Whats your best experience on a delayed flight?

[pgsdiver]

On our recent trip to Solomon Islands, we had a scheduled stop at the island of Munda, on our way from Honiara to Gizo. Upon landing, a tyre on our Dash 8 blew. A new tyre had to be brought in from the capital overnight. Normally such an event would see Mrfefe develop Hulk like rage, but the soothing, warm tropical breeze seemed to have mesmerised him. And when they walked us all down to the waterfront hotel for our overnight stay, and propped us up in the overwater bar with unlimited Solbrew beer, fish and tropical fruit, well he was the most Zen I think I have ever seen him! And we met some absolutely fascinating fellow passengers, who we would otherwise have never known.

Nice.

I have spent many an hour in that very overwater bar. A wonderful place indeed - well done!!
Flying into Gizo is an experience, too. My first time the pilot performed a go around because a dog was sleeping on the runway.

 

[Mrsfefe]

I have spent many an hour in that very overwater bar. A wonderful place indeed - well done!!
Flying into Gizo is an experience, too. My first time the pilot performed a go around because a dog was sleeping on the runway.

Half your luck to have been there more than once! We definitely intend to be back, deliberately next time. And yes there were lots of divers that evening too. The other bonus I forgot to mention is that on our flight into Munda there had been dense cloud cover - no view for us. But when we left the next day the skies were clear and we got to enjoy breathtaking views into Gizo. We could clearly see why it is a paradise for divers!

 

[Batesy]

Before I knew much about this travel Malarkey and premium travel I was on my way back from a wedding in Denmark. CPH-LHR-SIN-SYD. All in Y as a paid QC bronze member.
Delayed out of CPH, just made connection to QF flight to SIN.
QF Jumbo gets to SIN and goes tech. Cancelled. Sent to Mandarin oriental. Back then had never experienced such a good hotel.
Get to SIN next morning, beg for an aisle seat on the next flight as LHR-SIN was on a window, had to climb over others to get out and I get up a lot.
Boom!! Upgraded to J. First ever J flight and addicted ever since.
So 1 night in a premium hotel meals included and first ever skybed. Plus they sent me a $1000 voucher and I got J status credits SIN-SYD.

 

[Tassieoptom]

Before I knew much about this travel Malarkey and premium travel I was on my way back from a wedding in Denmark. CPH-LHR-SIN-SYD. All in Y as a paid QC bronze member.
Delayed out of CPH, just made connection to QF flight to SIN.
QF Jumbo gets to SIN and goes tech. Cancelled. Sent to Mandarin oriental. Back then had never experienced such a good hotel.
Get to SIN next morning, beg for an aisle seat on the next flight as LHR-SIN was on a window, had to climb over others to get out and I get up a lot.
Boom!! Upgraded to J. First ever J flight and addicted ever since.
So 1 night in a premium hotel meals included and first ever skybed. Plus they sent me a $1000 voucher and I got J status credits SIN-SYD.

Reminds me about a flight out of Hong Kong, 1994, and i was a lowly student traveling back from India where myself and three others had been on placement. Think the flights/accom and trip entire was less than $1800, not bad for 6 weeks travel. So in Y and on a QF for the last leg all seated together. We all get called to a desk, and requested to be split up so a family of 4 could sit together. One of my travelling mates was having none of it, so we refused. Got called up 2 more times, each one refusing. In the end the Qantas attendant offered us all to be upgraded to J. Being stubborn but poor students we said yes, it was the first time overseas for 3 of us and never in J. Was nothing too special back then, but the food was good and the booze was also good. Looking back, we were acting a bit like coughs, but politely refusing every request. They probably should have given the family the upgrade. Still worked out for us.

 

[OZDUCK]

On our way to Europe in 2017 our Finnair flight out of Singapore was cancelled. After some fooling around with Twitter I rang Finnair in Finland - there Singapore office, if it was actually staffed, never answered the phone. They initially offered us a CX connection. But after checking I found out that it was in Y not J, so refused. They then offered to put us on Qatar in J, which we accepted.

It was two amazing flights - 1A & 1E in an almost brand new A350 -900 with a quick stopover in Doha. Then a trip in a newish A320 equipped with full lie-flat seats. The bonus was flying over the Russian steppes in early dawnlight. We had very friendly and efficient crew on both legs plus great food - especially compared to the Finnair 'express' meals on our overnight return flight. The trip was so good that our last three European trips have been booked with QR.

 

[Danger UXB]

Earlier this year returning from the annual boys ski week in the french Alps. Was booked on a Swiss/SQ *A first redemption ticket GVA-LHR-SIN-MEL with the LX sector in J and the SQ sectors in suites/F.
Pulled up at GVA airport and received a text from LX to say that my GVA LHR flight had been cancelled. Then received a second text to say rerouting me thru GVA-ZRH-SIN. I was a bit cheesed as I thought my my ZRH-SIN flight was departing the following morning on SQ . On closer inspection they had moved me to Swiss F ZRH-SIN, something that you normally cannot book with kris points, so I arrived back in MEL on the same SIN-MEL flight. Swiss F was very pleasant and they could show SQ a thing or to on how to put an F amentity kit together (have you seen how much that La Prairie costs!!). Also managed do a few tastings from the wine fridge in the Swiss F lounge in ZRH. Certainly a plane cancellation to remember.

 

[Seat0B]

Flying Sydney to London in J on a Qantas A380 - already enjoying the Qantas First Lounge. Looking forward to a special occasion with our son in London shortly after arrival. Delay - 1 hour. Next announcement - delay 4 hours. Next announcement - delay overnight. So many people trying to get onto other flights, so many very good reasons they had to be there, that we decided to just surrender to the great Gods of Travel.

We were taken by taxi to a very nice hotel, given food vouchers (though really what could you eat after all that time in the first lounge!), taken by bus back to the airport very early the next morning and straight back into the First Lounge for breakfast. Then they brought over our new boarding passes. OMG First class all the way to London. It doesn't get much better than that. And we still made the special occasion with our son in London (just).

 

[trippin_the_rift]

My best experience...

Woke up at 3 am to start a status credit run...... to see that first flight was delayed. That would cause me to miss 3 more QF connections that day.
Called QF, asked for original routing credit and went back to bed.

 

[Flying Fox]

Woke up at 3 am to start a status credit run...... to see that first flight was delayed. That would cause me to miss 3 more QF connections that day.
Called QF, asked for original routing credit and went back to bed.

Did you get a refund of points or $ or use the flights for another time?

 

[jsoprano]

I believe I have shared this story here before, but always a pleasure re-living the events.

AKL-MEL in EK First on the A380 with +1. It must have been 2011 or 2012, a week after Easter and a Sunday night. The flight would have gotten us home around 10pm ready for a Monday at the office after a 10-day roadtrip around NZ (and the EK First experience was meant to be a great ending to a beautiful trip - my first flight in F ever, I believe).

All went to plan at first - boarding on-time, settled in well in the suites, Dom as a welcome drink, push back on time. Then during taxi we suddenly stopped, just opposite the Domestic terminal. took some 10-15 mins before the CPT came on the PA telling us of some display issue they are trying to resolve, "won't be long". Another 5 or so minutes past and we started rolling again, only to stop again a few hundred meters later, and wait some more. CPT on the PA again: "okay folks, we will go back to the gate and wait for an engineer." So we did. Waited for a while, engineer came on board, something was happening. Then we were informed something was broken (I cannot remember what it was), but we were not going anywhere on this plane until a part had been replaced, and they were now sourcing that part. Updates to follow. It then turned out the part was in AKL but in bond storage, so they had to get it through customs and paperwork etc., plus fitting it, "at least another 2 hours" (by that time we were already 2 hours late).

The whole thing turned into somewhat of a rolling delay, 2 hours became 3 which became 4 ... Luckily the crew did not run out of hours! But we were very comfortable in F, with Dom and other drinks flowing, dinner on the ground, a proper bed to rest, etc. Meanwhile, the folks in Y were getting desperate (they also had to shut down the lavatories for an hour or so while the engineers were working on something; at the same time we were asked if we wanted to shower now or later when in the air!). So a few hours in everyone was allowed to de-board and stretch their feet, and they cordoned off the A380 pier for this flight. We had a chat with some guys who were going all the way to Europe, so this delay would have easily turned their journey into a 40+ hours affair (in Y!!).

Eventually everything was fixed and we were on our way. We must have finally left AKL around 2:30 or 3am, because we got into MEL around 5am. Caught some sleep on the flight over, but went to work in a less than ideal shape.

And now the best part: that same day, before I could even email EK customer service about the delay, I received an email with a sincere apology, and as a service recovery they were crediting us 40k Skywards points each (the flight was a reward and did cost around 45k, IIRC). I still had a few Skywards points in my account at that time, so what did we do? We did the exact same flight in EK F again, a few months later. Just this time without the delay. A great 2 for 1 experience!

 

[trooper]

Not the flight itself...but the notification of delay, and the excellent service from the NZ call centre to get things sorted..n THE most advantageous way...lol

At the height of NZ's engine problems I was in the US..a few days out from flying home. Got a "Schedule change" message. Called in and was told we'd been shifted (from the Monday Night) to a Monday DAY flight to AKL - with a hotel that night - and on to SYD Tuesday. For various reasons (Restricted baggage/Import permits) that didn't work for us...so after several call backs (very prompt ones!) we were offered the Tuesday day flight (which had a same day connection to SYD - unlike Monday) Nothing remarkable I know. Here's the good bit. I was in PE. I had a Silver UG cert applied to the subsequent SYD-AKL flight. The call centre lady noticed this and said "Why don't I apply that UG certificate to the LAX-AKL flight instead". She could no doubt see how empty that flight was! It cleared without any trouble at all. There were I think 8 of us in J... maybe 6 in PE...and about 30 in Y. How nice of her to notice that and suggest it.