Anticipating Flight Complications
If you have been watching the news over the past few weeks, you’ve seen what a nightmare air travel has become.
Tens of thousands of customers have been stranded and/or delayed at major hubs around the world. Last weekend over five thousand passengers were stranded in London Heathrow due to flight cancelations. Did you see that mountain of luggage?
We have had multiple customers unable to arrive at their destination or return home from their destination at the pre-arranged time due to flight cancelations.
I could go into several examples here, but you get the point.
The biggest cause for these issues is staffing. There simply are not enough crew members to staff the flights fully and safely. Pay raises and accelerated training schedules are going to get more pilots/attendees on flights, but not for a few months. I was told by one of my airline agents that their airline lost over 40,000 pilots due to COVID. That is an incredible number, isn’t it? And that is just one major airline.
Going forward, my private group tours will include one extra pre-night. That’s always been a great idea just so you can get over the jet-lag before beginning the tour/river cruise. But now, it is an imperative component so any schedule changes will most likely not cause you to miss day one of your tour/cruise.
I was contacted Monday about a 3-night trip to Cancun. I discouraged it simply because the odds are not good that the trip will not turn into a 2-night trip. Let’s plan to go for 5-6 nights from the get-go, then if you lose one it’s not as big an impact on the total experience.
I have always been a huge fan of a long-week Cancun/Cabo escape. Leave early Friday, enjoy three full days of fun in the sun, home on Monday and back at work on Tuesday.
But now is not the time for those types of quick get-aways. Not unless you just don’t care if it ends up being a 2-night fun in the sun with two nights stuck at airport hotels.
On Monday I had a nice family group going on a two-week island-hopping trip in Hawaii to celebrate a high school graduation. You guessed it. The flight from OKC was canceled, so they missed the connection at DFW. They were rebooked for the following day, and I was able to contact both the rental car company and the resort to be sure their rooms/cars were left in inventory for their late arrival on Maui.
The grandfather called to let me know about the flight changes, and then laughingly said “We fully expected this to happen. We have been watching the news and knew what a nightmare air travel is these days”. He and his grandson spent hours that day playing pool at their DFW hotel and having a grand time together. That’s called making the best of an exasperating situation.
The key point is this, expect the unexpected. Be prepared to be delayed. My life motto has always been “Hope for the best but plan for the worst” and that is truly the only way to look at air travel for the next few months.