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December 3, 2007

Bad Weather Reminders: Quick Checklist

Filed under: Holiday Travel, Storms, Weather, Airport — Rick Seaney @ 11:51 am

We saw some terrible weather this past weekend, and hundreds of flights were cancelled at O’Hare and Milwaukee, while Des Moine’s airport was shut down altogether for several hours.

How to beat the odds this upcoming holiday time? Here’s a quick checklist:

  • If you haven’t purchased your tickets, do so now!
  • Try to fly non-stop
  • If you must make stops/change planes, try to plan for stops in “warm weather” cities
  • Don’t check your bag; airlines can’t “misplace” your carryon
  • Bring food, and, a diversion (a book, a video, an iPod, a puzzle); you could be waiting awhile
  • Make sure all batteries (for laptop, phone, music player, etc.) are fully charged
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2 Comments »

  1. Good suggestions. However, it’s too simplistic always to say “don’t check your bag.” Good advice for a short trip, but when I go to California (from Boston) for two weeks, and there are two of us, it’s just not possible to make do with only a carry-on bag. The airlines have simply got to clean up their act. Service, reliability, customer relations, prices, lost luggage, etc. etc. are just getting worse all the time and it’s their responsibility. Meanwhile, I always connect (when no nonstops are available) through a city that doesn’t get snow.

    Comment by mibsphil — December 6, 2007 @ 5:28 pm

  2. What are an airline’s responsibilities to the passenger during bad weather? My sister had a flight into Milwaukee during a snowstorm; the airport was closed all day so they landed in Green Bay (more than 100 miles away). I understand that they will not pay for hotel, etc, for weather delays - but they did not put them on another flight to Milwaukee the next day, either. They just dumped them 100 miles from their destination and said “good luck!”.

    If you buy a ticket for Milwaukee, don’t they have some obligation to actually get you there? Even if it meant a bus the next day, that would have been better than forcing everyone on the plane to scramble for one-way car rentals, bus tickets, or new air tickets - AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE!

    Any advice would be appreciated!

    Comment by Judy — February 19, 2008 @ 10:35 am

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