O’Hare (ORD).

When? Every time I’ve flown through it.

Longest? 20 hours… I think… My brain has tried to blank that period of time out to save my sanity.

Now I avoid flying through ORD at absolute all costs. DTW, DFW, DEN, hell even ATL are better to fly through. 3 years ago my family flew to Kauai. On the way out we connected in DEN, which went great. On the way back we had to make two stops, first at LAX, the second at ORD. We made it through LAX with no issues. Got to ORD and had a 10 hour delay. The only reason why I didn’t rent a car and drive home was due to being awake for 30 hours at that point (I don’t sleep on planes). Also, the plane was always “just one more hour away”.

I will never fly American Airlines as long as I live.

Spent 12 hours at the Austin airport hoping to catch an earlier flight to reach my dad’s bedside in Alabama, but no luck. Plane from DFW to Austin was then delayed by an hour and a half. It arrived, we boarded, we got pushed back from the gate, taxied a bit then stopped. Pilot says they’re checking with maintenance about a mechanical issue. Nearly 45 minutes later they taxi to a different gate and say it may be another hour before we can attempt to depart again. By then my connecting flights were all unreachable, and I opted to deplane (luckily only had a carry-on), and took a ride share home arriving near midnight.

My wife had left in the car to meet me in Alabama, and was already two hours away. She turned around and came home, picked me up, and we headed back out on the 14-hour drive to AL, where my entire family was with my father.

We were crossing the Mississippi River when I learned my father had died. I didn’t get to say goodbye in person.