Travel Woes

This season has brought forth a great deal of travel problems throughout North America.  Weather, of course, has been the main culprit.  Airports have been closed, flights cancelled and destinations unreachable in most of eastern Canada and north-eastern United States since before Christmas.  It is not an easy thing to cope with for most travelers.  People get frustrated, tired, confused and, in some cases, seriously neglected.  It can make a pleasant trip a disaster.  So, how do you cope with it all?

I have done my fair share of traveling throughout my career; mostly business travel and mostly by air.  Despite being a naval officer, I probably traveled much farther by air than by sea, including more than one hundred flights across the Atlantic.  And during that time, I have had many problems with airlines, military transportation, airplanes and weather.  In fact, there was one seven year period that, whenever I left the country (and I did it frequently), I never once returned home on time.  And during all this travel, I learned a few things about how to deal with travel delays and cancellations.  When I see pictures on the news about the chaos at airports, I think it is time to pass on a few tips to potential travelers.

The first thing to remember is not to get upset with the airline employees.  They did not cause the bad weather, the shut-down airport or the mechanical problem on the plane.  Treat them in a respectful and friendly manner and chances are they will remember you and give you a break when they can.  Yelling and screaming at them will do you absolutely no good whatsoever. And don’t make any threats (“I’m going to call me lawyer.”) you can’t or won’t keep, and then only as a last resort.  However, once you’ve done that, it is unlikely any of the airline staff will talk to you again, but will turn the threat over to management.

Never, ever settle for a split ticket.  A spit ticket is where you have one ticket to one city and a separate ticket to your final destination.  For example, you book an excursion flight from Toronto to your sunny destination, but you have to get to Toronto, so you book a cheap round trip fare to Toronto and return.  You have one ticket to Toronto and back, and a totally separate ticket for you excursion flight.  Why is this a bad thing? After all, you’ve saved yourself a few bucks.  It’s bad because your carrier from home to Toronto is only responsible for getting you to Toronto and back, and has no responsibility to get you to your excursion flight or your final destination.  And you excursion carrier has no responsibility if you miss your flight; after all they didn’t delay your arrival from your home airport.  This happened to me once and I had to rely on four stand-by flights out of the seven I was booked on to get to my destination and return home.

This brings me to my next point.  Even if you have a single ticket and your flight is delayed or cancelled, never insist that the carrier get you to someplace so you can catch your connecting flight.  You want to get to your final destination.  It does not really matter whether you catch a particular connecting flight or get to your destination some other way.  You objective is your final destination and it is up to the carrier to get you there.  As chaos reigns, when you get a chance to talk to an airline agent calmly explain where you need to end up and what your timeframe is.  This advice paid dividends more than once, such as when I was herding a group of eight colleagues from Charleston, South Carolina to Naples, Italy.  The first leg of four on our trip was delayed, but we had to be in Naples the next day.  I explained this to the airline representative and he worked feverishly for half an hour to try and accommodate us.  He finally came up with a routing that took us through Washington (instead of New York) to London, UK (instead of Rome) and thence to Naples.  Despite leaving Charleston more than an hour late, we ended up in Naples only half an hour after our scheduled arrival. 

But the real secret to the whole thing is keep calm, be patient, dress comfortably (airline travel is not a fashion show and standing in line with those six inch heels can be very uncomfortable), bring a good book (the battery on your smartphone, tablet or laptop will only last so long), and never pass up an opportunity to go to the bathroom.

Happy traveling!