in but it will be easy because the first airplane/airport will send the second airplane/airport every passengers info (i.e. say your name and show i.d.) then go through security again. My mom and I where one of the first people in line, but our info never got sent right away. We where the last to check in and we made it on the plane 5 minutes before they shut the gate.

Same thing happened to us in Florida after the Orange Bowl. We were supposed to fly back on New Year's Day, but our flight was cancelled right as we were leaving for the game on Friday night (should've known it was a bad sign). I kept getting texts from the airline telling me we had been rescheduled, but it was through Orlando, and then there was no flight from Orlando to Chicago so we'd have to lay over there. But then the flight to Orlando got cancelled, too (I was getting these texts while we were losing to Georgia so the whole thing was a huge downer). Finally, the airline conceded that there weren't going to be any flights to Chicago on Saturday because of the weather and the earliest we could get out was Monday, but we'd have to fly through Houston, so it was an  entire day of traveling. We didn't bring enough clothes so we went to TJ Maxx and bought a couple of t-shirts to last us til Monday. Fortunately, the weather in Florida was great. Unfortunately, my husband and I both got Covid during the trip. We started to get symptoms the morning of our flight and immediately stopped at a testing place once we got back to Chicago, even before we went home. Test came back negative, but we retested the next day and we were positive. We were both sick for two weeks. All in all, not a great trip. 

Not necessarily a "couldn't get home" story, but it almost could have been.

My family traveled from DTW to Puerto Vallarta via Houston on old Continental Airlines (now United) for a week-long vacation about a few weeks before my final year in Ann Arbor in 2003. Our flight to Houston left around 8 in the morning (IIRC) and we got into Puerto Vallarta in the late afternoon local time. The first thing we did in the hotel room was turn on the TV and low and behold there is a massive power outage from New York to Detroit. By the time our vacation finished, things were back to normal when we got back to Michigan. We were very, very lucky to avoid that debacle. 

I've been stuck plenty of times due to once having a travel job. Most trips within a radius of, say, Buffalo to indy from Detroit I'd just drive it, get paid for the mileage, and it'd be just as fast. Often if i had to fly I'd go through Flint, even though it was further away, you were parked feet from the door, and security was a breeze. Only thing that would get me thinking twice about driving, now, would be the gas prices doubling in a year. 

Edit: should probably add the tried and tested workaround. Most delays and cancelations seem to be airport or airline related, and can be worked around. Often to get where we needed to be, when stuck, or to avoid it, we'd rent a car and drive 4 hours or so to the nearest hub in another state, or land at hubs like, say, Atlanta, rent a car, then drive across state lines, instead of catching a connecting flight.

My wife is from Peru and we go down there every December for the holidays and stay as long as possible since it’s summer down there then. Been doing this almost 20 years now so yeah I could fill a notebook with fun travel stories. Here’s two:

Was pulling out of the driveway when notified our Grand Rapids to Chicago flight was delayed 6 hours. So no chance to make the connections. Some quick math told me we could just drive to Chicago and maybe make that flight. So off we went and yes made it in time and all was well. We explained what happened when we checked in at Chicago. Fast forward a couple weeks and we go to check in at the Lima Peru airport for the trip home. Guess what-their computer canceled our itinerary because we never checked in for that first Grand Rapids flight. No notice of this was sent to anyone. After some frantic checking they booked us on similar flights the next day. So in the end not too bad but my blood pressure medicine got a workout. 
 

One year we got to Dallas but the flight to Lima had a mechanical problem. There’s only one flight a day so we end up on stand by, with vouchers for meals, hotels etc, so go pick up luggage, spend night in hotel and come back next day. Check in, wait couple hours to find out sorry no seats. Same exact shit again and still on stand by. Repeat everything and you guessed it no luck again on day 3. However the Groundhog Day routine changes here as we are then booked first class seats for the next day. That turned out to be the best flight to Lima we have ever taken. Our 5 year old fell into a comatose sleep for the entire 5-6 hour flight and we enjoyed all the first class amenities. 
 

The journey is sometimes stressing but in the end if you make it to where you want to be that’s what counts. I am starting to recall some other fun trips so I need to go do something else now. Good luck!