ibrandsguest

Plato90s

I once grossly overslept, made it to the ground-side check-in just 25 min before departure and the agent was reluctant to even issue me a BP.

I ran through the terminal, saw the plane still at the gate.... but the GA said the flight was closed.

I sat down to catch my breath and to think about rebooking options, but the GA calls me over again. It turns out the flight was closed, but they were still waiting on the co-pilot to get onboard. The GA took pity on me and re-opened the flight just to let me on.

I walked down the jetway and the plane pushed back basically as soon as I had buckled in - the co-pilot must have arrived just behind me.

sbm12

I've had that and they still didn't let me on. Probably for the best as I ended up with violent food poisoning that night and it would've been very uncomfortable had I made the flight.

My closest call was probably walking out of my office at 40th & Lex in Manhattan at 12:02p and making the 12:30p DL Shuttle to DCA. I did not have a ticket booked when I left the office, figuring I'd either get DL at the bottom of the hour or US at the top, depending on traffic through the tunnel. We were making good time on the BQE so I picked DL and made it. I was the last passenger on board and they closed the door behind me. My colleague did not make the flight, caught up in TSA no fly list name mismatch hell. He ended up an hour behind.

txflyer77

I was flying ATL-EWR-BOM.

First day, storms cancel a flight (forget which) and I get rebooked for the next day.

Second day, more storms cause me to get rerouted ATL-ORD-EWR-BOM. Then, naturally, yet more storms in ORD delay my ORD-EWR flight.

Result: me running through EWR and dashing down the jetway right before the door closed. Remarkably my SWU cleared.

Somehow, despite two ground stops, I managed to make it to Mumbai that day.

PVDtoDEL

A few years ago, I had a quick overnight in DPS on the way from DIL to KUL. My hotel was only 10km from the airport, so I figured that if I left the hotel 2 hours prior to departure, I'd be able to meet the 1 hour prior checkin deadline with plenty of time to spare. I had forgotten my wallet in DIL, so I only could pay for things electronically - fortunately, Uber worked in Bali and I had a free night certificate for the hotel, so I didn't need any cash.

When I called an Uber 2 hours prior, the app told me the car was 10 mins away. 40 mins later, the car was now "only" 5 mins away. The hotel front desk told me that rush hour traffic was very bad in that area, and it could take an hour plus to get to the airport, even though it was only 10km away. At this point, I'm starting to panic a little bit because I had no way to pay for my flight to be rebooked if I were to miss it.

One of the hotel drivers offers to drive me to the airport on a motorbike for a few USD - he tells me that it's much faster than car because he can "drive through all the traffic." I didn't have the few dollars, but after a few mins of asking random tourists if they would trade cash for a Paypal payment, I had my money. At this point, the checkin deadline was less than 5 mins away, so feeling like I had run out of options, I hopped on the motorbike. The next 20 mins were absolutely terrifying - sitting on a motorbike with my backpack on my back, carryon suitcase balanced on top of my head with one hand, holding on for dear life with the other as we weaved through 10km of gridlock.

DPS has a customs check between the curb and the checkin counters, so by the time I get to checkin, I've missed the cutoff by 25 mins and my flight is already boarding. There is one MH employee at the counter, and an Aussie tourist tearfully talking to her travel agent about the cost of rebooking the flight she had missed. I ran up to the counter and tried to check in. The agent typed for what felt like an eternity (although realistically, maybe 2-3 mins max). As he printed and handed a boarding pass to me, he said to me, "You're very lucky that you did online checkin. I can reprint your boarding pass now, but I wouldn't have been able to check you in. You should come earlier to the airport next time. You have 10 mins to get to the gate. I would recommend you run."

I ran. Begged my way to the front of the line for both immigration and security, and got to an almost deserted gate 15 mins prior to departure. The door closed behind me.

FN-GM

I fell asleep in the lounge at Singapore. I woke up and legged it down to the gate that was luckily very near the lounge. I was the last on the plane and they closed the door behind me.

Toshbaf

Had a job interview that ran late. Had another one the next day in another city. I was booked on the last flight of the day. I banged on the door at the gate and they opened it as well as re-opened the plane's door. I got the job at the second city, which I wouldn't have happened if I missed the plane because the company had fixed interview dates and mine was the last one.

Without overstating it, the gate agent's opening the door changed my life.

arttravel

Flying out of JFK and there was a massive accident on the Van Wyck -- car service was traveling inches per hour. Resigned to missing the flight , but did not as pilot was stuck in a transport van further behind.

LAX2Anywhere

GetSetJetSet

Easily Beirut-Istanbul-Tehran...

Background: I'm in Beirut with a buddy from college. One of our other friends is in Greece, scheduled to fly to Iceland, unknown routing. He misses his flight out of Athens, texts us and says there's a flight to Beirut landing around 1 or 2am, should he just come. We say of course. Through a friend from Paris, I was introduced to a Syrian girl whose entire family has relocated to Beirut due to the war. They'd rented out a beach club for some sort of event and everyone gets ANNIHILATED. The two of us pile in her car with her afterwards to follow her brother to a club. At some point along they way they get lost and she runs into her brothers car (don't worry, we DID tell her she shouldn't be driving, but this fell on deaf ears). Anyway, we get to the club BO18, which is in some sort of old bomb shelter and continue drinking heavily. Our friend lands at BEY, we tell him we're staying at Le Grey, he takes a cab over, tells them he wants a room and drops his bags without ever going up to the room and heads to meet us at BO18. He goes from sober to BLACKOUT drunk in about 45 minutes. Sometime after 3am he tells me he lost several thousands dollars in hard currency that he had in his pocket and dropped on the floor. I asked him WHY he would carry that much cash, his response "I didn't want to feel poor." At this point he gave me his phone and wallet because he slurred that he couldn't be trusted to hold onto them. We get home after dawn, etc...the next afternoon he calls my room telling he is screwed because his phone, wallet, etc...are gone. I remind him he gave them to me for safe keeping, I have them and I'm going back to sleep.

The day in question: The three of us had been drinking all day at a beach club, but being as me and my buddy had an early flight to IST connecting to Tehran, not the most normal destination for Americans, we said we were going to take it easy. The friend who came in from Athens was hoping to get us to miss our flight and stay in Beirut. He goaded us into going to Skybar "we'll just have a few, we won't stay out late!" You know how that goes. Bottle service, out of control through 5am, etc...after falling for the old "just a few drinks" lie, my buddy and I got back to the hotel and bought into another lie. We figured since we had to go to leave for the airport around 730am and it was already after 5, that there was no point in sleeping, so we told ourselves "we won't sleep, we'll just rest our eyes." Of course, we slept. I woke up less than an hour before our flight was due to takeoff and FREAKED OUT. Anyone who has been to BEY knows what an absolute horrorshow that airport is. To this day I have NO IDEA how we made it on that plane, we were still VERY intoxicated but the driver pulled some F1 moves and we got to BEY, checked in, through security and on the plane like 2 minutes before the doors closed, which was handy because if we missed that connection we were not going to make it to Iran. We passed out on the flight to IST and were in rough shape waiting for the connection. Buddy was puking in the bathroom etc...finally we land in Iran dying of hangover and in very rough shape, the terminal was sweltering and when they saw American passports they naturally pulled us aside for additional questioning. I was very, very happy to get to my lousy hotel bed that night and sleep.

bitterproffit

milepig

ft101

Many years ago snow one Boxing Day morning, combined with freezing temperatures and aircraft being parked up for > 24 hours, meant de-icing took so long at EDI our connection to Air Canada at LHR was compromised. The transit desk said good news and bad news. Bad news means run and don't stop for duty free. Good news was upgrade to upstairs on B747. Almost carried onto plane by gate staff desperate to get the flight away.

safari ari

Cab ride from Hoboken to JFK on some three day weekend, took 2.5 hours to get there. Cut the line at security as precheck was closed, ran through the terminal with all my belongings (2 computers, coat, belt, liquid bag) was one of the last people onto the jet-bridge.

In Tokyo, at the CX lounge as I wanted to compare to the JAL lounge. Thought my flight was delayed 20 minutes, so sitting eating dan dan noodles and doing a whiskey tasting. Realize my flight is not delayed, and is in fact on the other side of the terminal, with about 15 minutes until departure. The map of the airport shows it's a 15 minute walk from where I am to the gate. Best part, my luggage is in a locker in the JAL lounge, which is half way between myself and the gate. I tell my travel companion to run to the gate and try to hold the gate open. I hear the intercom as I am sprinting to the JAL lounge paging my companion and myself's name. "Final Call". I'm sprinting the last half of the terminal carrying two rollaboards, and two backpacks. Get to the gate, and forget that I have 'SSSS' on my boarding pass, then I get a full inspection from security officers as I am dripping sweat, holding two backpacks, one which contained some prescription drugs I am not too sure the Japanese officials would be too happy for anyone to have, and two rollaboards. I kindly hand the backpack to my companion, no questions asked, as is tradition in Japan. Get all my stuff okayed, jog down the jetbridge to an FA waiting at the door, "there you are finally, we almost left without you" as she closed the door behind me, not even three steps onto the plane. Sit in my seat sweating, but very reluctant to make the flight back home.

jrl767