Traveler friends, were you in that Fourth of July scrum? I was there with you. Airlines were delaying and canceling flights, flyers were freaking out, and while I usually have good luck avoiding the drama, this time I was in the thick of it. My early morning flight somehow became a late night flight, with the sure knowledge I’d miss the connection and likely spend the night at my layover. While I wasn’t panicked, I wasn’t excited at the prospect of killing eight hours at my own home airport, just far enough to not go home, and then standing in line at the connection to navigate getting food and hotel vouchers. But there are a few tips that made me possibly less anxious than those around me—and I’ll be honest, there were a few things I learned this time around.
1. Don’t check a bag. When your outgoing gate gets changed four times in an hour (no exaggeration) and you’re going back and forth on the people mover between terminals, it feels good knowing everything you need is with you. It takes away a key piece of tension if you’re not wondering if your luggage is going to get lost.
2. If your connection’s tight, sit in the middle seat if it means you’re closer to the front of the plane. I learned this one through experience as I had a wonderful window seat but then nearly had an aneurysm waiting for basically the entire plane to (slowly) disembark so I could get to the airport and sprint to the next gate. I would’ve been a lot happier gluing my elbows to my side in a middle seat if it meant I gained 20 extra minutes to get to the gate.
3. The app isn’t always better. When my initial flight was pushed ahead nine hours, the gate agent announced that working with the airline’s app would be better than standing in line to talk to her and her colleague since there were limited seats on other flights, and they’d be first come, first served. So I jumped on the app with a live chat operator (not a bot). A lot ensued, including getting to another airline’s gate where a flight still had seats left, but the live chat rep wasn’t able to get me ticketed before they closed the door. I returned to the original gate, joined the line again, and left it again. Finally, the live chat operator rebooked me on an alternate series of flights with a million connections—but it turned out that the operator didn’t know that a brand new flight had been organized for passengers stranded the previous day and that I could jump on it. It was the gate agent who knew this and arranged it for me. If I’d just stayed in the original line, I could’ve avoided a lot of stress and just scrolled my feed while I waited.
4. Get a manicure. That’s kind of metaphoric advice, although I’ve twice now done a manicure while stopped up at DFW. What I mean is, don’t just sit glumly at the gate getting angry when the flight gets delayed again. Get up and walk, or get a massage, find someone to make out with, or do something that actually makes you feel better.
5. Sign up for TSA Precheck. This one only helps you at the front end of the trip, but it’s so valuable to be able to join a shorter (sometimes nonexistent) line and then have your own scanner apart from the other passengers. If your timing is tight getting to the airport, knowing you can get through security faster is a huge relief. I signed up at our local Staples store a year ago, and since then I’ve loved how much calmer I feel going through security. Big bonus: you don’t have to take off your shoes!
A final bit of advice might just be to reconsider the timing. If holiday flights are crazy, maybe I/we can figure out how to celebrate on a substitute day and take the trip when it’s not such a crush. We're gonna calm down next time and add years back to our lives.