Here are 20 of this summer's worst airline horror stories — from lost wedding dresses to a 13-month-old booked on a different flight than her parents

1. Qantas booked a 13-month-old baby on a separate flight than her parents from Europe to Thailand. The family was stuck in Rome for 12 days until the next available flight. They spent over 20 hours on the phone to Qantas' customer helpline.

Read the full story here.

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2. Delta Airlines staff forgot to put a passenger's wheelchair on his flight from New York to Dublin. The man spent two days on vacation without his wheelchair — he even thought about flying back home to collect a spare one.

Read the full story here.

3. Air Canada revoked an employee's flying privileges after her daughter complained about poor customer service when boarding a flight with the airline.

Read the full story here.

4. A woman lost her luggage worth $1,000, which had her jewelry and wedding dress inside, when flying from Lisbon to Dublin via Frankfurt. She had to buy extra clothes for her honeymoon, she told Insider. Her maid of honor also lost her baggage but located it with an Apple AirTag.

Read the full story here.

5. A Delta flight was forced to make a U-turn over the Atlantic Ocean after the crew found out there was a fuel imbalance. The plane had to return to New York's JFK airport.

Read both stories here and here.

6. American Airlines told a passenger to collect his bag himself, despite it being found 4,000 miles away in London Heathrow airport.

Read the full story here.

7. American Airlines canceled a 10-year-old passenger's connecting flight but failed to inform her parents. Her mother said she was traveling alone and was crying on the phone.

Read the full story here.

8. American Airlines told passengers to get off a plane they had just boarded after a 5-hour delay because the pilots had timed out. A pilot who has worked at the airline for 23 years told Insider that pilots "absolutely hate doing this to our passengers."

Read the full story about the flight here, and an American Airline pilot's testimony here. 

9. Passengers had to wait on a plane with limited air-conditioning and food-and-drink services for six hours. American Airlines said the delay was because of maintenance issues and weather conditions.

Read the full story here.

10. Passengers onboard a British Airways flight received an email in the middle of their flight saying their connection had been canceled. To top it off, some passengers lost their luggage.

Read the full story here.

11. A maid of honor traveling to her sister's wedding in Greece says Air Canada lost her bridesmaid dress and turned her trip back into a four-day "nightmare." A pilot friend ended up flying her home through a thunderstorm in a four-seater plane over Lake Michigan.

Read the full story here.

12. A teacher and firefighter from Colorado only made it to their honeymoon cruise in Italy after an American Airlines crew member gave up his extra stand-by ticket. An Air Canada delay caused them to miss their layover and lose their luggage.

Barry Winiker/Getty Images

Read the full story here.

13. A mother-daughter vacation booked in 2019 and pushed back two years due to the pandemic was thrown into disarray after Delta delayed their flights two days. They received their baggage 32 days later.

Read the full story here.

14. A senior manager at a travel logistics firm with an $11,000 flight to a work conference in Europe says Air Canada "begged" 25 people to get off the plane because it was too heavy to take off. Then they lost his bag.

Read the full story here.

15. A 34-year-old with fibromyalgia and lupus told Insider she was "abandoned" in her wheelchair by Air Canada after her flight was canceled. Fellow passengers had to push her and other travelers with disabilities through the airport, she added.

16. A couple in their eighties got stuck in Mexico and ran out of heart medication after their flight was canceled twice.

Read the full story here.

17. A family of four missed a $5,500 Disney cruise purchased as a birthday gift for their children after Air Canada cancelled their flight. Instead, the family spent the holiday weekend in multiple airports sleeping "on benches," they told Insider.

Read the full story here.

18. Air Canada sent a passenger's cats from Toronto to San Francisco without him – and then told him to go pick them up. The airline will no longer allow pets to travel in the baggage compartment until September 12, 2022.

Read the full story here.

19. A man who was kicked off a Hawaiian Airlines flight over an "invalid ticket" after boarding a plane to Maui with his daughter, took his frustrations to TikTok as part of a viral cautionary tale.

TikTok/Ryan DeMarre

Read the full story here.

20. An Air Canada passenger who deliberately took only a carry-on to avoid luggage chaos says she was made to check the bag anyway, only for it to go missing.

Read the full story here.