PandT

First I thought 0%, then remembered 1 flight - but with the caveat that American had changed the departure from 4pm to 2pm during the middle of my trip. As they didn't have a way to contact me internationally and I wasn't online for the trip, the plane literally flew over me as I arrived at the airport. I was on the Isle of Wight, UK and took a taxi up to LHR. As we approached LHR I could clearly see an AA flight taking off and commented that I would soon be on a similar flight. Once at the counter, the TA's all recognized my name (having paged me numerous times), notified me of the missed flight and promptly rebooked me on the flight to EWR leaving in 45 mins! I barely had time to call my buddy to pick me up in NJ instead of JFK but it all worked out. ** One near miss due to the JFK AirTrain almost had me carried on by stretcher - I don't ever recall running that fast, especially with a roll-aboard and computer case in tow!

asya999

Never "missed" a flight myself, though chose to miss one once because Mr. 999 forgot something important at home and I chose to turn around and go get it missing the original flight and going stand-by later in the day (risky as the flights were full!) and then recently I almost caused Mr. 999 to miss his flight by mis-setting the alarm (I had to take him to SFO) and waking up about 45 minutes before his flight was to take off.

Luckily, on a good day of bad driving I'm only about 10 minutes from SFO so I had him there almost within the 30 minute cut-off (and since he was checked in on-line it was just a matter of not getting caught up in a bad line on a Monday morning, luckily he knows about International Terminal short-cut). Apparently he even had time to grab a quick breakfast before getting on the plane during (last and) final call.

bigeasyflier

I miss about 3-4% of my flights, but I have never been at my home airport, MSY, more than 30 minutes before departure unless traveling with my wife and/or dog.

I've left my house (15 minutes from the airport) at 30 mins prior to departure, and been able to park, clear security, and board with 5 minutes to spare. Missing a few flights of the year seems like a fair trade-off for saving so much time on average.

dstan

As this thread is not AA specific, please continue to follow the discussion in TravelBuzz.

dstan
AA Forum Co-Moderator
(who used to miss about 1 flight a year due to searching for a gas station, but now looks it up in advance! )

mbreuer

One due to a misconnect (actually, that was yesterday), one due to the NJ Turnpike being closed due to an accident (I was already on the turnpike and got stuck for a couple of hours).

For the accident, I arrived just as they were closing the doors (this in the 1980's - before today's security).

I *think* it was AA, the only other option that day (any airline) was a flight from LGA leaving in one hour... they rebooked me, and amazingly, I made it to LGA with time to spare.

Crazyhotelguy

+1. I have never missed with the exception of a misconnect. Even when I have tried to miss flights, I can't. I am way to concious of my options and will run at full speed through an airport if I know the flight is still there. I guess the fact that I might miss an upgrade and have to sit in a middle seat in Y on the next possible flight is a major deterrent for me.

I refuse to book connections less than 45 minutes. It never ceases to amaze me how people get so upset when they misconnect and they only had 30 minutes to connect in the first place. Even in MCO, where weather is rarely a problem, I do not trust most of the airlines enough to pull that tight of a connection off.

Noddy English

Missed 2 in my life:

No.1 was an international from FRA to DFW... arrived 3 mins too late to check my bags (no amount of begging would sway the agent)

No.2 was CLE to ORD, due to super long lines at the security screening. They closed the gate about 50 seconds before i ran up...

elll

I've missed 1 flight in my life. It was an early morning flight and I slept thru alarm. I've had several close calls due to heavier than expected traffic on the way to the airport.

baliktad

This seems a much more logical approach to me. Very rarely is a flight SO CRITICAL that I MUST make it or the world will crumble - and in those cases, I try and book an earlier one anyway to account for delays outside of my control.

I'd rather take my chances missing a small percentage of flights and save 30-90 minutes each takeoff than just idle my life away in airport lounges.

That said, even though I play it a little riskier than most, I've never missed a segment. I did cause a friend to miss a flight once the day after a daylight savings change when I trusted my radio-controlled wall clock. Turns out that clock takes up to 24 hours to adjust to DST.

SLC-YYZ

This last 12 months ... missed 2 segments/flights out of 22 return trips (about 48 segments).
... showed up 1 days early for flight
Previous 12 months ... missed 1 segment/flight out of 26 return trips (about 60 segments).

Previous 84 months ... once my first year.

I hope this trend doesn't hold up.

CMK10

I've overslept and missed two flights. Once in 2007 flying PHX-SNA. I woke up at departure time and ended up getting on the next one.

The other one was this year. A LGA-DFW flight at 6:05 AM. Apparently I woke up when my alarm went off and threw my cell phone accross the room and went back to sleep. My brother was sharing a hotel room with me and he woke me up at 7:45 and said "I think you missed your flight". Ended up getting back to PHX at 6 PM instead of 10 AM...oops. That one caused me to miss work.

IMOA

Of early morning flights I miss around 10%, this was at it's worst when mainly based in BNE and because they didn't go to daylight saving time in summer while the rest of east coast australia did I had regular seriously early flight times. Always flying qantas, always flying cheap non changeable fares, always accommodated on a later flight.

I've only ever missed one other flight which was more a booking screwup. Booked the flight in the morning for a late afternoon flight and simply got the times of everything else I had to do that day wrong so I was never going to make it. Put on next flight out with no dramas.

donnde

I don't ever recall missing a flight. I was raised by parents who were always packed and ready a week before a flight and always arrived at the airport well before they needed to. Travelling with them was always organized and stress free. I try to do the same.

But I did come very close when flying with my wife from HKG to BKK. When we arrived at the terminal it was packed. Security took forever and the check-in lines were even worse. There was no way we were going to make it. My wife told me to stand back with the carry-ons and make sure I looked lost and stupid and she went over to a woman at a customer service desk for Cathay. My wife pointed to me and the 2 started laughing. I saw my wife hand the tickets to the agent, flag me over (while giving me a look to be quiet) and we were taken care of. I assume whatever my wife said about me wasn't complimentary, but it worked.

adelauro

I would say roughly 10%, but with an average of 140-160 segments a year, so not too bad. Most of these missed flights are due to late running client engagements. I rarely miss on the outbound leg.

B747-437B

Never missed a flight but once lost track of time chatting with the pilots and the cabin crew closed the doors with me still on board. I managed to sneak out via the avionics bay on the 767 before we taxied though!!!