Strangest Delay Reason
 

Currently experiencing mine. A broken pilot seat in a MD90. Maintenance is now replacing the whole seat up front.

Mr. Kipper was delayed and eventually rebooked because the catering truck hit the plane and broke part of the door.

Watched on the news at the UC @ DEN as my incoming AC was diverted because a passenger tried to rush the cockpit.

Edit: although I wasn't actually on the plane being delayed, just delayed its arrival for my flight. I was eventually moved to a different flight.

That happens fairly often, actually.. quite recently in ZRH, where a 777 of CX got hit by a catering truck and was out of service for several weeks for it :D

http://loyaltylobby.com/2015/11/28/c...antial-damage/

Once I saw two RJs clipping wings from my window seat in the lounge. My own RJ flight was cancelled as a result. I watched the two RJs being towed away.

We enjoyed a good laugh about his experience. He was also thankful of FT, as I'd traded to give him a few lounge passes, so he used one during his delay.

Flight out of MSP several years ago was delayed because a passenger died onboard the inbound aircraft. Police met the plane and the body was removed out of sight of the gate area, and the flight was only delayed maybe an hour.

A couple of years ago the crew showed up except for the captain, who we found out was driving in from home.

Turns out he got caught in a massive traffic jam caused by a bad auto accident.

He finally made in about 90 minutes late - he did make up about half of the delay in the air.

ORD to SLC about 3 weeks ago: delayed roughly an hour because the lavatory door latch was broken and it wouldn't stay shut.

De-icing truck ran right into the wing of the plane, sounded like, well.... just that.

Imagine the bill for that repair...

Had the exact same thing happen a couple years ago as well. There were quite a few pilots deadheading on the flight and I first knew something was up when the FAs were walking around asking if any of them were 57 qualified. Then they made the announcement, "We are delayed for a couple reasons...the inbound flight was a few minutes late, and maintenance has a small repair they needed to make...but mostly our pilot is stuck in traffic!" Delta was really good about assuring us they would take care of us if we missed our connections with hotels and compensation. Finally got into SLC, and I had already given up hope on making my connection since we arrived 15 minutes after my connection was scheduled to depart. Turns out my connection was delayed a half hour due to a radio issue so I got to the gate and the flight had even started boarding yet so everything turned out alright in the end.

In CSG was delayed and ultimately canceled because the ground crew couldn't get the de-ice fluid up to the correct temperature. Deicing isn't required very often there, so I wonder if was simply user error.

Delayed once on a early morning departure out of PLN (Pellston, MI) several years ago on a sub-zero February morning. It was about -10 and windy, they had lake effect snow that drifted on the one side of the aircraft, Saab 340 up to the wing.

However the main reason was that they couldn't get the deice truck started so they to get jumper cables out of one of the agent's cars and jump-start the deice truck.

JFK-LWB: Delayed when the FA discovered they didn't have the required number of soda cans on the flight. We were missing both Diet Coke and Sprite. The catering truck then made the delivery, but to the wrong plane. The truck was then sent back, this time it found us, and then I remember seeing an arm throw a plastic bag full of soda cans onto the floor of the CRJ. Total delay was 90 minutes, which was longer than the flight time.

ATL-MHH: Delayed 30 minutes because the pilots were unsure if there would be enough firetrucks at MHH, despite the fact that Delta has had 2x weekly service on the route for the past few months. The GA even prefaced the delay announcement with "This is not an April Fool's joke...but".

The first class compartment was out of lemon soaked paper napkins. Delayed a BA cross channel shuttle long enough to defeat the purpose of flying instead of taking a train or driving.