5 ways to handle flight delays or other headaches
The skies are less friendly these days, with travellers plagued with flight delays and jam-packed airports. Here, a few strategies to help you cope – and even enjoy an unexpected layover.
This year, travelling by air comes with more than the usual helping of grief. Getting through that grief may not involve the usual seven stages, but there are a few givens: You’ll need to weather the sharp rise in airfares and, if your flight is delayed or cancelled, you’ll need to work through your anger to deal with your airline. We asked experts for nuggets of wisdom and strategies that can help you avoid key stressors or, at least, ease the path to acceptance.
Timing is (almost) everything
Wendy Schoneberger spent 31 years as an air-traffic controller, making sure that travellers got where they were going safely. Since starting Solo to Group Travel, a vacation-planning service, in 2012, she’s turned her focus to making sure travellers have fun. Her time in the tower still influences the advice she gives them. She recommends taking flights as early in the day as possible, pointing out that the aircraft for those crack-of-dawn departures usually come in the night before, so, “even if [a plane] is delayed by eight hours, it doesn’t matter.” But flying early in the week can make a difference, too. Controllers with the lowest seniority tend to work Friday and Saturday nights, she said. While she emphasises that that has no impact on safety, “experience and efficiency likely go hand-in-hand when it comes to finding solutions to issues,” from approving different routes to opening extra positions.
Kidding around
If it’s hard for you to keep it together during the third round of delays, or the second hour of sitting on the tarmac, think of the children. Someone who does that professionally is Lauren Brukner, an occupational therapist and author of the “Awesome and in Control” book series, which helps kids manage everything from runaway tempers to chronic cases of “the wiggles.” Beyond recommending fidget toys such as Lakeshore Learning’s Alpha-Bots, Ms. Brukner suggests parents prepare strategies to cope with meltdowns. Among her tips: Having the child touch her toes, or otherwise get her head below her knees, to “activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which gets the body out of that fight or flight mode.” And yes, she notes, that technique also settles down worked-up grown-ups.
The Big Payback
According to Michelle Couch-Friedman, founder of mediation service Consumer Rescue, recent reports of airlines doling out four- and five-digit payouts to people who got bumped from their flights has created elevated, and profoundly unrealistic, expectations among travellers about what they’re owed for flights gone awry. Compensation varies based on the carrier: American carriers on American soil are not required to pay compensation for delays, while European, Canadian and Israeli carriers, are much more strictly regulated, with clearly defined payouts for serious delays.
Bad Atmosphere
As a captain for Air Canada, pilot Captain Doug Morris has gotten plenty of practice this summer (politely) delivering bad news to passengers. Very often the blame is assigned to the weather. “Mother Nature can throw a lot of curveballs. She can challenge us,” said Mr. Morris, who is also a meteorologist and co-author of the book, “Pilot Weather: From Solo to the Airlines.” To avoid getting stuck waiting for the storm clouds to pass, Mr. Morris also suggests booking flights as early in the day as possible. “In the morning, things are starting off fresh as far as schedules go. Everyone’s getting going.” But if there are delays, they cause a “chain reaction throughout the day.”
Airport Eats
Chef Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano, partners behind the Grey, in Savannah, Georgia, and Diner Bar, a new Austin, Texas, outpost, spend a lot of time in airports. Ms Bailey says she has likely logged around 100,000 miles (160,934 kilometres) far this year, while Mr. Morisano has racked up more than (281,635 kilometres). If you are going to get stuck for a while, some airports are better than others, they say. “Chicago [O’Hare] airport is probably my favourite for food,” said Ms Bailey. For real indulgence, when he’s waylaid at Charles de Gaulle’s Terminal 2 in Paris, Mr. Morisano recommends seeking out Caviar House & Prunier Seafood Bar. “It’s kind of bomb, you know. No one’s ever sitting there, and I’m like, ‘Wait, this is really good food, people.’ You can delay me at Charles de Gaulle, and I can eat caviar and drink Champagne all afternoon.”
What strategies do you use to survive travel hiccups? Join the conversation below.
The Wall Street Journal