Blinq | N.Y. passenger endures a pricey detour to Phila.

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, August, 2006 | by Daniel Rubin

In the past, say you were stranded on a runway in Philadelphia for seven hours while your airline fought over money with refuelers, then canceled the flight because the crew had worked too long. You might have little recourse but writing an angry letter to the newspaper.

Now there are venues like the Consumerist, a Gawker Media empire dedicated to complaints and samurai shopping.

An Amy B. wrote this week of her 17-hour ordeal, which began at London's Heathrow Airport and ended - after a plane, a cab and a train - in New York, where she was headed all along.

But not before landing in Airport Hell the night of July 21.

A broken cargo door, then bad weather, forced her Virgin Atlantic flight to divert to Philadelphia. She wrote on the Consumerist:...