I was on a flight a few days ago. The first flight was late. I was hoping that the flight would be 30 minutes more late but not cancelled. Then I might miss my connecting flight and stay overnight at that city rather than take the connecting flight which was arriving past 11 pm (2 am Eastern time).

Usually I hope that the plane is on time. Ever have evil thoughts like I did above?

I don't really wish it's delayed. I have flown into cities when making a connection and then thought "why didn't I plan to stay overnight?" That usually happens when I'm transiting through ORD. IAD doesn't really do it for me. I will arrange travel to go through JFK and do try to stay in the city for at least one day/night.

Sometimes I do wish for a delay, but only if I am flying into a somewhat bad place at a really bad time of day. Landing in X hostile country for instance on a 2 am flight, sometimes I wish that I could just be late enough to get there at 6 or 7 in the morning.

I usually do, as it gives me a reason to skip out on work. I really want to see it happens this year as I have the status now. But I have amazing luck and 98% of the time my flights are always on time, no mechanical issues, no bad weather, no cancel's, and no miss connects so I don't think I will have the chance.

This actually happened to me last month. I was connecting in AMS from JFK to IST.

My original routing left 1:20 for the connection. I knew that the next flight was 11 hours later - 8pm.

My outbound from JFK was delayed more than an hour and I started to think it through and decided that I would be happy to have a full day to hang around Amsterdam.

As we were landing, it was actually close and I was imagining what would have happened if I had come in, say, 20 mins before my connection time and I simply decided to walk slowly.

Who's to say how quickly you can get off a plane, through a terminal and get to another flight?

I pictured ambling slowly up to the transfer desk and telling them I had been delayed and missed my flight and needed to be rebooked - as long as the original flight was really delayed and it was close, what can they say?

As it turns out, we were a good bit later than that so I had no need to fudge it, but why not.

The downside on this type of thing is that wandering around on arrival in Europe on very little sleep is never ideal, but what the heck. I had a nice day, did a little shopping and got some sleep on the flight that got into IST at midnight.

Maybe for travel insurance purpose ?
or
I'm still on the way to airport ~~

I always hope for a delay if I'm due to arrive in transit in the US before the entry security opens. And, lo and behold, it seems the flights are NEVER delayed unless I have a tight connection. Then it happens as if planned.

Only when I'm running late for a flight or have a very early flight. I checked in last night to see if my 6:45a flight had been pushed back a bit.

Yes, like when I am in traffic and know I will miss the flight if its on time (this happened about two years ago in PEK) and the flight was delayed by two hours. THe nice checkin girls let me check in and my bags got on the flight...

Let's just say that I could blame Guitar Hero's addictiveness and good friends that I had not seen in a long time (not to mention traffic).

All the time. Usually when I am running through DEN or ATL to get a connection.

But I have wished for it..and sometimes have been granted the wish...when what I have to do at the destination sucks. Once a quarter I have to go to these regional meetings that last 4 hours and are the most boring things in the world..no fun when jet lagged and tired. No time to drop luggage at hotel..get off the plane and go. Well imagine how pleased I was last summer when there was a problem with my aircraft and a new aircraft had to be used, but had not arrived yet! I had a delay of 3.5 hours which would have gotten me there maybe for the last 30 minutes of the meeting.

I called up the big boss, and he said "Look, just cancel and go home..no point flying out here just to miss the meeting". That was a good day!

I do when my first flight is delayed and I hope the connection is too so I will make it. Yesterday I got lucky, the crew on my first flight was the crew for the connection (both flights on UAX) so all turned out OK. Kudos to the UA agent who took the time to find out that tidbit of info for me, as it saved me from rebooking that would have delayed my final arrival by 5+ hours.

This could show that business travel for such meetings is worthless. Good if you no longer like traveling, bad if you still like to travel.

The airline lingo to know is "trip in vain". Some airlines will refund, others will allow rescheduling of the trip. Do this and the boss might like it for saving the company money. Some bosses don't care.

I'll be on a 15 segment MR in a few weeks and won't mind missing a connection. I have no intention of arriving and no matter what happens Lufthansa will credit the miles as booked (original routing credit). I haven't even book a hotel in Spokane (GEG) but would actually hope to spend a day/night in Seattle, San Francisco or San Diego.

Yes, sometimes in-person meetings are scheduled for "warm and fuzzy" and/or "show the flag" reasons, more to show commitment to the client than for any need to actually go in person. A site inpection, of course, is a different matter altogether.

As fara as the original question, if my incoming flight is delayed, and the delay is not weather-related (meaning that the connection will likely leave on time), I have in fact hoped for the delay.

Whenever I'm flying to Sydney domestically I'll usually book the latest flight out. As Sydney airport has a curew, if the flight gets delayed it'll likely be a free night in Melbourne (or wherever) so I've often hoped for a delay (never get one when I want one)