MatthewLAX

30 minutes at IAD in Terminal A

dmurphynj

Had a 1/2 hour delay at DEN a few years ago waiting for someone to drive the jet bridge. Then, the jet bridge quit working about 2 feet from the plane. The FA's told us to 'just leap over' the gap. Unbelievable.

That was pmUA. Same flight where the tow bar got stuck on the plane so they had to bang it off with a hammer ... After which, we had to wait 45 minutes for a mechanic to check out the landing gear to make sure they didn't break something.

That was a memorable flight .......

golfingboy

I have sat at IAD for over 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes while the Air Whisky ramp crew tries to find a replacement ground APU system to recharge up the battery for our Q200.

Two of them were broken, then finally the third one was functional.

For those who complain about Republic, after dealing with the horrendous Air Whisky ground ops at IAD many many times, I appreciate Republic more.

Many times at LAX at one of those gates where they have to pull the plane in I have sat and sat and sat until they could find a free tug to pull us in. It is much worse over at the DL terminal with more gates that requires being pulled into the gate.

musing

Common on late night arrivals at LAX to wait 20-30 min, especially when the plane is early, just not enough staff at that time of night to deal with things out of schedule.

My favorite was one time at LAX where it took 20 minutes to get a ramp crew and then once we were parked it took another 15 minutes for the jetbridge driver to determine that the plane was too far forward, resulting in a 30 min wait for a tug that could push the plane back a couple of feet.

Sulley

An hour in MCO.

To be fair, it was not the fault of UA or the ground crew.

MCO was having extremely severe weather with multiple lightning strikes around the airport property.

exerda

45 minutes in DEN, after a slightly early arrival (10 minutes).

One guy in F was going ballistic and kept ringing his call button over and over and gesturing out the window at the ramp crew. I was a bit surprised that cops weren't waiting to meet him at the end of the jet bridge the way he was going...

JeffS

Several of you already mentioned what is probably a more common reason: lightning. IIRC, ramp must wait 30 minutes after the last observed lightning strike before they are allowed back out. At least that is what I remember at DEN and I think ORD when I've experienced it.

fastair

The longest non-weather related (ramp cleared due to lightening,) or lack of gate space, so in effect, the longest waiting for a non-restricted ramp crew/cs crew has been under 20 min (up to 15.) That is working at ORD for close to 20 years.

Most of the time the delays are over 5 min that are not impacted by no gate space or ramp cleared due to weather is either a) last min gate change, or b) flight crew not updating their eta to reflect a significantly early arrival, until after already on the ground. GIGO.

QBK

Wow. Lots of interesting stories here! I was curious how often this happens (thus the original post), and it sounds like the answer is "not often, but it happens." fastair, thanks (as always!) for the perspective. I suspect that, as another poster suggested, this is a bigger problem at out stations.

In my case last night at CMH, I suspect our pilot's hypothesis (stated as such over the PA) was right -- there was only one ground crew available at 11:50pm, and they were working feverishly to get the E170 next to us off the gate before the crew timed out. Which is understandable -- frustrating as it was to sit and wait for half an hour, imagine being on board the last flight out of CMH only to be told at the last minute that you get to spend the night because the crew timed out.

Wow, wow, wow. That's incredible. Horrible. I don't even know what to say.

1KPath

My experience as well! Last year I was on the late BOS-LAX flight that arrived nearly 40 minutes early...no gates for the first 20 minutes and then no ground crew for the next 30 minutes...the captain finally announced that he was going to push back from the gate and taxi to maintainance where we would deplane via stairs and bused to the terminal which took another 45 minutes...so we land over 40 minutes early and actually get into the terminal nearly an hour late...a long night! The reason given was that there were no gate agents available who were qualified to operate the jet bridge I can't imagine how long it would have taken to retrieve luggage if you had checked it!

tfly212

Not technically the gate crew's fault but I waited for over two hours in O'hare until about 1 am one night about 3 feet from the jet bridge. The thunderstorms were so strong they were afraid to let the crew come out to the bridge to operate it until it subsided.

TommyC80

Over 20 minutes at EWR...too many times to count. I've waited for over 30 at LAX before.

jeebus

I had a lengthy delay this morning on UA6010 (SAV-ORD) - felt like about 30 min. Is there a website where I can look up the actual time delay?

GregMM

united.com flight status, right on the main page.

Status: Arrived Gate 32 Minutes Late (Delayed - Air traffic control)

flavorflav

31 minutes just on Monday at ORD. I was on an RJ that came in late and first held with some other RJs within sight of the C concourse. The pilot said our gate was occupied, so we drove over to E/F, turned into the dead end with E on our left and F on our right and then turned around to be positioned for our new F gate.

Then the plane backing out of our gate went mechanical, requiring a tug - and requiring us to exit the E/F gate area, turn around, and retrace our route. We drove in a circle.

Then it took 15 more minutes for the gate checked bags. Our 2.5 hour layover was whittled down to a one-hour layover by the time everything was done. Par for the course at ORD in late afternoon in the summer.