MSN delayed because the mechanic lived a few hours away and they needed to get him to install a part that had gone bad. It was a Sunday morning and they offered to bus people to MKE to hop on other flights.

Its been years, but I was on a delayed Air Canada flight leaving Nashville because of a cicada swarm. They swarmed the plane when the props were started. It sounded like love to them. The wings were covered with cicadas. We sat and sweated on the tarmac with the engines off for a long while then I guess they figured the cicadas would not be an issue.

A few years ago my flight was cancelled due to an FA 'losing her voice' and pilot then timing out. Apparently regulations require that an FA must be able to shout instructions in case of an emergency.

I was arriving and watched the Jetway operator kindly smash the left pitot static tube with the door.

I remember a northwest flight being delayed out of DTW because a Pilot went to McDonald's. He didn't like the meal Northwest gave him and he left and went to McDonald's offsite delaying the passengers for I believe almost 2 hours. Not sure why he didn't eat at the McDonald's in the airport or grab food from another concourse vendor.

Strangest and most haunting delay ever: Pan Am ANZAC Clipper left Oakland Alameda an hour late on December 6, 1941 so that Captain Lanier Turner could attend his daughter's first piano recital. When the attack on Pearl Harbor commenced, it was a little less than an hour away. The plane diverted to Hilo, the crew painted it with lampblack, fueled up, and headed back to California. Had the plane not been delayed in departing Oakland, and had it arrived on time, it would have arrived at the beginning of the attack.

This made me laugh aloud ^

It always amuses me when we need to de-ice planes in Florida. Doesn't happen often, certainly not often enough to have de-icing equipment, but it does happen.

The most common way to de-ice the planes is to push them out on the apron with tugs, nose facing the sun. I've also heard that someone tried backing up another jet nearby and using the sun + jet exhaust to help melt the thin layer of frost/ice.

That's just really weird.

Missing exit sign in 1st class cabin MSP-SAN.

It was February & several of us had boarded when it was decided we had to deplane...it would have been nice for them to have made the decision a bit earlier since there was no heat in the plane and it was -15.

If they were 200s, that was a good day.

Flying out of MSY to ONT on Christmas day years ago -- icy rain overnight continuing into the morning -- after the first few flights of the morning departed (6 am), the airport ran out of deicing fluid. Nothing was going to fly, all airlines were grounded until it warmed up or they delivered fluid. DL originally rebooked me for Dec 28 -- I managed to get a connection on Dec 26 through DFW connecting to AA through BUR. And a rental car back to ONT.

I experienced such a delay in 2006; flying to SFO via SLC when someone died aboard the inbound flight from FLL.

I'm sitting in seat 1B on an MCI-ATL flight a few years ago when the flight attendant managed to pull the closet door off its tracks and completely out of the closet. She put tape in an X pattern across the resulting gap; that turned out not to be good enough, and we taxied back to the gate and had to wait almost an hour for maintenance to show up. The maintenance man came on the plane, removed the FA's tape job, and put up his own, almost identical to what the FA had done.

150+ pax missed their connections in ATL as a result. Me, I took it in stride, as it gave me a couple of hours to enjoy a Delta Drinkathon in one of the clubs (this was pre-Luxury Bar).

December last year, MSP -> AMS.

Delayed over two hours because delta "Forgot to schedule a pilot for the flight"

GA said they had to call one in from home, who was sleeping at the time (this was midday), and that if traffic cooperated he should be there "in about an hour"