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David Porter | Thursday, July 28, 2022
Learning how to survive busy airports is a must in these hectic post-Covid times.
If you’re unaware, the airlines and the world’s airports are a complete mess.
When Covid-19 began to mitigate, a travel surge followed. And the whole industry is experiencing record bookings.
Unfortunately, the airlines and the world’s airports were unprepared for the surge.
Like many other industries, the airline industry was caught with its pants down and didn’t have the staff to accommodate this massive wave of travelers.
Consequently, we’re currently seeing a pattern of canceled flights, lost luggage, and massive crowds in the world’s largest airports.
And that equals very unhappy travelers.
4 Steps to Help You Cope With Busy Airlines and Airports
- Have patience and expect problems and delays – You must understand that the airline industry is understaffed and experiencing problems. There are shortages of airline personnel; TSA is short-staffed, as are the airports. When you combine this with a massive travel surge, it stands to reason that we’re all going to live with this mess until the airline industry can get restaffed.
- Your airline is in control – once you check in with your airline, they grab control of your booking, and we are generally unable to assist you at this point.
- Have emergency airline and/or cruise company contact numbers – If a flight gets canceled or delayed, then generally, 300 people go running to the one lone agent to get rebooked. That’s fine; go get in the line if you like, but have your airline’s emergency phone number so that perhaps you can get rebooked on the phone and leave the line.
- Download your Airlines App – Better yet, download your airline’s App. Doing this will make you the first to be aware of delays and cancellations. And depending on the quality of the airline’s App, you may be able to rebook with just a few clicks. Carol and I were in Ecuador earlier in the year, and our App announced that our flight was canceled. Carol got on the phone, and I got on the App. The airline showed me five alternative flights with the App, and we were rebooked in less than two minutes.
As time goes on, we expect this situation to right itself as the airline industry is able to hire and train more people. Until then, be prepared.