It didn't even approach being knocked unconscious and bloodied, but it was still damned annoying. From the time I left the airport near Seattle and arrived in Buffalo, I had been through a complete ZOO at Las Vegas, and an all-night waffle house in Charlotte - an experience not to be missed, if it's ever available to you. I landed to find that, while the airline had not been able to get me to its own connecting flight on time, my luggage had reached Buffalo hours ahead of me and was in a locked office. That was 32.5 hours later.
I had to put my own experience in perspective, though. Another passenger who got stranded in Charlotte had spent the previous night on the floor of the airport in Philadelphia, and was expected to finally reach Arizona the afternoon following her overnight in NC. That would entail her being in transit for all or part of 3 consecutive days to get from Atlantic City to Albuquerque. At least the airline provided her one with of those compact, every-hiker-should-carry-one "space blankets" to keep her warm on the floor of the airport in PA, so there's that.
While waiting for someone to open the office to retrieve my luggage, I saw a woman standing next to me with her arms folded and a look that was a curious combination of exhaustion and fury. Her father, a disabled, diabetic veteran in a wheelchair, had been stranded in Charlotte as well, and he MIGHT have been on the connecting flight I had just been on, so she was waiting to find out. I don't remember seeing a person in a wheelchair on the flight, so I imagine her exhaustion and fury were going to suffer a serious uptick. However, my mental acuity was not at an all-time high at that point, so he might have been.
Not a nickel of compensation was offered to any of us, as far as I know. Apparently, 32.5 hours to travel a distance that, hypothetically, could involve a leisurely breakfast in Seattle and an early supper in Buffalo is no more than incidental.
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