I have flown possibly thousands of times all around the world and don't have anything more than minor annoyances to relate.

One I remember is an 18 or so hour flight from Africa to Atlanta on Delta with a group of maybe 20 some people after having spent 3 weeks working long hours at a rural hospital. Arriving at Atlanta and lined up with the group to board the connecting flight, the gate agent stopped my son and me and told the two of us to stand to the side until after he was finished boarding everyone else. While I was waiting for the agent to quit typing on his computer and take care of us after all the other passengers had disappeared down the ramp, my wife called me asking why we weren't on the plane because the door was closing. She and my daughter were sitting on the plane with two empty seats right next to them. Yeah, those seats stayed empty.

The gate agent actually laughed when he told me that we had been booked onto a flight 5 hours later. I still remember his bright red curly hair and the smirk on his face. And I still believe that he had deliberately delayed dealing with us until the plane had rolled back from the gate just for the amusement that it gave him to do it.

Although all of the tickets had been booked at the same time through a direct purchase from Delta, their reservations person had somehow put the two of us on a flight 5 hours later. So, we had the pleasure of sitting in a coffee shop in the airport for 5 hours waiting for the next flight that would not get us home until something around midnight, bone weary from our adventure.

As it happened, I took over the flight scheduling for the group after that trip. We coordinated groups of 20 or 30 people several times per year. For the next several years, we flew other airlines besides Delta. I am sure neither the gate agent nor the airline gave a shit, but I felt some slight amount of happiness each time I booked international flights for a 20 or 30 person group onto a different airline.