Excuses, excuses - you missed your flight because.....

[ozbeachbabe]

What's the best or worse excuse you've heard someone give for missing a flight?

Don't know about the best but probably one of the dumbest reasons I heard about was last week when there was a fail to board pax who had checked in at the airport with a bag (ie not OLCI) then vanished completely when the flight was due to depart.

Airport cleaner found his boarding pass left on lounge near checkin and handed it in.

Pax was subsequently offloaded & bag removed from aircraft hold. Nil contact number for pax due to being a travel agent booking & also after hours so agency not open so seemed like he'd dropped off the face of the earth.

About 6 hours later pax returns to the airport for a booking on afternoon flight to same destination and when quizzed about where he'd been earlier responded "I didn't feel very well so I went home....I had a hangover". Was given his bag back to checkin again and duly checks in for the second time that day & subsequently boards his new flight without incident.

His father had paid for a new ticket which is probably just as well as I don't think he would've had a snowballs chance in hell of using his other one having caused a delay to his previous flight.

 

[jb747]

Couple arrived at airport and went to the lounge. Didn't check in, but had a some drinks. Eventually checked in quite late, and weren't allocated seats together. Boarded aircraft. Towards the end of boarding the bloke starts to put on a bit of an act with regard to being split up (different surnames and the bookings). Not even slightly nice about it, when all he needed to do was sit down to allow the aircraft to get going, and the cabin crew would have sorted something out later.

Eventually goes to aerobridge and starts arguing with the agent.....off the aircraft. Departure time arrives, and goes. Captain finds out what is going on. Orders door closed. The girl was so embarrassed by the behaviour of the bloke that she quite happily went to Gold Coast for the weekend without him.

 

[JohnK]

I have heard of people missing their flight in the morning as they woke up with a hangover and could not be bothered.

I have woken up with a hangover many times and still managed to make the flight although when I look back I have no idea how I managed to wake up in the first place.

 

[BAM1748]

I have heard of people missing their flight in the morning as they woke up with a hangover and could not be bothered.

I have woken up with a hangover many times and still managed to make the flight although when I look back I have no idea how I managed to wake up in the first place.

You're not the only one...

 

[NM]

I must be a boring bloke. The only times I have missed flights is due o a late inbound arrival and missing a connection. I can only think of this happening 3 or 4 times in all my flying, so can't complain really.

 

[samh004]

I have woken up with a hangover many times and still managed to make the flight although when I look back I have no idea how I managed to wake up in the first place.

You're not the only one...

I had that issue in MEL and made my flight and received some warm water and panadol from the JQ staff

Then again on another occasion in Shanghai I over-slept and missed my flight, but as I was flying CX they just re-booked me on the next one, no questions asked. So in that case I didn’t give an excuse

 

[anat0l]

I have never missed a flight before, except one time I was on a status run in NZ (when Jetconnect domestic was still going), and due to delayed aircraft I missed my next set of flights (of course all on different itineraries due to routing/booking rules). Messy clean up, that was.

I've come very close to missing some flights, but I have just made it in all cases. I'm not going to go into them now - unless the jury wishes me to - because I'm sure the stories have been told many times scattered about the forums.

I don't know of many people who have missed flights before, although FT (and to a much lesser extent, AFF) has its fair share of anecdotes of people missing flights for various reasons (most popular one seems to be reading the wrong date or time on the itinerary, or going to the wrong airport (city served by co-terminals)).

I'm sure, ozbeachbabe, you must have heard your share of interesting ones as well as straight out chestnuts.

 

[blu]

Mrs B said "20:00 that's a 10pm departure".
Without too much thought, I replyed yes.
Got to spend an extra day at NRT.

 

[Reggie]

My very first flight in my new career, I missed the 6:00am PER-KGI on a Monday morning with Ansett. I was standing in line for 40mins but didn't hear the call to come to the front and drop my bags. Luckily back then they had 3 flights at that time of the morning 6.00, 6.10 and 6:30. I got on the 6:30 which turned out to be a lot better flight, it had IFE:shock:, which the 2 earlier flights didn't. From there on in, I always caught the 6:30am flight.

As a side, exit was by rear and forward steps, I was in very last row, and was standing waiting, waiting for the door to open, looked back at my seat, and there was my wallet, it had fallen out of my back pocket. I had 2 lots of luck that morning.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Another problem is cities with departures just after midnight so for example Wednesday at 0030 essentially means you go out to the airport Tuesday at 2330. It's almost impossible to convince the masses that there are not 26 hours in the day and if you turn up for your Wednesday flight at 2330 you are in fact 24 hours too late as when the clock ticks over to 0000 it becomes Thursday.

Too many times people turn up for flights 24 hours too late, no matter what airline it is - QF/DJ/JQ/TT who all have these wee hours of the morning departure times.

It's got nothing to do with whether their itinerary is in am/pm or 24 hour clock, they still get it wrong. Case in point a couple turn up clutching an itinerary showing both time format and say the itinerary wasn't clear whether it was am or pm.

They got it wrong on both counts because if it was am they would have been (correctly) at the airport 24 hours earlier, pm they would've missed the flight by 12 hours but here they were standing there 24 hours too late.

I seriously think people have an issue with the new day starting at 0000 and finishing at 2359. So many people think 0030 Tue means you have all of Tuesday at your destination they go out to the airport that night.

Don't know if there's an easy way to explain it to people but I'd love to hear any ideas.

 

[anat0l]

Don't know if there's an easy way to explain it to people but I'd love to hear any ideas.

Hows about forcing every single Australian back to school until they can comfortably pass year 10 maths?

Absolutely embarrassing how many people can't understand 24-hour times. How do the Europeans get it so right?

At least 0000h is easier to understand than 12:00am.

 

[rambisyouth]

About 10 years ago I missed my JFK-LAX flight because I was on 'Kramer's Reality Tour' and it ran late. They happily let me on the next flight so no harm done.

 

[stryker]

You've all obviously heard of United's (UA) "flat tire" rule...

 

[tuapekastar]

Hows about forcing every single Australian back to school until they can comfortably pass year 10 maths?

Absolutely embarrassing how many people can't understand 24-hour times. How do the Europeans get it so right?

At least 0000h is easier to understand than 12:00am.

It is, but when I'm involved with any scheduling of changes or activities, I deliberately avoid 0000 as a time. When I need something to happen at midnight, I'll always put 2359 on 21/12, or 0001 on 22/12...absolutely beyond doubt then.

Of course that's not exactly relevant to OBB's observation re 0030 times, and I have heard of this happening, one time to a friend who was picking up his daughter at MEL after a flight from LHR.

Knowing her to have a problem with times, he interrogated her intensely on the phone as to dep/arr times and she was positive she would arrive at a specific time on a specific date. Of course, she was 24 hours out, and he wasted a trip. I think the airline staffer told him he was not allowed to say whether she was on the particular flight he was waiting for, but if he turned up again 24 hours later, he would not necessarily be unhappy.

 

[dajop]

It is, but when I'm involved with any scheduling of changes or activities, I deliberately avoid 0000 as a time. When I need something to happen at midnight, I'll always put 2359 on 21/12, or 0001 on 22/12...absolutely beyond doubt then.

QF used to do exactly that with QF29 MEL-HKG-LHR, in the past during summer it used to depart at 2359, although this year I note it has been 23:55 or 23:50. As an aside probably one of the few commerical flights had a scheduled departure from an Australian airport not on a 0 or a 5.

 

[whereishome]

Hows about forcing every single Australian back to school until they can comfortably pass year 10 maths?

Absolutely embarrassing how many people can't understand 24-hour times. How do the Europeans get it so right?

Well, they don't have this issue in Japan or Europe (mostly) because of the prevalence of 24h time on things like TV and train times. Some people are just idiots. And 24h time is primary school level.

 

[TimB]

Well, they don't have this issue in Japan or Europe (mostly) because of the prevalence of 24h time on things like TV and train times. Some people are just idiots. And 24h time is primary school level.

I would have thought that anyone who had ever stayed up to midnight on New Year's Eve would understand that the whole fuss of the countdown at midnight is because when you get to zero, it's the next day and of course the next year!

My own story for nearly missing a train (I guess this is off-topic on two counts) happened in 1996 when catching the Eurostar from Brussels to London. My connecting train from Aachen had been delayed (an outrage in Germany!), and so I was already running to check in. When I handed the ticket over, the agent said in impeccable English that it was for the following week. I guess she took one look at the panic on my face and immediately changed it without me even asking.

 

[Maca44]

Only ever missed one flight, and that was many years ago. Was at a luncheon in Auckland with the then gf, asked what time our flight departed and told 6.30pm. So arrived at the airport at 4.30pm only to see the plane taking off. Evidently, she didn't realise 1630 is 4.30pm, so rebooked for the following day and back to lunch.

 

[samh004]

You've all obviously heard of United's (UA) "flat tire" rule...

What’s that?

Only ever missed one flight, and that was many years ago. Was at a luncheon in Auckland with the then gf, asked what time our flight departed and told 6.30pm. So arrived at the airport at 4.30pm only to see the plane taking off. Evidently, she didn't realise 1630 is 4.30pm, so rebooked for the following day and back to lunch.

:O

I really am surprised sometimes. Then again, I had a digital watch in 24-hour time all through high school and friends would always look at it and ask what it meant. It’s not hard to learn, yet so many can’t handle it at all.

 

[medhead]

I seriously think people have an issue with the new day starting at 0000 and finishing at 2359. So many people think 0030 Tue means you have all of Tuesday at your destination they go out to the airport that night.

Don't know if there's an easy way to explain it to people but I'd love to hear any ideas.

Just point out that when the clocks strikes 12 it's going to be Wednesday. Really there is no explaining stupidity.

For 00:00 another alternative is midnight. midnight and midday are highly underrated.

As for the topic, i've heard of 2 people travelling for work who missed the aircraft while waiting for the b*s from the long term carpark to the terminal at ADL. 20 minutes between b*ses or 7 minute walk.