Mine happened last month on an STL-IAH-GRU-SSA itinerary. After a 6 hour delay due to a mechanical problem leaving IAH and a 2 hour wait for my newly rebooked connection at GRU. I was traveling in Y and was quite travel weary when I finally boarded a COdeshare JJ flight for the last leg of the journey. This flight was scheduled to stop at Salvador (SSA) and continue on to Belem.
About 30 minutes outside of SSA, the captain announces that the airport at SSA was closed because the weather station there was not functioning. We circle the airport for approximately 45 minutes before the captain makes a second announcement that we will need to divert and "wait for the company to tell us what to do". While there were several more announcements, these were the last ones offered in English (important for this gringo!
).
We fly for about an hour before touching down in the new airport. Through the miracle of 3G, I discovered we were in Maceio (MCZ). We pull into the penalty box area next to two other JJ aircraft. Stairs were brought to the plane. An FA made another announcement in Portuguese. About 25 pax gather their luggage, walk off the aircraft towards the terminal. Not sure what is happening, I manage to fight my way to the back of the plane to find the one FA who spoke some English. He indicated that these were pax whose final destination was MCZ -- which still confuses me as this would not have been possible with our original routing!
After another hour and a half on the ground, another announcement in Portuguese is made and half of the remaining pax begin to leave the plane. I battle my way upstream to find the FA again who tells me that everyone going to Salvador should board the plane immediately to our right. I grab my things as quickly as I can, but by this time people from the other AC are boarding this one. I fight my way to the front, manage to get down the stairs and onto the next AC right before they closed the door. As I was boarding, the captain was announcing (in English!) that SSA was open again and we would be departing in 45 minutes. I finally arrived at SSA a little after 1am -- a 31 hour door-to-door journey in an unCOmfortable Y seat.