“Do you mean the bus?” Another passenger asked the question after glancing at her boarding pass, and that was how a woman named Alex learned her cheap American Airlines “flight” from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia was not a flight at all.
She had booked it on Google Flights. The trip was a two-and-a-half-hour bus ride. Alex laughed it off, and she filmed it. The TikTok creator @she_is.becoming posted the clip with the caption “POV: When your American Airlines ‘flight’ is actually a bus,” and it has been viewed 3.4 million times. American later gave her a $75 travel credit for the confusion.
A real service, easy to miss
The bus belonged to American’s Landline program, which links smaller airports to major hubs by motorcoach. The coaches have Wi-Fi, outlets and a bathroom. Nothing about it is a scam.
The catch is in the listing. On Google Flights, the word “bus” shows up in small text under the airline name. If price is all you are looking at, it is easy to skip past.
What commenters said
TikTok split on it. One user joked that “a bus at an airport that really wants to grow up and be an airplane sounds like a Pixar movie.” Another wrote, “Going through TSA for a bus is insane.” Someone else offered “American Groundlines!”
A few had been caught the same way. “This happened to us! We flew into Philly and our connecting flight was a bus — I lost my marbles because I wasn’t expecting it,” one wrote.
Plenty of viewers defended the setup as convenient and gentler on the environment than a short-haul flight. One frequent traveler said you check your bag through security and get dropped past major airport security, and called it “actually pretty great.”
How to spot a bus before you pay
Read the itinerary line by line and look for “bus,” “motorcoach” or “operated by Landline.” Check the travel time too: a “flight” that runs long for a short route probably involves a road. Some bus segments still come with TSA screening and checked-bag service, so the trip can feel a lot like flying.
American and United both now use bus partnerships on select regional routes instead of short-haul flights. The original story ran on September 2, 2026.
