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

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.

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.

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.

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)

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”.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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 ?

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.