Michael Romain and his wife Catherine, who are both in their eighties, are among the thousands of American Airlines passengers affected by this summer's travel chaos.
The couple told Insider they were on their way to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, to celebrate a friend's 89th birthday on June 19. After arriving in Dallas from Palm Beach airport, their connecting flight was canceled and they had to stay overnight and arrived in Mexico a day late.
However, Michael Romain said "the fun began" on their return journey on June 25. He and his wife boarded the plane and seemed set for an on-time departure before the aircraft developed a communication problem, followed by an issue with the brakes.
The pilot then asked all passengers to leave the plane and take their belongings with them.
The couple reboarded about an hour later, but was delayed because two passengers were missing. One had dropped her passport on the jetway and it fell onto the tarmac. "By the time the passport was retrieved, the pilots had timed out," Michael Romain said.
The flight then had to be canceled, which he said led to a "domino effect."
The couple tried to rebook on a flight the following morning and most passengers were booked into hotels overnight.
"We then had to wait for our luggage before leaving for the assigned hotels. However, the luggage crews that were to return our luggage were working to load other departing flights, so we had to wait."
After arriving back at the airport the next morning while waiting to board, their flight was again canceled. They tried to get put on another flight to Dallas but ended up having to wait another 24 hours before finally leaving Mexico.
Michael Romain said: "I suspect my wife and I spent well over 12 hours on lines during this nightmare and since we were not prepared for a lengthy stay I had used up all my heart medications."
"During our waiting time in the airport, we marveled at Viva, Aeromexico, Volaris and United come and go while AA travelers sat. The agents went through hell to find all these passengers new flights."
Flight receipts reviewed by Insider showed the cancellations.
