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Most people expect their flight to take off, not to turn onto a highway. But for one American Airlines passenger, her “flight” from South Bend, Indiana, to Chicago never actually left the ground. Why? Because it turned out to be a bus ride. TikTok user Krista Moats shared her experience after realising that her short connection from South Bend to Chicago O’Hare wasn’t by plane at all. What she’d unknowingly booked was part of American Airlines’ new partnership with The Landline Company, which offers shuttle buses as “flight connections” to help reduce congestion at major airports, according to the Daily Dot. The ‘Flight’ On The Road In her TikTok post, Krista explained exactly how the mix-up happened. “I booked a work trip to New York and the airport I fly from is really small so I had to connect in Chicago (other options to connect were Atlanta or Minneapolis – so I picked Chicago that time),” she wrote in her caption. She said everything felt completely normal at first, like checking in her bags to passing through security and waiting at her gate. “The day of my flight I checked my bags, went through security, and after my zone was called to board – we all got on a bus and were driven all the way from SBN–ORD,” she wrote. Krista added that she hadn’t realised this was even an option while booking. “This is a new service previously only available in Philadelphia, so it wasn’t exactly on my radar to look for ‘bus’ while booking. Literally, that option didn’t exist previously, so I wasn’t looking out for that,” she said. Despite the surprise, she wasn’t upset. “I was booking according to total trip time and wasn’t paying a ton of attention, but I’m also not complaining because I was happy with the service. This was the first trip on the first day of service, an inaugural trip,” she said. Recording The First Ride In her 44-second video, Krista documented the journey. “It was so wild that like, when we got there,” she says while filming a group of airport employees taking pictures of the bus. She added, “So this morning I had a flight from South Bend to Chicago. And when I exited like the gate, to get on the plane, it was a bus.” At this point in the video, the camera pans to show the large white shuttle bus surrounded by airport staff in yellow vests. A few passengers wait nearby with their luggage. “Apparently, the very first of American Airlines gate-to-gate bus service from South Bend to Chicago. And we were like driving beside planes when they were taxi-ing,” Krista narrates. In the final part of her video, she steps off the bus and laughs while talking to an airport worker. “This is so weird right,” she said. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Krista Moats (@kristamoats) What People Are Saying Online Her video drew all kinds of reactions. Some people found it funny; others were simply confused. One user commented, “That better have been a bus ticket price for bus service.” Another wrote, “So let me get this straight, it is pretty much the worst of both worlds. You have to get there early to go through security, you have to check your bags, it costs more because you’re using an airport, it’s the sluggishness of going through city traffic, and there’s no drink service? And why is there a crew on the bus?” Someone else added, “So they made you pay airplane money for a bus ticket?” Not everyone was critical, though. A viewer said, “This has got to be a lot more eco-friendly than short flight plane trips, I would imagine. I hope it was cheaper than a plane ticket and you still got your airline miles, though.” A few assumed Krista had booked a 90-mile flight just to avoid driving. After seeing the flood of reactions, she uploaded a follow-up video to clarify that her full journey started in New York. The South Bend-to-Chicago leg was just a connecting service.
