Booked a flight ticket, got a road trip instead — airline’s bizarre route explained

Dubai: Most people expect their flight to take off, not turn onto a highway. But for one American Airlines passenger, her “flight” from South Bend, Indiana, to Chicago never left the ground — because it was a bus.

TikTok user Krista Moats went viral after discovering that her short connecting flight to Chicago O’Hare was actually a coach service operated under American Airlines’ partnership with The Landline Company. The initiative replaces short-haul flights with luxury shuttle buses that operate as “flight connections,” aiming to reduce congestion and emissions at major airports, according to media reports.

Krista explained that everything about the trip initially felt like a regular flight — from check-in to security, and even the wait at her boarding 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 to ORD,” she wrote.

The service, launched recently from South Bend and previously available only in Philadelphia, caught her completely off guard. “That option didn’t exist before, so I wasn’t even looking for ‘bus’ while booking,” she said.

Still, she wasn’t upset — just amused. “I was booking according to total trip time and wasn’t paying a ton of attention, but I’m not complaining because I was happy with the service. This was the first trip on the first day of service — an inaugural trip,” she added.

In her 44-second video, Krista documented the unusual “gate-to-gate” journey, filming the white coach bus driving beside taxiing planes. As she steps off, laughing with ground staff, she sums it up perfectly: “This is so weird — right?”