Take on the missed connection

There really is no worse feeling in the world than sitting on the Tarmac with a flight delay knowing it will cost you your connection. Leaving Beijing yesterday, we hit some kind of mechanical issue, one they told us would be resolved quickly by just getting another flight navigation thingamajingy. The "quickly" turned into three hours of waiting and when all was set and done we departed three hours and 22 minutes after our scheduled departure which meant that I was definitely not making it home for Dancing with the Stars.
We land in Detroit at about 9pm and by the time we are at the gate it is 9:30 and the airport is basically dark. There are no other incoming international flights this late, so immigration is a breeze but 9:30pm also meant that there are no other outbound flights for the night. Imagine an A340 worth of people who have now sat on a 14 hour flight after having sat on the Tarmac for 3 1/2 additional hours after having gotten to the airport two and a half hours early flooding into Detroit with no connections.

The entire place is zoo as everybody is forced onto flights the next morning but it still means we need a place to crash.

Luckily, as a Platinum Medallion Delta member they get me a hotel directly in the airport while they force the rest of the herd to some Comfort Inn about 7 miles off the airport. I get to the hotel and there is a line of 1000 people in front of me with similar issues. Every schmuck is there because they missed a connection our of DesMoines or Portland or Beijing, nobody is at the airport hotel on a Saturday night at 11pm because they want to be there and they are severely understaffed. I grab an $18 burger and two IPA's and crash hard, my first decent night sleep in a week till I'm jarred awake by my alarm at 6am and now on Sunday morning, I am back at the airport again. Welcome home