Aug
28
12 Ways To Avoid Airport Delays – Part 1
Filed Under Travel
With the long weekend coming, I thought I would share a good article from Forbes Traveler on 12 Ways To Avoid Airport Delays… I will share the first 6 today and the last 6 tomorrow…
1. NEVER check your bags
There are only two kinds of airline baggage: carry-on and lost. Courier your bags by using Fedex, UPS, DHL or any one of 15 other door-to-door delivery services. Not only will you save an average of 90 minutes of your life every time you fly, but when things go wrong at the airport, not having bags will allow you to keep all options open with other airlines. Not checking bags is your first line of defense in giving you a backup flight plan.
2. Go the wrong way, to get to the right place
Ask for alternate airports—Providence instead of Boston, Islip instead of La Guardia or JFK, Oakland instead of San Francisco. And don’t think point-to-point when trying to get on another flight. For instance, a traveler trying to get from Chicago to Fort Myers who finds his flight cancelled can think outside the box and book in a counterintuitive way. For example, fly first to Minneapolis (going the “wrong” way), and then into Fort Myers.
3. Don’t stand in line; ask your airline to “protect” you
Whenever possible, don’t stand in line without calling first; it’s almost guaranteed that your other flight options will disappear before you get to the front of that line. Instead, call the airline immediately and ask to be “protected”–booked on an alternate flight, whether their airline or another. But, understand that some airlines don’t have interline agreements. If you fly on Jet Blue, Southwest or Air Tran, for example, you can’t be “protected” on another carrier because they don’t “interline” with the major legacy airlines like American, United, Delta and so forth.
4. A confirmed reservation may not be enough
Make sure the reservation agent gives you a “PNR.” That stands for “passenger name record” in airline lingo. It’s a six-letter (and sometimes letter-and-digit) confirmation code for your flight. A PNR makes will make it a lot harder for that agent to say, “Never got that.”
5. Text Google
If (alright, when) the phone lines are busy, you can always text Google for an instant flight status reply. Just SMS to GOOGLE (466453), type in the airline’s two letter code and flight number, and Google will text you back with the status. A number of airlines also offer this alert system, but the information is sometimes either delayed or inaccurate.
6. Use a credit card
For the immediate future, if you’re flying on an airline still plagued by either a bad balance sheet or maintenance groundings, make sure you buy your tickets with a credit card. This way, if your flight is canceled—or your airline fails completely—you’re protected.
