You must be referring to AA159. :-) I was on that flight back in 2008. The plane had mechanical problems and Russians were told to go back to ticketing and get rebooked. Everyone else had to wait at the gate while two guys tried to rebook us at the gate at the rate of about one passenger per 20 minutes. Then they gathered all the Americans and and took us back to passport control and had then annul our exit stamp. From there we had to collect our baggage, go to the ticket counter and get rebooked. They called for a bus and took us to a hotel after that. The next day the plane had not been repaired so we had to go through the process AGAIN!
The ended booking me on BA DME-LHR in F, and I got an upgrade into J on LHR-LAX.
Originally Posted by
kebosabi
I believe this was one of the reasons why AA axed ORD-DME service quite quickly too; a mechanical failure of an AA plane caused passengers to deplane, but Americans were denied re-entering Russia to go back to the ticket counter to re-book because they only had single-entry visas.
