Excessive delays and cancellations, passenger strandings, and airport woes can happen anywhere. Although there are now federal regulations to prevent delays in excess of three hours, we are essentially still at the mercy of the airlines when snow and storms strike. Below are some tips to help you avoid some of the worst weather-related air travel problems.
The biggest, meanest problems for travelers frequently occur at connecting airports. If your first outbound flight is canceled and you end up returning to your own home from your local airport, that's one thing; if you are stuck in your vacation hotel hoping to get a flight home, that's a bit worse. But when you're stuck in a connecting airport calling hotels and praying for a place to stay, you're in what is call your worst-case scenario.
For this reason, you should fly nonstop whenever possible. To find nonstop flights, do all your initial flight searches with the "Nonstop Flights Only" button checked or better yet have your travel agent get you the best connections possible.
If you absolutely must fly with a connection, watch your layover times carefully. If a weather delay causes you to miss your connection, you might be out of luck, as the airline is not necessarily obligated to find you a seat on the next flight, and often cannot logistically do so if flights are full or unavailable. If you have a really tight connection time and your flight is running late, let your flight attendant know, and he or she may be able to make arrangements to hold your next flight, or at least get you off your first flight quickly.
Again, if you must fly with a connection, check weather at your connecting cities as well as at your departure and destination airports. We all want to know what the weather is like for the departure and arrival airports (particularly if we're traveling on vacation), but for the same reasons stated above you'll want to know what is going on at your connecting airport as well. If the weather looks very bad, you may want to contact your airline to see if it can reroute you; it may be in its best interest to do so.
If it does look like you will need rerouting, your chances of getting on a different flight will be greatly enhanced if you've already done the research yourself to determine which alternate flights might work best. Don't count on a gate agent to know about or search the schedules of other airlines it isn't likely to happen.
Try to book your connection through a southern city where weather shouldn't be an issue. There are no guarantees here, as northern airports tend to be better equipped to deal with winter conditions, and a snowstorm can almost wholly shut down an airport that more often suffers from too much sun. However, your odds are better in places that rarely see ice or snow.
Choose a morning flight, for two reasons: First, you are far less likely to have your flight affected by problems at other airports. Second, if your flight is canceled or badly delayed, your options for alternate flights are greatly increased, improving your odds for getting on a different flight by the end of the day.
Get ahead of the game at security. Before you even get in line, put all your gear and pocket change in a sleeve of your carry-on bag. With so much valuable stuff getting dumped into plastic buckets all day, every day, it's inevitable that some of that stuff gets left behind, dropped, damaged, broken or even stolen. If you take 15 seconds to stow everything, you'll make the time up twice over on either side of the security gate, and won't risk losing cell phones, wallets, keys and the like.
Finally, avoid peak travel dates as best you can, particularly holiday weekends.
Let Rawhide Travel and Tours help you with all your reservation needs. Call us at (602) 843-5100 or visit our website: rawhidetravel.com.
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Rawhide Travel and Tours Inc
6008 West Bell Rd # F105
Glendale, Arizona 85308-3793
(602) 843-5100
rawhidetravel.com
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