I can't believe I didn't miss a BOS-DUB international flight a few years ago. I left in what should have been plennnnnty of time to get to Logan, but it was a Friday afternoon in May, and the backup on the Mass Pike was... probably something I should've expected, but I didn't. I spent hours sitting in traffic, and the 3 hour drive quickly became 5+. I was flying BOS-DUB-BCN with one of my work partners, who lived in Boston at the time. I ended up pulling into the parking garage, my partner had a gate agent waiting for me at the entrance who escorted me through security, and we full on ran through the terminal. I was the last one on the plane and the closed the door behind me. I never stopped running, from car to plane.
I think it was 2017? 2018? Anyway. Aer Lingus was amazing, helping me make that flight.
Aside from that debacle, I think I've only missed connections.
I am terrible at local transportation (I used to have a bad habit of showing up right as the bus was pulling away!) but that is always low risk because there is another one coming eventually.
I have never missed a flight or other long distance travel. I am not a super punctual person in general, but I am averse to wasting money and long distance travel always costs too much to take a chance on having to pay for a new ticket or change fees or whatever.
ETA: I did literally have to run to the gate once when flying, though! I was flying with Spirit and the tickets I printed ahead of time didn't scan for some reason. We had already stood in a huge line to check a bag AND a huge security line by then, and then we had to leave and go back to the service desk to get them to print tickets. By the time we got back through again it was past boarding time. I guess we could have prevented this by getting to the airport earlier, but we did get there with plenty of time to spare if the damn tickets had worked like they should have!
No - H is disgustingly early for everything so even if we hit traffic we are still always super early for flights. The only time we have come close to missing flights is in connecting flights when the first leg was delayed.
Post by purplepenguin7 on Mar 30, 2021 11:52:57 GMT -5
I have missed a commuter train many times, but I don't think that's what you are asking. I have also missed a flight once when they wouldn't let us check our luggage even though we still had a decent amount of time before the flight was departing ( I forget how long). We knew we were running late, but didn't expect them to have closed luggage check-in. I'll definitely make sure to never do that again. Luckily there was another flight in a few hours and we were pretty chill (and childless) so we just hung out in the airport but it was not my finest moment.
I traveled weekly for several years. I’ve probably missed at least 40 flights — sometimes because a meeting ran late, sometimes missed connections, sometimes traffic, and sometimes honestly because I like to push the limit with time.
This, almost verbatim. I've missed work flights more than a handful of times - once my car died when I was driving to the airport, several times I've been stuck in NYC traffic in a cab/rideshare, once there was a subway delay, a few times my meetings ran long and at least once I've just cut the time too close and missed one due to no other fault than that.
I've also missed flights while traveling for vacations, namely due to road construction on my way to the airports delaying/rerouting traffic (this has happened three times to me in 3 different cities).
Missing trains, I almost don't even count because I was a regular train commuter and would always cut timing pretty close, but there was always another coming shortly afterward.
This post makes me sound like a flake, haha, but I swear, I am generally timely and reliable.
Post by goldengirlz on Mar 30, 2021 11:56:54 GMT -5
I’m one of those sticklers that likes to get to the airport two hours early, even for domestic flights. So, no, ha. (I have made a few at a run though.)
I’ve missed loads of commuter trains but never an Amtrak train (or the equivalent in another country). So I voted no for train.
Yes. Because I was committed to taking the subway + AirTrain to JFK, I had my husband drop me off at the subway station in Manhattan. I watched 3 subway trains come in the opposite direction but not in mine, I knew there was going to be trouble. By the time I got to JFK, I couldn't check in at the kiosk because it was an international flight and the cutoff was like 45 minutes and I had made it there with 43 minutes. I made it to the counter who called back to the gate. I heard the agent say "she has nothing to check, I'll take her through security" and the gate said I could not board. Since there was only 1 flight a day to this location, I had to go home. The next day we left even earlier and I made the flight with tons of time to spare. If I had checked into the flight online or even on my phone (my phone wasn't that smart back then), I might have not missed that flight. But I always checked in at the kiosk to avoid having to print a boarding pass at home.
Another time the AirTrain sat around for at least 20 minutes due to some mishap, maybe longer. I only made that flight, also international, because I had nothing to check and was able to get checked in using the airline's frequent flier priority lane (I had the status at that time).
I always insisted on taking public transportation to/from NYC area airports because it was cheap and we didn't have anything else to do. I guess if I had door to door rides, it would have been different.
My brother misses flights all the time and doesn't care. He's the kind of person who arrives at the airport, looks at the departure board, and then decides where to go.
DH and I went to the airport and had about 20 minutes until the flight left. We were running behind, but figured we had enough time to grab a quick to go breakfast and get back before the boarding ended.
When we got back, we had just over 10 minutes before the flight and the sign said boarding ends 10 minutes before the flight time, so we were good to go. Well, the attendant at the gate tells us the cut off is actually 15 minutes. No amount of pointing at the sign helped. Lol
We were supposed to catch a connection in Houston on our way to Grand Cayman for a wedding, but since we missed the first leg, we could either go home and come back the next morning for the same flight schedule or we could fly to Houston that night, stay in a hotel, and just catch the Cayman leg the next day.
We had just moved and hadn’t even unpacked, our dogs were being taken care of, and it was DH’s birthday, so we went ahead to Houston and decided to make the best of it. As it turned out, we had an amazing dinner, post-dinner drinks, and stayed in a nice hotel, so it ended up working out and being great, but the initial frustration over missing the flight was rough for those first few hours.
I have missed a flight once (not counting missing connecting flights due to nothing I could control).
I had left in lots of time (at least 2 hour cushion) but the road I was driving on flooded and narrowed down to one lane, and then later in the drive there was an accident with a fatality and apparently they could not move anything until the coroner came to do their investigation.
I got to the airport with time to make the flight but had to check a bag and couldn’t get through that line in time.
It was very stressful. I had one of my kids (age 7) with me and I made her leave her car seat in the rental car thinking we could run faster if I didn’t have it. That was upsetting to her.
We ended up getting booked on a flight 12 hours later. So we wandered the airport for the next 12 hours haha - checked out every single terminal.
It was all fine in the end but definitely stressful in the moment.
My dad missed an entire cruise once because their flight was so late getting in and the ship refused to wait that long. My dad was so angry that I literally don’t think he’s flown since. It’s been at least 10 years. He drives everywhere, including to North Carolina from Arizona last year because he refuses to fly.
It was stupid of him to not fly in the night before the cruise left, but no amount of me telling him this has changed his mind. Lol
I missed my 5:30 AM flight due to a combination of oversleeping, bad traffic (there should be no traffic at 5am!), and a mishap at security. I missed that one by like 5 minutes, I was so mad.
I also missed a flight because they wouldn't let me board. There was a problem with my ticket. But I don't really count that one because I was there, dammit.
Lots of other close calls and some running through the airport, but never actually missed one till that early one last year. Never again will I fly that early in the morning.
Post by mustardseed2007 on Mar 30, 2021 12:40:02 GMT -5
Never have I ever traveled on a train.
I have not missed my own flight but in college a boyfriend who was visiting me missed a flight with me, so I feel like that was a group effort. His mom had to book him another flight which involved me driving across town to a different airport. I still feel embarrassed thinking about it though and I haven't been with that guy for like 20 years.
Post by jennistarr1 on Mar 30, 2021 12:43:15 GMT -5
I'm late to everything but have not missed a train or plane. But I travel infrequently enough that I put in so much cushion time because I don't know what I will be dealing with. I find that people who travel more frequently are more casual about it and can comfortably be more down to the wire
I’m a very anxious traveler so I am always very over-prepared. I’ve never missed a flight or train. However, once my ex and I went to the wrong airport - there are two DC airports and we went to the wrong one. We didn’t realize until we tried to check our bags. We practically ran out and still managed to make our flight at the other airport lol.
Wait, what? There's only National/Reagan in DC. Dulles is in Virginia and BWI is in Maryland.
Or maybe there's one I don't know about?
I haven't missed a flight or train. I've had some close calls on connections. Especially when the board is wrong so you run to one gate and they're like "oh it's moved" and you have to run to your new gate.
Post by hbomdiggity on Mar 30, 2021 12:52:33 GMT -5
I missed a flight because of traffic. And I had a mediation the next day so I *had* to leave that evening. I live on the opposite side of town as the airport but what should have been a 30min drive took 1:20. I ended up at the gate with 10mins to spare, literally as they were closing the door. But it was the small planes that you have to walk out on tarmac for and they wouldn’t make an exception.
Thankfully it was to the LA area so I was able to catch a flight to another airport that night (that had open seats because everyone was missing their flights due to the traffic). I was so noticeably stressed that the flight attendant let me have a few extra glasses of wine.
I missed one flight back in the day of paper tickets and receipts. I trusted my husband who said we had to leave for the airport at 11 and the flight was at 1. The flight was at 11.
Shortly after I got married I was on a business trip and missed my connecting flight because the time zone on my phone didn't update. My coworkers connected through a different city and their flights were delayed due to weather, so I just pretended the same thing happened to me.
I got to the gate a few minutes after the flight took off and found out that they had been paging me over the intercom, but they mispronounced my new name so badly that I didn't even recognize it.
Never! I make sure to arrive (too) early so even if I run into an issue I have enough time. I have nightmares about missing flights so it would stress me out to not leave myself wiggle room.
I am regularly made fun of for how ridiculously early I arrive at the airport, so no, I have definitely never missed a flight. The only train I have taken is a commuter train that basically comes again 20 minutes later, but I haven’t missed those either. In fact, I get there so early, I usually end up on the one earlier than the one I planned to take.
I usually run early to things, but I've missed a flight once. I severely underestimated how busy an airport would be for a 5:40am weekday flight and I also didn't account for the fact that the time is the *departure* time, not the boarding time. Clearly, I don't fly often. I don't think I'll forget that second part again, though.
Y'all----missing a flight b/c the previous leg was late doesn't count! LOL
And yes I didn’t mean a subway/train you take for your regular commute everyday that’s scheduled every 15-30 min and you don’t book a specific time ahead of time lol.
Post by starburst604 on Mar 30, 2021 13:25:29 GMT -5
I selected no for both since the only flights I've ever missed are delays from connections and I don't think that counts. I very rarely travel by train other than the subway.
It's been close once or twice but only because they changed which terminal we were leaving from less than 30 minutes before it left and of course the terminals were on opposite ends of very large airports.
H almost missed a connecting flight in Europe because the first flight was late.
I hate being late and am an anxious traveler. So no, not because I arrived late. I always give myself an abundance of cushion.