After sitting in Leeds Bradford airport, (which as some of you will know is not the most exciting airport in the world) for 3 hours waiting for my french exchange friend, I was wondering how long you've all waited at airports for people/ for planes to depart. My longest waiting to depart is 5 hours, and 3 for a person...which is not at all that awful...but not nice. And there have been a few cancelled planes... You? *coughs...of course I am not using this as an excuse to rant...cough cough*

ooh sorry to hear that pianoboe.

My longest wait was at Gatwick about 3 years ago ... we boarded and started to taxi away - and burst a tyre.

We had to go back into the departure lounge and wait for a spare part to come - that took 5 hours too.

The funniest bit though was that my daughter was working at her holiday job in one of the shops in the airport, and having had elevenses with her and said goodbye (as we thought), we walked back into where she was working a couple of hours later and joked that we'd been thrown off the plane because I misbehaved -

Heeheee

DId she believe you????

We had a 3 hour delay in Arecife airport, when we were trying to come home from Lanzarote. It would have been okay if we hadn't been stuck inside, but it was terribly hot with one side of the terminal hosting hundreds of (unopenable) windows.

(Not really about airports, but on the way to Lanzarote, they were giving out 'lunch' during the flight but were two short by the time they reached Mum and I, so they gave us two kiwi fruits. )

I wasn't actually waiting at the airport, but I had to collect my parents from Luton at what was supposed to be around midnight. But their flight was then delayed for 3 hours, so I had to stay up fairly late. I arrived at Luton for 3 in the morning, and they then took another hour to land and go through baggage (which you thought would've been empty at that time, so dunno why it took so long). So finally arrived back home at around 5, needing to be up at 9 the next day. Much fun.

Since there was a post here anyway....

11 hours, which given the 2 hours in advance check in meant 13 hours in Manchester airport. One gets compensation if there's a 12 hour delay. There was some problem with our plane, can't recall what, and so we got a replacement from another company after 5 hours delay. That replacement was then taken away an hour or so later because an identical plane from that company had an undercarriage fault so they wanted their plane back; most people were disappointed about the plane being taken away, but given the undercarriage faut with an identical one (and a previous unpleasant flight on that company's planes, the fault of the clouds not the company) I was glad we weren't getting on it... 13 hours in total after arriving we got a plane from the company we should have been flying with in the first place and set off; not even a free lunch .

13 hours in Sofia airport - the flight was meant to be going from Plovdiv, but the airport was closed and we were redirected to Sofia. Particularly unpleasant as Bulgaria had restricted exports of its currency at the time, so we had to wait on the other side of passport control for hours on end with no currency to spend on food or drink.

That was back around 1990, flying Balkan airs in the days when seating was unreserved (dash across the tarmac to the plane trying not to be split up from the rest of one's family), the in-flight meal was invariably served with a picked gherkin, and on a given row seats 1-3 were non-smoking and seats 4-6 smoking .

My longest wait at the airport was not becos i was waiting for someone but becos my flight arrived at Manchester airport later than the last train from there to my destination, although the late arrival time was expected. I arrived at about 10pm and so i slept at the airport and caught the first train the next morning at about 6am.

The next morning i skipped 2 school mock exams becos i was still in bed and consequently i received an official warning letter...

Umm well on the way back from Tenerife last Summer I was delayed 30 hours!! Obviously not stuck in the airport for the whole time, but were were stuck there for ages before bering taken to a hotel for the night .. and then a different hotel the next day (neither of which had air con!) It wasn´t the most thrilling experience!

OK guys - beat THIS :

Philadelphia Airport in January - all boarded plane to be told the anti-ice valves weren't working (it was about -10) and they had to be fixed before it would be safe to depart. We get a movie AND dinner before being chucked off the plane, reclaim baggage etc and deposited in hotels for the night. The queue to check into the hotel was SO long my travelling companion and I were in the foyer for THREE HOURS.....during which time we observed 2 guys, one, with handlebar moustache, dressed all in black leather, and another dressed as a cowboy, with a midget between them holding their hands. They got into the lift and disappeared for a couple of hours before returning to the foyer and leaving!!!!!!!!!!! I remarked to my fellow passengers that we were probably hallucinating due to breathing in all that recycled air for goodness' knows how long earlier in the evening on the tarmac.......

Baggily Woo xx

Well, it isn't realy a delay, but going from England to Bangkock and waiting 5-6 hours to catch the plane to Japan... And it's NOT a delay. including the delay, it's about 7 hours wait

My family won't fly derectly from england to Japan, because it's expencive.

This sounds really stupid but...

I've never been abroad!!!

Honestly, so I've never had to wait at an airport or anything!!!

Our plane was only delayed an hour today, but having got up at 4:30 to catch it I still wasn't pleased... and that's 4:30 Spanish time... 3:30 English time!

My longest wait was Jamaica when I was five, my dad's family live there, and we were delayed 15 hours! Imagine my parent's stress considering that was a journey to visit people they'd rarely seen in the past ten years with two children under the age of seven... I bet it wasn't much fun for them.

This thread made me laugh because I just got back this morning after a two day delay in Barbados. Supposed to leave on tuesday evening, had an hour delay because of door problems when we got on the plane we were told that they had stuck down the screws with sticky tape. An hour and a hlaf into the flight pilot didn't feel safe flying the plane over the atlantic so we came back. After getting back immigration cards and luggage, had to wait for taxi to take us back to my gran's house. Next day airport call to say that the flight is at 8pm and send a taxi to come get us at 4.30. After waiting three and a half hours in the check-in line and being spun numerous lies and having the police called for supposed attitude problems with passengers (another lie on their part), we're told the flight will not fly tonight. Just then the heavens open and the rain pours down, taking us double the time to get home because of the flooding and poor visibility. Day number three taxi arrives at 6 am for a flight that is supposed to be leaving at 8 (which was clearly never going to happen). Leaves at 10am and yet again another hour into the flight the pilot is not happy therefore we divert to Newark to change planes. A few hours later tired and hungary (a $9 food voucher really doesn't get you much) we finally get onto the plane and arrived back in London this morning!

I'm sorry for the rant, I'm not going to say the journey wasn't fun (or more like comical) at some points but BA will definately getting a long letter of complaint from me along with most of the other passangers.

When i went to america my flight got delayed 5 and a half hours! we were so annoyed though because if it was delayed 5 hours 40 mins you got free drinks!!! 10 mins!!!! argh!!

even worse we sat and waited for aggggeeeesss, and they never announced our flight boarding thingy till the last one! we had to run there! my dad went mad!

x