Traveling out of Dulles I arrived with 60 minutes to spare by train. Couldn’t get checked in, talked to the airline desk. My flight was out of Reagan. That was a costly mistake.

Never missed a flight, but my luggage once went to Manchester and I went to London. We were both supposed to go to London. I had just left my finacee in the US (we’re married now), I was jet-lagged, and just wanted to go home and be heartbroken, and Monarch Airlines sucked anyway. Either way, I think me blowing my stack at the baggage rep. was not one of my finer moments.

Got my luggage back a week later with a $25 check to apologize. Hmmph.

I only missed a flight once and i felt pretty stupid at the time as well. I took the metro to the airport and then I realized that I forgot some medicine.

I barely had time so I headed back but I messed up pretty badly because my medicine was the whole time in my backpack I just didn’t find it or was so sure that I forgot it.

Then I obviously missed my plane since I didnt get there 3 hours earlier. I missed one day in the beautiful city of Rome, but it wasn’t that bad. I think I was high at that time

Was flying from Austin TX to Lax Vegas with a stop in Salt Lake City Utah via a standby ticket. So the pros of the standby ticket was I was flying for almost nothing. The con is you can only get on the flight if there’s an available seat.

So I get to SLC no problem. But then the trip to LV had a canceled flight. So needless to say there was no standby flights available for several hours as they kept using those spaces for the canceled flight. Hours later I’m at the desk waiting for the update on the last flight of the night alongside a small family that was from SLC but had also been waiting several hours. We get the update. Not flying out till the following morning. Being that they’re from SLC and Vegas is about 6 hours away they’re all like screw it. Cancel the flights and just drive. At this point I’m like “great. Sleeping in an airport”.

So they start to leave then look to me and just ask if I want to take the ride with them. Hell yea. I’m in. Grab my bag and follow these people I’ve never even spoken to out. They tell me they’re just going to stop by home and switch cars. Cool no problem. We get to their place (it’s like midnight at this point and reality sets in for them) and they’re like hey it’s late. We’re sorry but are you ok with leaving in the morning?

So not only did I jump in total strangers car for a 6 hour ride across Utah into Nevada (whole lot of nothing between those points), but I also stopped by their house and slept on the couch.

I posted one! But I just remembered another! Showed up on the 9th of September for my flight, 3 hours early. My flight was on the 6th…

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!

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!

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.

Somehow I missed a flight while I was at the gate. Mind you it was a small plane. I still don’t understand it to this day. I was sitting at the gate waiting for them to announce boarding or watch the sign change. Nothing the whole time I was there.

Finally about 20 minutes after we were supposed to leave I get up and ask the desk staff and they tell me the plane left.

I didn’t understand how this had happened and apparently neither did they. I didn’t see anyone board the plane, there were no announcements or notifications.

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.

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.

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!

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.

I was once denied a boarding pass. I was going to another country for a week, and I had 3 or 4 months left before my passport’s expiry date. The country I was going to requires a minimum of 6 months passport validity, I had no idea that was even a rule, I didn’t even think to check.

I felt very foolish.

Missed train, but eh, whatever.

The year is 2016, I’m teaching English in Japan, and the Olympics is on TV with Nigeria vs. Japan in Soccer.

I’m normally not into Scoccer or any kind of TV sport for that matter, but I caught the game early on, and Japan was neck and neck with Nigeria. For some reason I wanted to see it play out. JAPAN scores! YES! then I remember where I was and what I was doing, and my train to Sapporo had left 30 minutes ago…

Luckily I was able to schedule another train, and what time I got there didn’t really matter, but I had to wait several hours for it to arrive. Japan ended up losing 5 to 4.