What was your longest flight delay?
 

LH778 was delayed for 11h last night. Writing this message above 36000ft now after uneventful and successful departure.

But I'd like to ask the audience - what was the longest delay you've experienced and how it was handled?

Let's not consider cases when you are flying out from a remote island in South Pacific which has one flight in a week or case like hurricane Katrina or ongoing civil war outside the airport.

So, fairly ordinary/developed places/airports. Also let's exclude cases when the flight was canceled or you've been rebooked to another flight.

12+ hour delays are fairly common in China.

About 24 hours, waiting for Delta to ship a part to Santiago, Chile. They took care of us well: bus to a hotel in town (Crowne Plaza in my case), arranged a late dinner after the hotel restaurant had closed, meals the next day, bus back to the airport. It was my fourth visit to Chile, so I had done the normal Santiago tourist stuff, but it was a beautiful summer (January) day for just walking around.

Domestic flights within China only or it also involves international flights connecting in China?

oh yes... had quite a few of them departing PEK or PVG. I think one of the longest was like 16 hours with about 7 hours spend in the metal tube parked on the tarmac...

SHA-HKG/MFM (and vv) are two of the worst offenders (quasi-domestic).

I can recall a 7 or 8 hour delay about 12 years ago. Flying ORD to DFW on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and Chicago got hit with its first big snowstorm of the year. Fortunately, I was flying AA on an internationally configured plane that was being repositioned to Dallas, and had snagged an upgrade to first. So I spent 10+ hours in one of the "coffin" seats on a ticket that cost me a couple hundred bucks. (If one I'd earned the miles I would have earned on a flight that long.) As I understood it from the FAs, we pushed back from the gate shortly before the crew went illegal, but they were Dallas-based and motivated to get home for Thanksgiving, so they were as eager as we were to make the flight.

All in all, I think we boarded at about 5 pm and landed close to 3 am. Clearly, this was before the tarmac delay rules went into effect. (And they may have given passengers the option of offloading while we were still at the gate. I was comfy in my seat, so didn't take them up on that.)

14 hours, United Airlines IAD-GRU back in August.

We were all boarded and seated...then nothing happened. After awhile the captain announced that there was another delayed flight with 26 pax, and we were waiting for them.

10 minutes later he announced that they found a hydraulic leak in the tail and were investigating it. 20 mins after that he announced that we couldn't fly due to the leak, and we were all deplaned..it was roughly 1130pm by this point.

All the pax of course had to line up at the CS desk to get a hotel and make arrangements for missed connections from GRU. Finally got to the hotel about 1am, stood in line behind all the other pax put in that hotel. A few hours sleep, and back again the next day to the airport. As many of us had checked luggage, we were wearing the same clothes.

I can tell you, by the time we reached Sao Paolo, that plane stank!

16 hours, MIA-MBJ on USAirways some years ago for a 5th anniversary trip. CLT-MBJ diverted to MIA for hydraulic leak 40 miles out from MBJ as "MBJ doesn't have crash foam." We waited an hour+ on the plane while they waited on the part, finally deplaning after an hour or so. Turns out MIA didn't have the needed part. They'd bring one in from another airport.

1st attempt, someone forgot to put the part on another plane bound for MIA. 2nd + 3rd attempts, weather prevented landing. By this time we were watching the weather channel and doubted anything could land for some time.

By the time US put the part in a taxi in...Palm Beach, I think? the crew was illegal and the flight cancelled at 11:30 pm. They offered a hotel and shuttle but after standing in line with raining blowing in under the cover for an hour, we realized we would have gotten to the hotel at 3:00 and had to be back at 6:00 (long line to make arrangements, a crying bride, antsy kids on a mission trip, 1 shuttle, 40 minute round trip, 180 people). We gave up and catnapped in MIA until we finally departed. Our anniversary present was a looped recording of the mayor of Miami welcoming us to MIA that got burned into our brains forever. The flight the next morning was smooth sailing.

For the next couple of years, the FAs on that flight recognized us as having shared the "MBJ doesn't have crash foam" flight :-)

Ten days in Baku during the volcanic ash saga.

I was stuck in the Hyatt and things got so bad that they ran out of cheap local beer and we had to drink the dearer imported stuff.

It was torture, I tell you.

13+ hours for a 45 min flight. MEX-VER. I would have been better off taking a bus

Most annoying: Seventeen hour delay in Shanghai because the military was using the airspace, including embarking and disembarking the aircraft several times.

Most depressing: 23 hours in Bombay, as the TG aircraft went technical. Bombay wasn't the world's best airport in which to spend a lengthy delay.

Best ever: Five days in Jo'burg because of ATC strikes in Europe (I think maybe France, specifically). The airline knew it was coming, and they actually contacted me and let me choose an alternative route back to the states. The earliest was on KLM in five days, so I spent a lovely time in South Africa doing day safaris and basically being a tourist, which I never really got to do otherwise. The piper was paid on the flight back, however, as the South-Africa to Europe leg was in coach, seated between two enormously fat French guys who drank until they passed out and then snored and farted continuously until we touched down in Schipol. It was like being in a loud, rubbery chife closet.

I had 24hrs in MIA two years ago. A few of these hours were on me, as I was forced to overnight when my flight when MX I chose the later departure the following day so I could make the most of my night in Miami.

8 hours ORD to LAS. Not nearly as bad as some of the ordeals above.

About 24 hours. IAH to RAP via DEN.

Change aircraft in DEN got in the air and ran into some really bad turbulence.
Pilot turns around and we go back to DEN.

A couple hours in DEN and we try it again, get over halfway there and pilot has to turn back again. I think DEN to RAP is only about 45 minutes.

Back in Denver they were giving us new flight times and we decided to change our flight to the next day. Fortunately the next day was uneventful.

We probably should have just rented a car.