what is the longest you have sat in a plane without flying (some type of delay on the ground)?
p.s. it couldn’t have been as bad as AA 1348 
or could it
I sat on a Emb-170 for about 3 hours while they check the left side fuel. That was after sitting in DCA for about 5 hours while storms and tornados went through. Take a look this was the day.
Kinda bad
Getting nasty looking
There’s the green sky!
Green skys are a sign of storms that can produce tornado’s along with nasty winds and good size hail.
I remember that day. Nice photos - sharp focus on high zoom… are they yours? Did you make it over to GRAVELLY POINT for spotting that day?
I sat on a 777 for one and a half hours due to a mechanical problem. They kept promising us the delay would only be a half an hour - we got tired of hearing that one. They ended up passing out free headsets to everyone to make up for it (Riiiiiiiiight… a $2.50 value makes up for 1.5 hours of my precious time… 
). But it wasn’t so bad really. The one seat next to me was booked, but the guy didn’t show up, so I was comfortable.
No I didn’t take the pictures. I was in the terminal looking out and watching the storms roll in one after another hoping to get out before 5pm. But ended up leaving aroung 7:30pm. It was still fun. The same thing happend one year to the day in 2005 over at Dulles. Ended up flying from Dulles to Portland and made it there at midnight while my dad drove 6hours to get me. He walk in the door as I unloaded. We drove 6 hours steight back to make it to a funeral at 10am made it home at 6:30am and it was completely foggy the whole way. There’s something that I will always remember.
The longest I recall was about 90 minutes on an Air Wisconsin 146 at ORD. This followed boarding outside in a driving rain and about 75 degree weather. The plane was hot and humid and we just sat there in a thunder storm. At least I’m sitting here 15 years later typing. I need to go check my shoes to see if they’ve dried out yet.
I had about a 4-hour early morning delay at KEWR due to winter weather. The aircraft had been held at its inbound airport by ATC, so it arrived at Newark hours late.
Also, I and my family were stuck at Copenhagen from about noon to 8 p.m. due to late-arriving IBE aircraft. The airline was actually on strike, but of course didn’t inform passengers about it. Once we arrived in Madrid, there was another lengthy delay for a connection to Malaga.
Many years ago I sat on a TWA B742 at Heathrow while there was an “issue” with the transatlantic radar or something. They were allowing 8 flights per hour to cross to USA or so we were told due to this problem. I was a youngster of 20 sitting in 1A being served alco beverages, but nobody was allowed to go to the lavatory. Oh that was a bad morning. I remember hearing/feeling several Concorde taking off and shaking the plane as they blitzed by while we just stayed still. It was a 3 hour delay which caused me to miss my JFK to CMH connection. I took a taxi from JFK to LGA and had to get out and RUN the last half mile or so with my bags. I managed to catch that flight to CMH by about 2 minutes, but never did catch my breath. I was like OJ Simpson running thru the airport. Ironically I had met OJ Simpson on the way out of JFK a week or so earlier and watched his bags while hanging in an overcrowded TWA lounge. He had missed a couple flights that day and was driving the TWA personnel crazy with his demands. Yet, he missed another flight while goofing around ejoying his fame. Oh the good old days of First Class travel…
During one delay in an RJ, they had to redistribute the luggage for a weight balance issue. Then they asked for volunteers to forfit luggage to go on the next flight out to the same destination. Then they said they were over the weight and asked 2 volunteers to deplane in exchange for all sorts of gifts, which the last couple to board did. Then a very angry pilot came on and announced they had to redistribute the luggage yet again now that two humans had left. He apologized for this saying none of it should have occurred in the first place.
Another delay I had was in a BAE 46 jet. After boarding, we were deplaned to wait in the gate for 4 hours because the starter was bad on the jet. We reboarded only to find out they didn’t get us a new plane or replace the starter. They “fixed” it and put us on the same plane. Talk about a nervous flight after a long grumpy wait.
Just a minor one, but sat in a CRJ in SLC for an hour and a half. Think it was the backup air system that broke. I watched 3 inches of snow pile up on the wing outside my window before the long awaited de-icing and departure. That was nothing compared to the 2 days I just spent in my home without power due to an ice storm. National Guard missed my door but the neighbor kid woke me up offering firewood. Got to be about 40 degrees so my pc had a chance to cool off.
Nah, once the engines are running, the starter is unimportant…Now, if the plane were to STALL for whatever reason…
Reminds me of the scene from “Airplane II” when the grease monkeys jumpstarted the Lunar Shuttle with a beat-up station wagon to get it to fire. 
January, 2006. Paris.
My father was on an Air Transat 767 qued up for 7-8 hours waiting for de-iceing before flight to CYYZ.
I was stuck in St. John’s NL on a flight from CYDF - CYYT - CYUL. Due to weather, my flight could not take off from CYYT due to ceiling and visibility ( fog moved in mixed with freezing rain ) . The airline sent everyone " home ". Of the 113 passengers onboard, only three of us managed to get get compenations for our delays. I was put up in hotel, given ground transportation and a few meals and flew out the next morning. Many had slept in the termanal.
My story could be another thread I guess. " memorable lay overs " 
I know you were joking, however, don’t forget that the starter is also the generator. (in most cases)
My longest delay was on KORD-KSAN flight Christmas Eve 1997. Right before we boarded a wet snow began to fall. We stayed on board, in case the snow stopped and we were able to depart. A couple of de-icings and four hours later we finally were on our way.
Apparently, take-offs at KORD had stopped during the delay (though I can’t say for sure). As we taxied out, much of the conversation on ground control communication dealt with how much snow was on the runway. Although they weren’t saying it directly, most of the pilots were implying: “I don’t want to go first, do you?”
We eventually took off and made it to KSAN after a total of eight hours on the plane. There was an antsy 11-year-old traveling by himself sitting next to me who tested my Christmas spirit. He finally fell asleep about half way through the flight.
the longest was yul-paris with air france on dec 16 2006. the reason we got 40cm of snow that day the airport was a mess. 
Not an airline delay, but hope you can forgive me for this being in the “wrong” forum. We had a quick daytrip from KHPN-White Plains, NY to KPWM-Portland, ME. Dropped our pax and called for the clearance to go home. It was 1500z (10am) when I called and the controller said “You’re cleared as filed, and you can expect departure clearance at 0400z” Uhhhhh, WHAT?!? Before I could respond, he added " Yes sir, that is 13 hours from now." After some further investigation, we found out that weather was moving into the New Jersey area and, even though we would have been well clear of it, New York ATC had shut down the airspace. Called company ops, buttoned up the plane, and Hotel bar here we come!!!
hey Trafly - ever heard of VFR? I know I know, the insurance company requires all jet ops to be under IFR . .
I spent 2.5 hours sitting in an Independence Air CRJ at the end of 33 at BDL on fine summer afternoon trying to get to SAV through IAD. The Wx @ BDL was clear and some TSRA had moved through IAD but the wx there was clear as well, yet, because of backups we sat waiting for our EFC.
I tried to get the pilots of launch VFR @ 16.5 but they were clear that the company only operated IFR - no exceptions. We were only going to FL220 so 16.5 would not have had that dramatic an effect on fuel consumption.
I think the pilots left the gate so they could get paid for the block time!!
Once at O’Hare me and my family had a delay from our United Airlines 737 because somebody spilled paint, yes I said paint, in the belly cargo section 
Then we had to board another plane a kid who was about 11 or 12 was crying and saying “I don’t want to get on another plane!”
Then the second time we went to O’Hare we waited almost 2 hours to get on the runway. O’Hare has always been bad luck for us.
Yeah I had a BLAST!!! I was by myself and I got to do what I felt like doing. It rained like the whole week before in DCA, my friend and I kept track of the weather because its where I was heading to go home.
Greetings everyone, discovered FlightAware a while ago, enjoy looking at the site and tracking different flights and just recently saw there was a discussion section
My longest delay on the ground was in December of 2000 going from MSP to SFO on Northwest. We boarded around 8:45 am for a 9:15 am departure. Around 9:30 they told us they had a part that needed replacing before we could go, but we would have to move gates to do that. So we push back, they pull is over to another gate and we sit there.
We let some people on that had initially missed the flight and let some off who wanted to try and catch the 11:00 am to SFO, which oddly enough was at the gate next to us, and I watched the plane come in.
No news until 11:30 that we were getting close to being able to push. In that time I watched the 11:00 am flight to SFO departwith those people who got off!
11:50 am we push back and were on our way shortly after that. No explanation after that initial one. Once we were in the air we were told we would be flying over South Dakota, Wyoming and other western states before arriving in San Francisco around 1:00 pm mountain time huh?!
After having a bagel chucked at me we got free headsets to watch a movie (it was on a DC-10) and landed around 1:30 or so. Once on the ground we were told to let connecting passengers off the plane because they had been waiting for 15 minutes
The way back we were delayed two hours waiting for the plane and another hour sitting on the plain waiting.
My longest not rly delay but missed flight was when DL screwed up our flights. We were going from BNA-BOS-KEF. Our flight arrived 2 hrs late from BOS to pick us up in BNA, then we had to wait onboard for 1.5 hrs b/c 1 hr through that they found out we wer gunna have to switch runways to a smaller runway, so they would ahve to kick off 9 ppl, so they finally id, and then 30 minsalater we arrive at said new runway and then he turns around and goes to the original runway to takeoff!!! So we arrive like 4 hrs late and miss our Icelandair flight!!! Then we have to f*** around and call the DL hotline to find a DL human in the Bos Chekc-in line where we were directed to get our new tickets(this was 12 pm) then finally 20 mins later we finnaly find someone and they put us up for a night in the “airport motel 8” which was no joke 30 mins from BOS. But we have to wait with our luggae outside for no joke an hour before the courtesy bus shows up and takes us there!!! Thats why my fam will never Fly DL to BOS ever again!!!
flew home from london heathrow to new york city but ran into john f. kennedy closing due to snowstorm, so our alternate city for Delta Airlines was Cincinnati. So we went to Cincy and found out that the airport did not have customs so we could not get off plane…5 hrs. later jfk opened and we went back to nyc to clear customs…then had to fly on to Cleveland to finish flight… 