How to reduce your chance of sleeping in an airport during Thanksgiving week travel
To those brave or foolish enough to travel by plane over Thanksgiving, airline industry experts warn: brace yourselves.
They’re predicting a mess.
“I’ve talked to a lot of experts over the last week about this, people who are on the front lines, and I just don’t see how [airlines are] going to pull it off,” said William J. McGee, Aviation Adviser to Consumer Reports.
The holidays are typically a travel nightmare. But, this year, the holidays — and Thanksgiving in particular — are the culmination of months of airline meltdowns that started last summer.
It goes like this: an ordinary event like a storm in Florida or strong winds in Texas derails an airline for days, resulting in thousands of flight delays and cancellations. The National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center said there’s a potential for a significant storm to hit the East next week. Heavy rain is likely in the South.
For those studying the industry, it’s like playing Whack-a-mole, said McGee.
“It was Spirit first. Then it was Southwest. Then it was American. Now it’s Alaska. And the question is, who’s next?”
Consumer advocates like McGee are begging the Department of Transportation to get to the bottom of these systemic failures. In a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sent Thursday, Consumer Reports calls for the department to hold airlines accountable for these meltdowns after the industry received billions in taxpayer-funded bailout cash.
Aviation attorney Mike Slack said he’s been minimizing his airline travel lately “just to avoid the surprises.”
“Are we past it?” he asked, about the spate of airline issues over the past few months. “There’s no way for anybody to know, because there really wasn’t transparency. There wasn’t transparency from the airlines. And there wasn’t transparency from the government, from the Federal Aviation Administration.”
“It’s hard to be a consumer advocate for the airline industry these days,” said McGee. “I wish I had a magic bullet. I wish I could say, ‘Here are five things you can do that will absolutely guarantee that your flight will not be canceled.’”
That being said, there are things travelers can do to reduce the odds of a problem, McGee said. He outlined some tips in Consumer Reports’ Thursday release:
- Take the first flight of the day.
- If possible, take a nonstop flight.
- Check your flight status continually leading up to your departure to ensure you’re not surprised by any changes.
- If your flight is delayed or canceled, find your airline’s Contract of Carriage and ask for the compensation detailed in the contract.
- Keep good records in case you need to make a complaint.
“It’s probably not going to be much comfort to those sleeping on airport terminal floors next week. But, the airlines in large measure have brought this on themselves, because they have cut to the bone,” McGee said.
Or put more simply: “You can’t operate like it’s rush hour 24-7.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2021 at 4:11 PM.
