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I had an 8AM flight across the country. Got up around 5AM, drove to the airport. On the way it was delayed by 2 hours, meaning that I would miss my connecting bus. Okay fine, had to rebook that for an extra $75, what can you do my schedule permitted that sort of delay, although the cost was undesirable. I sat and had some nice sit-down breakfast. Then I got the notification that it was delayed by three hours. I once again had to cancel and rebook on the last available bus, and was now going to get in at around 8PM instead of 3PM, with a four-hour bus ride to immediately follow. There were issues with the plane that needed to be figured out, which delayed take-off by almost two extra hours. After the 3.5 hour flight, the baggage was delayed by hour after getting off the plane. I missed my bus, had to book a hotel at two in the morning, accidentally booked the wrong bus for the next morning and had to book a fourth, got four hours of sleep, then got on a bus to my final destination.

So what was supposed to be about 9 hours of travel ended up taking around 28 😐 (and around $600 extra but thankfully the airline paid for that)

Deutsche Bahn, were should i start?

I needed to go from Augsburg to munich but the rails were under repair so i had to take a train to Donauwörth, for 40 minutes, then from there wait 10 for a train to Ingolstadt, took 30-40 minutes, from there wait 20 min because the other train didnt wait, and from Ingolstadt to Munich that took 2 hours because only one rail into munich was open and so the train had to wait for 1 hour 30 minutes. All i needed to do in munich get a medical recepie... all that time for a piece of paper. Luckily way back was quicker

O'Hare (ORD).

When? Every time I've flown through it.

Longest? 20 hours... I think... My brain has tried to blank that period of time out to save my sanity.

Now I avoid flying through ORD at absolute all costs. DTW, DFW, DEN, hell even ATL are better to fly through. 3 years ago my family flew to Kauai. On the way out we connected in DEN, which went great. On the way back we had to make two stops, first at LAX, the second at ORD. We made it through LAX with no issues. Got to ORD and had a 10 hour delay. The only reason why I didn't rent a car and drive home was due to being awake for 30 hours at that point (I don't sleep on planes). Also, the plane was always "just one more hour away".

Got stuck at PHL for 18 hours, first plane was broken, when we finally were deplaned the crew had been on duty too long for the second flight, we waited for the second crew, and were about to take and the second plane was broken. They flew in a new plane for us and by the time it got there, the second crew had to leave, so we had to wait for a third crew. I wound up sleeping on some benches in a closed restaurant next to some guy who had a connecting flight out of houston to beaumont.

My worst travel experience was trying to fly out of Amsterdam's Schiphol airport in the summer of 2022. It was a nightmare combination of hot weather, a big event closing out the evening before (lots of outbound folks) and very bad staffing issues.

I got to the airport just before 10 am for my 2 pm flight, and the security line was already stupidly long, looping around a big unused hall and outside under a lousy, partial plastic canopy. I'm talking hours of waiting in either crowded indoor space or sweating under the midday sun. People were skipping the line in desperation and there were half-assed attempts to stop them. I'm a rule-follower so I waited in the queue, inching towards security.

I got to the actual security gate at 1:55 pm, there were like three gates open out of the multiple dozens of gates they have (I don't know exactly how many there are). I was through by 2:03. I saw on the departure board that my flight hadn't left yet due to a small delay, so I booked it to my gate, which was (of course) at the very end of one of the longer "prongs" of the airport. I couldn't run due to a medical condition, and when I finally made it, I was greeted by the ground staff of the airline telling me I missed my flight by a few minutes.

(Cue a break for crying and desperate flight checks through other airlines.)

Due to the sheer amount of delays and people missing their flights, I had another long queue to wait in: airline support desk. Except due to post-covid regulations, there was a vague area with taped-off sections and no actual desk to speak of, with two (2) airline staff trying to manage the 40-50 people crowded around at any given time. I got told to use their mobile app to get rebooked on another flight, but it just did not work. After waiting in line a second time the staff told me again to apply online and tried to shoo me off, but I completed the online form right there and showed them that it wasn't working. I got parked on the other side of the taped-off area and was told to wait.

Some 15 minutes later, I got handed a new ticket to get me home. At this point it was after 5 pm, and my new ticket was for 9 am the next morning. I wasn't willing to go outside of the airport and risk getting stuck in security again, so hotels were out of the question. The lounge services I could find that were open were all daytime only, so no dice getting some sleep there. I ended up sleeping on a waiting bench near my gate, as much as you can call waking up every 10-15 minutes in the span of about six hours "sleep".

I was at my new departure gate at 6 am, not willing to risk anything at this point, and got on the flight with no more issues. Not that we took off on time, it was about 10 am when the wheels of the plane finally picked up off the ground. Those were the longest 24 hours of my life.

(Edit: spelling and grammar)

I had four overnight delays in three round trip transatlantic flights in 2025. The airline was at fault for three of them.

When the airline is at fault for a delay of four hours or more on a long flight that starts or ends in the EU, they owe the passenger 600 Euros, a hotel room, and meals, so those were long delays but not exactly terrible experiences.

Getting stuck for 20 hours in the Newark airport due to weather wasn't as pleasant. The airline did not owe me anything because weather is not their fault. There were hundreds of other delayed travelers sleeping on cots in the halls of the airport. They did not have a cot for me.

Been delayed 3 times so far in all my travels, with varying degrees of suck.

First and longest, flew back home to Norway from old home of US in May 2021. Quarantine still under effect but I thought I could Q at home. Well, if I’d flown direct into Bergen, then yes. But because I had a stop in Oslo, I was detained and sent to a Q hotel for 10 days, having my anniversary dinner with my husband via Zoom. All in all not particularly terrible as I wasn’t missing work or anything. Just my husband of 21 years.

The WORST one was when we went to see Eras Tour in Vienna. Sad trip already. Then on the way home, our flight was cancelled. The airline did a good job and it was a quick resolution - we were booked for the following anfternoon and set up in a hotel, got meal vouchers. My husband wasn’t feeling super well, and we just wanted to get home. The first thing in the hotel, my husband lays back on the bed only to smack the ahit out of the back of his head on a piece of concrete trim jutting out. Super cool placement. He was pretty fucked up, it was Sunday in Austria so not much was open to get pain meds. We find some finally and he is just rapidly feeling worse. The next day he is in a ton of pain, scratchiest throat of his life, and we are done with Vienna. We both wear masks on the planes home. Turns out, he had covid. In 2024 after 3 vaxs. It was a miserable following 2 weeks for him but I somehow never ended up with it.

Last one wasn’t so bad (and a couple years prior to Vienna) but we were never reimbursed because fuck WIZZ AIR. Our flight from Gdańsk got cancelled and they put us on a new flight for the next day and a hotel, etc. But they lowballed us on the reimbursement for travel interruption and then when we declined that quote, just dropped it. It was this experience that changed how I book travel and now carrry private travel insurance now so, not all terrible. And we had a nice extra day in Sopot, Poland as a result.

I am counting myself lucky as the worst I have actually experienced was a 4 hour delay on a city hopper from Luxemburg to Amsterdam.

The delay i am super glad I missed. When COVID was proper kicking off I was emigrating from Australia to Europe and the Aussie government changed passengers allowances from 1500 a day to 1500 a week. Emirates said it was stopping flights to and from Australia because of it. I was on the second last flight out.
Landed in Dubai seeing the news about no more flights was interesting.

I took a trip to Norway a year or so ago. I was flying first to Denver, where a friend who lived in Denver would meet me in the airport, and then we'd fly to Munich, and from there to Oslo. That was the plan, anyway.

Well, when I got to my gate at my local airport, I found that my flight was delayed by a couple of hours. Obviously too much to have any chance of catching my connecting flight.

I called the airline, and decided to take the flight to Denver that day, and rebook the remaining flights for both me and my friend for the next day, going through Frankfurt instead of Munich. I stayed overnight in Denver, and we set out the next day.

Aaand of course then the flight out of Denver was delayed, and we missed the flight from Frankfurt to Oslo. We were rebooked onto a flight from Frankfurt to Munch, in order to catch a later flight from Munich to Oslo. Fortunately that one was on time. But then the flight to Oslo was delayed; you know, one for the road, I guess. At that point we were just glad that that delay wouldn't make us miss another flight.

I will never fly American Airlines as long as I live.

Spent 12 hours at the Austin airport hoping to catch an earlier flight to reach my dad's bedside in Alabama, but no luck. Plane from DFW to Austin was then delayed by an hour and a half. It arrived, we boarded, we got pushed back from the gate, taxied a bit then stopped. Pilot says they're checking with maintenance about a mechanical issue. Nearly 45 minutes later they taxi to a different gate and say it may be another hour before we can attempt to depart again. By then my connecting flights were all unreachable, and I opted to deplane (luckily only had a carry-on), and took a ride share home arriving near midnight.

My wife had left in the car to meet me in Alabama, and was already two hours away. She turned around and came home, picked me up, and we headed back out on the 14-hour drive to AL, where my entire family was with my father.

We were crossing the Mississippi River when I learned my father had died. I didn't get to say goodbye in person.

I have two. Both not the worst in terms of total delay but memorable for being horribly annoying.

1. ICE train from Dortmund to Karlsruhe (Germany) in December 2017. We'd had a couple of centimeters of snow the night before but nothing too drastic... until right after Frankfurt am Main. A railroad switch near Frankfurt am Main Stadion was frozen and could not be operated so we had to stop for over an hour at that tiny station. In the meantime, the beer in the onboard restaurant had run out and some already drunk passengers stole the conductor's phone to blast the anime music over the train's speakers and argued who would leave the train to buy more booze. Eventually we had to return to the previous station where dozens of additional passengers boarded. We were confused but got told that ours was the only train that would even attempt the rest of the trip. In the end, we arrived about three hours late.
2. A trip by regional train from Kassel to somewhere near Duisburg (Germany) in September 2021. Should have taken about four hours but due to an unexpected storm and a tree that damaged the overhead lines, the train had to stop in the middle of nowhere. It took 90 minutes just to figure out which taxi company would take us to the next station and a total of eight hours to get to our destination because it was so late at night that at some point no connecting trains were available.

When I was in the US army I deployed to Bosnia in mid winter. The unit put most of the unit on a train with all of the equipment, ambulances and the unit gear. Our job was to protect and meet the rest of the Unit in Hungary.

As we were approaching the train station in Hungary, they had to use our train’s engine to move other trains, they park the train I was on, in a siding.

We were left on that siding for 20 hours.

Once they disconnected the engine, the train lost all electrical power. So no heaters or light. We had to make sure no one stole anything off the train via foot patrols around the train.

Trains are deceiving because when you ride them you are only aware of the single car that you are in. When you have to walk up and down a train you get an appreciation for how fucking long those things are.

We alternated between freezing our asses off protecting the equipment and freezing our asses off inside the cold dark train.

Flying from Malaysia to America, I had an 11 hour layover in Incheon because I didn’t pay close enough attention to the departure times when booking the connecting flight.

Thankfully, it was Incheon, that airport is its own city. I found a pay-by-the-hour hotel, took a shower, then slept for six hours. I was the freshest-looking person at the gate when the flight finally did start boarding.

It was the worst delay I ever had, but also in a way the best.

Six hours at Heathrow due to snow. The delay wasn't too bad, but the airport is. I've been to more airports in the world than I can count (must be in the hundreds), and Heathrow is one of my least favorite.

And at that point I was a big smoker, and once you're past the security checkpoint, you're unable to leave.

I befriended an Irishman named Fergus (He was from Galway, IIRC), as well as a Canadian couple who were in the same situation, and we used all the food vouchers we got from the airline on alcohol. In my case it was s a coping method for my nicotine cravings, and I ended up completely sandblasted. I have a vague memory of "walking" through the boarding gate when it was finally time, and then my memory is cut off. I awoke in the right airport upon touchdown, though.

And the delay was made so much worse because the amount of snow that shut down Heathrow was next to nothing. My regional airport has several times more and it doesn't cause any issues.

6 hours flying out of Gatwick. Fortunately I got compensation from the airline, which substantially reduced the cost of my holiday!

Got caught at the airport in a foreign country during the crowdstrike debacle.

Mercifully, our flight was only delayed by about 9 hours, and not cancelled. We were able to get home without too much fuss.

Many people had it much much worse.

Still, that was the longest I'd ever been delayed.

I took the Amtrak Empire Builder to Glacier National Park, which was supposed to arrive around six o'clock in the evening. The train was already late to Columbus, where I got on, which was not a good sign given the proximity to Chicago. Then, the train had to dramatically decrease speed across North Dakota (85MPH down to 60MPH, IIRC), because record-high temperatures in July were causing the rails to expand too much, making them uneven. I got to the station at the park 8 hours late.

It was way too late to find accommodations. Luckily, I had my camping gear, so I just camped on a bench at the station until morning.

Flying back from Vegas and the flight I was on got cancelled. They drew out the process to cancel it so that it didn't get cancelled until another flight already took off. They gave hotel vouchers, but so late that it wasn't worth it getting a hotel for 5 hours. They played loud music in the airport to keep people from sleeping.

Also had a flight going back home after Christmas that was so delayed I ended up driving back.

NYC cars lining up cross the Holland Tunnel near 42nd street Manhattan

Pretty sure it's tolled on the way out of NYC which makes the traffic worse

It's only 2 lanes wide

So fucking tired of being forced to visit relatives and just wanna go home... AND STUCK IN THE TRAFFIC JAM FOR HOURS

Once I went to take a vacation and was too poor. I'm still waiting

I actually took a vacation. It was fantastic!

And then the airline canceled the flight home. Nope, no more today. The flight had a busted windshield wiper or so, and they couldn't fly that plane. No, no hotel.

Got the same flight home the next day, after an overnight in a big Mexican airport, now jammed in with the people already booked to go home that day. Most of us didn't make that flight and we left them behind.

At our next leg they had minor issues with a dusting of snow in a light Canadian winter. De-icing is expensive and so they thought they just wait for it to warm up a bit. There we were, tired and still dressed in the Resort Wear from the day before, in a little unheated spur of the jetway around freezing temps. We begged for blankets from the desk since we couldn't get jackets from our bags.

A few hours later we got our regional flight home and a day or so later our bags showed up (to our amazement).

How did you know it was Air Canada ?

Flying LA to Paris as a kid - took us nearly 2 days to get there. Layover in DC, weather delay, puddle jumper to New York, long delay there waiting for the new plane, followed by the long flight to Paris. Lucked out that the plane was half empty and I recall stretching out across 3 seats in the middle and sleeping the whole flight.

Worst experience was taking the train to the airport, only delayed by an hour but I was running to the check in and they were kind enough to let me board. Got stuck in the safety checkpoint due to not being able to check in my bag because late. Thought I lost my wallet because of rush at the security.

Funniest: Plane delayed by an hour due to Italians.

Most hours: maybe 3 hours. Plane, car, bus. Nothing newsworthy. Just sit down and wait.

Insignificant by comparison to the things others have gone through, but I'll tell it anyway.

The plane flew and landed on time, but when we got off the plane we were on the outskirts of the airport in the dark and nowhere near a terminal. Thus, a seatless bus. A what?!

I'd never heard of such a bus or such a thing even being possible. What the heck is going on?

Everyone else seemed to think this was normal or were doing a very good job of hiding their confusion as I tried to play along. I can't see a thing out there, but what I can see and feel tells me we're moving. Am I even supposed to be on this bus?

I'd just followed everyone else. No-one had said anything. Where are we going?

Fears were unfounded. We were dropped off at a terminus. Inside, it became clear our bags were taking their own sweet time and journey to the building. Waiting. More waiting. No-one really said anything. No-one was panicking, so I didn't either. No point making a scene. It's late. We're all tired.

Bags did eventually turn up.

I was lucky to be able to get the last trains of the evening back to my home town because it was getting very late. I do not know what I would have done if that hadn't been possible. I have heard of people having to sleep at airports and train stations. That might have been me.

Yes, I know this makes me sound like someone who has (or had) literally no idea about airports or travel. And you'd be right. That flight home was my second flight ever. There'd been no weird little bus on the way out and I'd never seen them in TV shows or in movies featuring airports.

Anyway by the time I got to my home town, buses had stopped for the night, so I needed a taxi. Thankfully there was no shortage of those.

I haven't travelled since. Not for any of the above reasons particularly because I know more of what to expect now. It's been more of a mental health, financial thing.

3 hour delay on a 1 hour bus trip probably takes the win for me. It was the day before a major holiday and I didn’t think about the impact on the transit system. Got home in time for bed. It’s a different kind of feeling than travel delays on planes or trains I think.

I don’t go to the office on that day anymore, and won’t unless it’s to get a cheque that will fund my retirement. Not worth it.

23 years in the Endeavor waiting on some colleagues to come back. I mostly slept and did some research. I was surprised to see how young they looked when they finally got there. I understood it in principle, but actually seeing them was quite a shock.