Hello Everyone!
This will be the busiest travel season we have seen. Here are some holiday travel tips to help make your seasonal flying experience much smoother!
1. Best chance to get to your destination on date and time:
Take an early morning flight and try to avoid connections if possible! This way, the jet you will be taking is usually in position the night before and is available for you in the morning. Weather tends to be much less of an issue in the early morning. Direct flights give you less of a challenge in arriving than misconnecting to your second flight. I tell people that many times it may be easier and less costly to take ground transportation for an hour or two from a large airport than it is to take two flights in order to arrive at your nearby smaller airport.
2. Best ways to avoid getting sick:
Stay hydrated, eat well, take supplements (especially Vit C, echinacea, and zinc like in Airborne or Emerge-C brands), wash your hands, and wear gloves. It is so easy to get dehydrated with coffee, alcohol, heaters, and low jet humidity. Drink lots of good quality water (filtered alkaline is the best!), add more veggies, take lots of anti-oxidants, and get plenty of sleep. Your immune system will thank you!
Bring anti bacterial wipes and gels with you. Keep your hands covered with mittens or gloves while mouths are covered with cute scarfs. Be aware of the places and things you touch – escalators, counters, gate seats, tray tables, etc. You can wipe these down with anti-bacterial wipes. Only sneeze or cough into your elbow or tissue.
3. Best options to mitigate schedule disruptions:
Keep an eye on the weather the day before your travel with the Weather Channel and doppler radar with forecasting. If it looks like there will be an issue with your departure, connection, or destination airport areas, consider discussing this with the airline directly. They may possibly get you on a reroute through a different connection airport or move you to an earlier flight is possible. If you cannot make a change, be flexible, download or bring a good book (like one of mine written by me for you soon!) and anticipate that there will probably be delays.
4. Best ways to avoid a cancellation:
Keep involved with the airlines with apps that update you on flight status or call the airlines occasionally to check on any changes. With the new passenger bill of rights, airlines cannot keep passengers on jets for more than 3 hours or they get fined thousands of dollars per passenger. Unfortunately, most of the time these situations are due to air traffic control delays caused by weather. Metering the amount of jets inbound and outbound at a given time gets restricted. Airlines must be proactive now in anticipating these events so they must cancel flights occasionally to avoid these type of repercussions. Think about pre-booking at a hotel near the airport to get some sleep and rejuvenate, then try again once you are rested.
5. Best ways to keep the festive spirit:
Remember that everyone is in this together! Be open and get to know other people at the airport, especially those who are on your same flight. Some significant and magical connections can be made! Wear comfortable, festive clothing, listen to holiday music on your audio devices, and watch fun shows or movies on your electronics! (Don’t forget the chargers!)
May your holiday travels be jolly and bright.
Blue Skies! Sleigh Driver, Captain Laura
