Worst reason for a delay
 

What is the worst reason you guys have encountered for a delay?

Currently I am sitting on a plane at the gate in ATL in a passenger created delay.

So while we were boarding. Some jakeleg dropped their phone down the crapper in the plane. They cant take off til they get it out because of the battery.
You can't make this stuff up....

Who reads their phone in an aircraft lav? Get in, get out.

The plane hadn't even finished boarding yet...who goes in the airplane bathroom instead of the airport bathroom?

It would have to be a magic phone for me to ever want to touch it after it fell down that horrible dark hole

Fell out of a pocket?

That stinks !

Good thread.

I was delayed 2.5 hours on the KLM flight from AMS-ATL once because some genius flushed a diaper down the toilet while we were boarding. Apparently it created so much pressure that it blew a seal somewhere and the plane was leaking fluid onto the ramp. They had to find some special fitting to fix it. Missed my connection home by 20 min and ended up staying in ATL for the night.

All because somebody couldn't read the 3rd grade picture in the lav.

I would just be glad that occurred while boarding and not halfway through the flight while flying over the Atlantic Ocean.

Even worse, someone couldn't understand that picture...and has already procreated!

Getting away from the toilet issues.....Exit row seat cushions were “too thick”. Had to wait for new cushions.

OP, you have set the bar for this thread very high with your post. ;)

About 5 years ago flying JFK-LWB and delayed due to lack of sodas. The catering truck forgot to deliver our sodas so we had to wait for them to come back. First they went to the wrong plane, we waited some more and they finally arrived with the precious cargo. After loading in the galley the pilot said they forgot to load Diet Coke, only regular Coke, so we had to wait for yet another delivery. Total delay 1.5 hours on a 1 hour flight, and sadly only a single beverage service despite being well stocked.

The worst delay reason I've had was at an outstation when an airport baggage train hit the plane during boarding and the right 'on call' mechanic was an hour out from the airport so it took forever for him to get there and start deciding whether the new dent in the plane was an aviation safety concern or not.

Never understood this... recently got delayed an additional 30 minutes due to catering (after already being delayed 45 minutes due to some other issues)... Why can't there be a straw poll of the passengers to decide what is more important?!

Ended up arriving about 60 minutes late in total and this was a later night inbound to Atlanta so probably meant a lot of missed connections on the last flight out. Pretty sure most pax would have preferred to make their connection and avoid an overnight stay in ATL over a diet coke... :rolleyes:

So, in effect, the catering was 75 minutes late.

Catering (as in: delayed, incomplete, incorrect) is one of those areas where there is a lot of opportunity for DL to get its crap together (you can be the judge of whether the pun was intended ;)).