Adjust Your Flight Plan to Avoid Airport Delays

"Getting stuck at LaGuardia is horrendous because they have one staff member dealing with five flights that were cancelled," says a friend of mine, who would prefer dealing with a travel delay anywhere else.

Indeed, New York City's LaGuardia airport is ranked second to last in the Bureau of Transportation's year-to-date report on the country's major airports, with only 58% of flights arriving on time. Newark International Airport ranked last, with 56%. Third from the bottom is New York's other main airport, JFK, at 59%, followed by Chicago O'Hare at 63% and Philadelphia International at 64%.

These dismal numbers are hardly surprising. Most of us have gotten used to sucking in our pride and feigning saintlike patience to get through these domestic hubs without resorting to four-letter words.

And just this month, the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) CEO Giovanni Bisignani called London's Heathrow airport "an out-of-control monopoly that gets away with pocketing a 42% margin at the expense of the 68 million beleaguered passengers using its poor facilities each year." Harsh words, yet the nightmarish Heathrow is the most visited international airport for U.S. travelers with about 15,400 American passengers a day, according to IATA and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

All business travelers have dealt with these known commuter-torture hubs. Are we just gluttons for punishment, or should we be seeking out alternatives that could save us time and aggravation?

Off-Peak Perks

"Abandon all hope in New York," says Joe Brancatelli, editor of JoeSentMe, a noncommercial Web site for business travelers. It's not the airports themselves that are bad, he says, they're just located in particularly crowded airspace. The trick is to try to avoid the cascade of delays that builds up as the day progresses.

« Previous Page

1 2 3 4

Next Page »