A viral TikTok video is shining a spotlight on an airline service that transports passengers to their destination via bus, rather than by plane.
Kennedy Woodard, a Chicago-based engineer, documented her experience with the service in a March 16 TikTok video that has since garnered more than 13.5 million views.
"When you buy a flight from American Airlines but they board you on to a bus on the tarmac so you think they're driving you to the plane but they just start driving to the destination," she captioned the video.
Woodard explained in a follow-up video that she originally booked for a trip on March 12 on what she assumed was a flight from South Bend, Indiana, to Chicago. The trip was booked through her employer's work portal, she said, and cost $431.72.
When she got to the airport and through security, however, she said she was surprised to see a bus at her gate instead of a plane. Woodard said she had unknowingly been booked on an American Airlines bus service that transports passengers between the two cities, rather than a traditional flight.
In an interview, Woodard told ABC News that it was not until the bus was on the highway that she realized she was not flying to Chicago.
"The bus is moving on the tarmac, and then it gets to, like, the security booth on the edge of the tarmac, which it's going through to exit the airport," Woodard said. "So by the time we get through the security booth and we're on the highway, I think that's when it really hit me that this is my ride to Chicago O'Hare."
Woodard said she later learned she was aboard a service called Landline, offered by American Airlines, which transports travelers between regional airports in certain locations, including Chicago and South Bend.
According to its website, Landline provides grand transportation between local communities and hub airports in a small number of cities including Philadelphia, Toronto, Minneapolis, Chicago and Denver.
In addition to American Airlines, the company also partners with Air Canada and Sun Country Airlines, according to its website.
The American Airlines website describes Landline as a "premium motorcoach" service, noting it offers "many of the same amenities as a flight and is booked just like any other connecting flight in our network."
American Airlines first partnered with Landline in 2022 and opened the Chicago O'Hare International Airport route in 2025, offering transportation between the airport and South Bend, as well as Rockford, Illinois.
Woodard said that because she booked the flight through her company's work portal, she did not see exactly what the ticket confirmation looked like upon purchase. She said in another follow-up TikTok video on March 19 that the trip was repeatedly referred to as a "flight" in subsequent communications from American Airlines.
Woodard told ABC News the travel day began like any other: She arrived at the airport and walked to her gate, but rather than boarding a plane through a jet bridge, she said she took stairs down to the tarmac and noticed passengers loading their luggage onto a bus.
"I'm like, 'Oh, that's kind of weird. Like, if it was a bus taking us to a plane, why would they be, you know, taking our carry-ons?'" she recalled.
She said she eventually realized that there was assigned seating on the bus and said the driver began offering passengers cookies, as flight attendants often do on airplanes.
After a bus ride that lasted approximately two hours and 40 minutes, Woodard said the passengers made it to O'Hare airport. In her first follow-up video, she said the bus "took us to where the planes normally drop passengers off" and allowed them to disembark.
In a statement to ABC News, American Airlines said its partnership with Landline "offers customers the convenience of traveling through a local airport, with baggage checked through to their final destination, eligibility to earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points on qualifying fares, and a seamless connection into American's global network."
The statement added that "across American's digital channels, Landline-operated segments are clearly presented and marketed as premium motorcoach services throughout the booking path."
Despite the mix-up, Woodard called the sequence of events "hilarious" and said she decided to share it on social media.
"I'm always getting myself into these situations. 'Let me post it and put this, like, funny sound on it that's supposed to, you know, simulate or make you feel like you're panicking,' because that's what was happening to me in the moment," she said, describing the daunting sound she added to the original video.
In addition to picking up millions of views, Woodard's video has since garnered more than 16,000 comments and 1.7 million likes.
One commenter joked, "Did you put your phone in bus mode?"
Woodard said the comments have brought her joy. "I just spent, like, a majority of the day laughing," she said.
